Yes, my daughter is a month old tomorrow. Yes i'm just NOW writing about her birth. I've never been so bored, and so busy in my entire life! My entire day is dedicated to my little princess!
10/19
My due date was Halloween. But I always felt like I would have her a little early. But there were a lot of little obstacles in my delivery date. My awesome OB was going to be out of town from October 13-19th. So that took out a few days. My birth photographer wasn’t available on October 21st and 22nd. So there was like 36 hours when I could have my team there J Once I knew Dr. Chalmers was home, I was ready! When Zach got home we went on a super walk. Walked and walked and walked. I was not going to go to my due date, she was already measuring at 7 lbs 12 oz. I didn’t want a 9 lb baby.
10/20
Finally at 4 a.m. I called my mom. I had been having contractions every 5 minutes since midnight. I kept thinking to myself, “ oh, this isn’t that bad” oh boy, was I in for a surprise. Mom said we needed to go to the hospital so we went to be checked. We hadn’t been to sleep yet, and we were starving. So on the way to the hospital we stopped at McDonalds. They had just switched over to breakfast, so they weren’t serving normal food, but they hadn’t switched the menus yet. Poor Zach was so confused. He kept trying to order French fries.. they lady was getting a little cranky. I was just laughing, too nervous to order anything so I ordered a hashbrown and orange juice. Great last meal? Nope. We got to the hospital and we were sent to a little observation room where they checked my progress. Still a 2. I thought for sure I would be further than that, since I had been a 1 for 3 weeks! With no progress, at 6 a.m. they sent me home with a lort-ambian. ( Lortab and Ambien—best thing ever!) On the way home I emailed and texted people totally out of it. I didn’t even remember driving hoe. Luckily I didn’t send anything too crazy. I went home and crashed. Zach left me at about 8 a.m. to go pick up my mom from the airport. When I called her at 4 a.m. she had booked her plane ticket. My family was already coming down for the fall break, and were scheduled to arrive around 6 p.m. that night, but mom couldn’t wait.
11:00 a.m. I had a doctor’s appointment. Still dilated to a 2. Dr. Chalmers was laughing at my state of loopiness and said he never wanted to see me that way again. Haha. I don’t remember much about this appointment, in fact, I have ultrasound pictures from this day, but I don’t remember getting them done! Then Mom, Zach and I went to Olive Garden for lunch. I was still a little loopy, and having painful contractions. Toward s the late afternoon I had contractions. Not close but BAD. About 12-15 minutes apart. Garff, Max and Ryan arrived in the evening and we decided to go to Benja’s Tai and Sushi. I didn’t think this was the best choice for my last meal, but it was delicious. After dinner and a movie, the boys all left. Around 10 p.m. I totally lost it. I was totally defeated and exhausted from having contraction for 24 hours at this point. I walked in to the guest room where my mom was and started bawling. I was terrified to go back to the hospital to be “checked” only to be told to go back home.
10/21 12:00 a.m. couldn’t sleep or get comfortable, contractions were deadly. We decided to go to the hospital. I knew it would be a long labor process, so I wanted to stop really quickly to get mom and Zach some snacks. We were driving on the boulevard and we got pulled over as we were headed into the Walgreens Parking Lot. ARE YOU KIDDING ME? The police man was so rude! Zach said, “ Sorry officer I’m a little distracted, we’re on our way to the hospital” the cop says “ Walgreens isn’t the hospital, don’t try to get out of a ticket” Zach and the cop and my MOM started arguing. I just wanted to get to the hospital, and I was so mad! I was having contractions in the passenger seat while the cop was being an idiot. I yelled at everyone to stop talking and just give us the ticket so we could go. He was so rude! He left us with a warning, which was lucky for him, because I was one mad pregnant lady!
12:30 checked in to the hospital. Pearl was there again. So was Dr. Ott. I said “ Dr. Ott Please don’t send me home again.” Pearl said, “you look way worse that you did this morning. We’ll do all we can to keep you here.” They checked me. STILL A 3! What are you kidding? I swear these last 24 hours of contractions had to have been doing something… still a 3?? Just when I had lost hope, Pearl said “ we called Dr. Chalmers and we are keeping you, are you ready for your epidural?” uh, yes please!
Dr. Lind came and gave me my epidural at about 2:00 a.m. I was so nervous. Dr. Lind was so sweet and so awesome! He talked me through everything and I didn’t feel any pain. Zach was so funny. He was by the doctor and taking pictures! I looked at them later and they totally freaked me out! Haha! 20 minutes later life was amazing. J
Our room was SOOO cold, something was definitely broken!! . They kept bringing me blankets, but I wasn’t cold at all. Poor mom and Zach. We decided that we would try and get some sleep. Pearl said she thought it would be about 9 a.m. until I would be ready to push. A little while later, at about 4:30 a.m. pearl came to check me again and I was dilated to a 6. Back to sleep. Then at about 5 a.m. I woke up.. feeling a lot of pressure.. I asked my mom what it was and she got a nervous look on her face and went to find a nurse. A nurse came to check me and Harper was all but out on her own! Fully dilated at 5:00 a.m.! They called Dr. Chalmers I sent a text to Kristi and Zach sent a text to the birth photographer.
Side note… my care team, Dr. Chalmers and his amazing assistant Kristi, not only took care of me all through my pregnancy, but I get to work with them and they are 2 of my most favorite people ever. Some people might think it’s weird to mix work and personal stuff, but I had 1000% trust when they were taking care of me, and every appointment was like a party. Love them. So happy to have friends there to welcome Harper.
Dr. Chalmers arrived at about 5:25 and broke my water at 5:30. The nurses did a “test push” ok that was weird.. I had no idea if I was pushing right or not! Then at 5:35 we started pushing… then Zach said he could see her head. WHAT?? I JUST started pushing. Zach was already crying. I was a mess of laughter.. totally high on the epidural! Then Dr. Chalmers came over.. I guess that meant it was business. One last push and she was out at 5:43 a.m. 8 minutes of pushing! The second I saw her I couldn’t catch my breath. I couldn’t believe she was here, I couldn’t believe how she looked nothing like me, and I couldn’t believe how in love I was. They handed her to me and I just couldn’t say anything. My mom said that this is the moment when I said “Mom, what do I do now?” ha ha. The next few minutes were a blur. I remember Zach helping weigh, measure and bathe her. I was so jealous.. But I had no choice.. I couldn’t move my legs J
After the baby was clean and things had started to settle, Zach kicked everyone out. He wanted to spend some time with his family. Oh my weird. We have a baby! Zach gave me a little blue box with a white ribbon. I was so excited to have a Tiffany’s box...it didn’t matter what was inside J I pulled out a beautiful Tiffany’s charm bracelet with an “A” and “H” charm. So pretty and so sweet.
I’ve tried to remember all the little details, but it’s all a blur after the delivery. I just can’t believe our little princess is here. 9 months of stressing and wondering all over! Life is so different now, but so wonderful. It's amazing how you can love a complete stranger so much and so quickly.
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