I can't believe one week ago tonight Cooper Thomas came into our lives. As I sit here and hear him cry (diaper was just changed) it makes my heart melt. He is such a joy and I still can't believe he's mine.
So last weekend was when our world was turned upside down. I can't remember what we did Friday night but Saturday was our day for massages, first I had a Jazzercise meeting then Tom and I had massages at 12:45 that afternoon, it was a beautiful day, almost 80 degrees outside, we had massages at
Body and Soul this is the one place we love to go and we know when we go we get spoiled and leave there with a great feeling. I, of course, had a prenatal massage, I got to lay on my belly, it was awesome, the one thing I was really looking forward to. The bed had a big hole in the middle so I could lay down. We each got an hour massage and it was awesome. After our massages they gave us a cup of vanilla chai tea and off we went once we were ready.
After our massages we thought about getting something to eat but we weren't quite hungry yet so we decided on DQ, we each got a blizzard, I know I was still watching my sugars but thought what the heck I'm going to treat myself, once we got our blizzard we drove down by the river and took a nice long walk and enjoyed the sunshine and just each other. After our walk we drove through the Mines of Spain and then headed home. We took some chicken out to eat and grilled that along with some twice baked potatoes and a veggie, we even ate outside it was so nice out.
After dinner we started a fire outside, Micayla brought her boyfriend, Jason, out for us to meet and Brandon was home with a couple of friends, it was St. Patty's day and they were all dressed up in Green, I mean from head to toe, check it out:
We all about died, but heck what do you do?? LOL Tom's parent's came up for a short while as well to sit out by the fire, it was such a beautiful night. About 10:00 we decided to come in and head to bed.
Sunday morning about 5:50am I woke up to go to the bathroom, I"m sure I was up before then to at least go to the bathroom a couple other times, but this time it was different - MY WATER BROKE! I didn't know what was going on, I walked to the bathroom and it felt like I was peeing the whole time and I couldn't stop it. So I sat on the toilet and yelled for Tom - "Honey, I think my water just broke" I thought I was dreaming! I called the hospital to see what I should do, Dr. Page was the doctor on call, he called me back, asked a few questions like "was it a gush or trickle of water"? It was not really a gush but more than a trickle it just kept coming out and I went through a couple of panty liners, that was his next question. So he said "yeah your water probably broke to take your time, shower, grab a bite to eat and head up to the hospital within the hour" so that's what we did. Tom took a shower, I was already dressed, I was super nervous and didn't want to shower, but after I got thinking about it, I took a shower, from the fire the night before I was kind of stinky. Tom and I each had an English muffin and a glass of milk, finished up packing our bags and got all our toiletries and stuff we'd need up at the hospital. I wasn't quite prepared for my water to break, I thought that only happened in the movies. Ha, was I wrong!
Tom dropped me off, I went to the registration desk and said "my water broke and that Dr. Page said to come up to the hospital" they asked if I wanted a wheel chair, but I said I could walk. They didn't even let me wait for Tom, they said "we'll get him up to you" so off I went with the attendant. I got into my room, Room 307 and the nurse had me get undressed and put the hospital gown on and get into bed. By that time Tom made it up to the room.
The first thing they did was checked to make sure my water broke, she had a strip of some type of paper that determines if your water broke or not, she put it inside me for a moment to soak up some fluids and if the paper turns blue then it indicates whether or not my water broke, well the paper didn't turn colors! She like its doesn't look like your water broke, I was like "then what the heck just happened to me at home", I was almost embarrassed because I thought they were going to send me home, instead, Dr. Eckhart ordered and Amnisure, its a different test where they insert what looks like a long Q-tip inside me then put it in a liquid test and take it to the lab, about 10-15 minutes later, Dr. Eckhart came into my room and said "YOUR WATER DID BREAK" I was relieved because I couldn't imagin having to go back home. So after that check in started, lots of paper work and questions.
After all the paper work and me and Tom getting comfortable we both called our parents and told them and I sent a text to my brothers and sister-in-laws, Kristi thought I was joking and I told Stephanie that her and Cooper might have the same birthday! I still couldn't believe it was happening. LOL At that time, it's now about 10:00 and I was getting hungry but of course I couldn't eat anything other then clear liquids so I ate some jello and chicken broth. Tom ended up going to get something because he was hungry, he ended up with Pickle Barrel, but he didn't bring it back to the room knowing I couldn't eat, thank you honey. My cousin, Laura, one of the labor and delivery nurses up at Finley called and asked how I was feeling, at that time I wasn't having any contractions or anything, I was only dilated to 1cm, so I had a long day/night ahead of me. Laura told me that if I wanted her up there that she would but I felt bad her having to stop what she was doing, it was such a gorgeous day out again, I told her we'll just see how I progress and go from there. She talked to the nurses a couple times that afternoon to see how I was doing.
About 3:00 Dr. Eckhart called to see if I was contracting and I wasn't, nothing that I could feel anyway, so she decided to start pitocin. Oh and I forgot to mention, every hour from the start of my IV they had to check my sugars, it was a pain in the rear, or I should say my fingers, it sucked but all my sugar levels were good up until they started pitocin, they started me on a low dose, I think 1ml and once I started that when when they had to give me insulin as well to make sure my sugars stayed within range. I also had the antibiotic for the Group B Strep that I had so I had a few things going on.
It was a long afternoon, Mom came up to visit and chat with us for a while, she stopped out at our house because there were a few things I needed, such as Coopers going home outfit, which I needed to wash yet and a few other things. Micayla and Brandon came up as well. About 5:00 I started feeling a few contractions, they could seem them on the monitor as well but it wasn't too painful or anything but they the more uncomfortable they became the more I didn't want any more visitors, so Brandon and Micayla left, Mom left a while before that.
They checked my cervix again around 5:00 and I was dilated to a 3, so not much but a little better, they increased the pitocin to 4 and that got things started, again nothing to painful yet but by around 8:00 I could feel them coming every 4 minutes or so. Laura called again around 5:00 to see how I was doing and if I wanted her up there, she said she would but again I just felt bad because I knew she had to work the next morning early and I didn't know who long I would be, so she said OK I'll just see you in the morning, well as my contractions started getting harder they ordered me my epidural because the contractions were getting pretty intense. Once the anesthesiologist got there, he was a "newer" guy, he tried getting it in and had some trouble, by this time it's 9:00 or so and I was dilated to 5 or 6 and he had to call in someone else to get this epidural to work, he said it would be about 20 minutes, I wasn't liking that answer but just kept breathing through the pain. Once the other anesthesiologist came he had the epidural in within a matter of minutes and wow, what a relief, it was nothing like I thought it would be, it was perfect. I could still feel what I was going on down there just not as intense. By this time, my cousin Laura showed up, it's now about 9:30 and don't quote me on these times but somewhere around 9:30 Laura came into my room, she said she was just driving by on her way home and thought she'd pop in, she was playing cards. I was never so happy to see her, she was there with me until Cooper was born, she helped me and walked me through everything that was going on, it was so nice having her there. At about 10:00 I was pushing and pushing hard, Tom was up near my head, I had the old death grip on him and his thumb, kind of like we were arm wrestling that the hold I had on him, he was amazing! Laura had one leg and the other nurse had my other and away we pushed and pushed and pushed and finally at 11:01 Cooper Thomas was lying in my arms crying away. I couldn't believe this sweet boy was here, Tom and I were over joyed with love, it was the most amazing thing I have ever done in my life. Holding my precious son has been one of the best moments of my life and I thank God every day that he gave me this miracle.
