Adeline Ivy Wood

I’m finally getting around to posting Adeline’s birth story.  As I’ve mentioned in my earlier posts, all three of my other kids were pretty early.  I was not used to watching my due date go past and still no baby!  However, it really all worked out for the best.  If I would have had her early with all of the house stuff going on it would have been a nightmare.  She came at the perfect time (well for the circumstances) 3 days after we moved into our house.  Giving us just enough time to prepare at least a tiny bit for her arrival.  With Allie, I had contractions for 3 days before she finally decided to come, but with Adeline, I didn’t really have hardly any pre labor contractions.  I started having a few on Saturday morning, but nothing strong and definitely not regular.  By mid afternoon, I was still having them, but still not strong and not regular.  Around 9:30 pm they started becoming more regular, but still not that strong but still about 10 minutes apart.  Anyone who has had a baby knows you follow the 5:1:1 rule.  5 minutes apart, lasting 1 minute timed for 1 hour.  About 12:30 am they started coming about 5 minutes apart and were getting stronger so I began timing them.  By this point Justin had already gone to bed b/c he was “tired” even though I was in pain at this point.  I was not too happy with him, but whatever.  So I timed them myself.  I timed them for a little over an hour just like you are supposed to and then called the nurse.  But by that time they were getting really strong fast.  By the time the nurse actually called me back I was like “ look this is my fourth baby and I KNOW I am in labor and I am already going to the hospital now!”  I screamed at Justin to get out of bed and let’s go NOW!  Luckily the hospital is only about 10 minutes from our new house.  We checked into the hospital at 2:20 AM.  At this point I was in extreme pain.  I told them whatever you do, just get me started with my IV bag immediately so that I can get my epidural.  I hate that you have to finish that whole fluid bag before they will even call the anesthesiologist.  The nurse checked me and I was only 5 cm when we checked in.  She immediately started my IV bag and called my midwife and said I was definitely in labor.  At this point the contractions were coming on strong and I was losing it.  I was screaming for my epidural.  They said they needed to move me from Triage to my room and asked if I could walk and I said “No, I don’t want to do anything to speed this labor up!” so they wheeled me screaming down there.  I never even had time to have the contraction belt hooked up to me so I don’t think they believed me when I kept screaming to them that my contractions were not stopping!  Literally there was no break in between them.  Not even 30 seconds.  It was continuously one painful contraction, immediately followed by another.  I was a total mess screaming that I was not going to be able to get an epidural and all the nurses were like “Of Course you are!”  One nurse actually started squeezing my fluid bag trying to get it into my body faster.  The other nurse even said we have went ahead and called the anesthesiologist and He will be here soon.  Right after that I started feeling an intense pain and need to push.  I just start pushing and screaming.  I start screaming that I’m pushing and they check me and say “oh wow, she is already at 10 cm and the baby is coming.  I cried “oh no!  I’m not going to be able to get my epidural?” And the nurse said, no you are going to have to deliver this baby right now!” I went from 5 cm to 10 cm in only 30 minutes so that explains my nonstop contractions.  Within about 30 seconds, (or so my mom says, b/c at that point I was completely out of it) there were about 10 people in the room including my midwife who at that point I had not even met!  I pushed maybe two more times and the baby was out.  I didn’t get my legs up or anything.  They were trying to ask me to lift my legs and I was in so much pain that I couldn’t even move.  I basically just delivered Adeline while just sitting straight up in the bed with my legs straight out b/c I just could not even move.  Anyone who has had a natural birth, I’m sure understands, but it was by far the most horrible pain I have ever felt in my life.  I can’t even describe how horrible it was.  I think it maybe would not have been quite so bad if I was prepared for a natural birth, maybe had a water bath or something like that, but I was in complete shock that this was happening to me b/c I fully expected to get my epidural.  After Adeline was born, it actually is immediate relief.  I didn’t expect that.  The horrible pain immediately went away.  They tried to hand me Adeline, but I was still in a state of shock after it all.  I couldn’t even move or hold her. They asked me if I wanted them to just go ahead and assess her and I said yes b/c I didn't want to hold her b/c I was still so out of it.  They had me go ahead and deliver the afterbirth and that hurt a bit but not bad.   It was actually a relief feeling to have it all out of me.  Then the nurses look at me and are like did you have that on your face before?  They show me a mirror and I have what looks like hives all over the edge of my face and my neck and chest area.  They said they had never seen that before.  Turns out it was not hives, but ruptured blood vessels all over my neck and face from my instense straining from the pain.  It took about 4 days for them to go away.  Then after that, which apparently is normal, but never happened to me before, a little while after all the nurses had left my room, I got so cold.  I mean freezing.  My teeth were nonstop chattering, my whole body was shaking so bad that I couldn’t even talk.  I didn’t know what was happening to me.  My whole body was frozen and I couldn’t move.  I couldn't even move my legs or anything.  I thought I was losing too much blood or something and couldn’t even talk to tell anyone.  Justin and My mom were trying to warm me up and paged the nurse b/c they didn't know what was happening either.  She came in and said it was normal, just my body going into shock after the delivery.  They put warm blankets on me but nothing was helping.  It took about 30 minutes for me to finally stop and start warming back up, but I was still cold for a long time after that.  It was really weird and scary at the time.  After that things got much better.  Having a natural birth was awesome in the fact that I was up going to the bathroom all by myself within an hour of the birth and walking all around.  And of course not having the $4000 epidural bill is nice!  Plus it is cool  being able to say I experience natural childbirth, although I would never want to do it again.  

As usual, I wanted to leave the hospital as soon as possible.  They agreed to let me leave after 24 hours.  Adeline was 6lbs 2oz.  Same as Kaitlyn! She was 19” long and had a decent amount of hair for my babies.  She was born at 2:38 am.  Exactly 38 minutes after we checked into the hospital! I hate the hospital stay so much.  No one will leave you alone and all you want to do is sleep after such a tramatic thing done to your body but there is no nursery and they want you to be trying to feed them every 1-2 hours which is crazy.  I just could not wait to leave.  Before we could leave however, we had to decide on a name.  We were so confused.  Originally we had talked about her being either Charlotte or Hailey.  But after she was born, we both just could not decide on a name.  I didn’t really want either of them anymore.  Adeline was never even on the table.  In the hospital I googled some baby names and Adeline was on a list and I suggested it and Justin said fine and that was it!  So Adeline Ivy Wood was named!

Once we were home, things were better, although living conditions were not.  The house was an absolute wreck.  A few people from church brought us some meals the first 3 days and I think our house scared a couple of them! Haha!  It really was a disaster.  So that is Adeline’s birth story!  Very traumatic for me but I am so happy to have her here.  I really just love her so much!  My only regret is that since this is our last baby, I really wanted to enjoy cuddling her and enjoying those baby times.  But unfortunately I can’t do that as much as I would like.  Our house is still a disaster 2 months later and every free moment I have I try and spend working on the house!  Which is not very many, since I am back to pumping exclusively and Adeline eats every 3 hours and I pump 5 times a day, plus take care of everyone else.  I really don’t know when it will ever get done.  I guess one day it will be.  But in the mean time, I really am trying to enjoy my time with my last precious baby.

Sweet Adeline Ivy Wood

 My hives.  The picture doesn't do them justice, they were around the whole edge of my face and going down on my chest.  It looked like hickeys all over me.

 Meeting the new sibling

Mommy looking rough

 Heading Home!