Peyton's Grand Entrance (Part 1)

This Saturday marks 5 months. The last few months have been indescribable, but totally worth it. I cannot believe that they have gone by so quickly… and yet so slowly. How in the world does THAT work?!

Any-who…

I figured that I would FINALLY write down Peyton’s big entrance.  (It's a long story, so I may end up having to split it up in two parts.) I mean, it’s been five months. Plus, I had a friend tell me that after a while, you start forgetting the first couple of months. I wasn’t sure if I could ever forget at the time, but you really do! I’m not sure what it is, but I’m so glad I was obsessed with taking pictures those first couple of weeks – I don’t remember hardly a bloomin’ thing.

The entire time I was pregnant, I was nervous. I was nervous about everything. But as time marched on, I grew mostly nervous about her impending arrival.
(That’s the thing about pregnancy… eventually, it ends.)

The bad part is, that everyone describes labor – and everyone describes it differently. But they all agree on one thing: You’ll know it when it happens.
Now, how is someone like me supposed to take that? I like to know EXACTLY how things will go. I like to know EXACTLY what to expect. I HAD NO CLUE. Thus, I was a mess. I wanted this to go ahead and happen, but I have this “thing” about pain… I don’t like it.

I had been having small contractions since around 20 weeks. (Apparently, the uterus needs to exercise too.) When the first of October rolled around, I found out that I had already started progressing… and rumor had it that I would spit my darling baby out within a week. Seeing as I was super-stressed, and working hard on our big fancy-shmancy meeting at work, I just KNEW I would have my baby soon! October 3rd was a fair guess, since baby’s sometimes have bad timing and that was the date of our shin-dig. I happily bee-bopped over to my boss and shared the news with the fella’s: This baby was going to be here any minute!!

I was about to wait a whole lotta minutes…

By the 14th of October, I was tired. I was crying constantly. Wouldn’t this baby EVER come out?! The suspense was killing me, I was sure of it. I asked my boss if he would mind if I started my leave a little early, and he was totally understanding. The next two weeks were those of a horror story. I sat at home, eating constantly, bouncing on my ball, timing contractions – all while crying non-stop.

That’s the thing about contractions: you can have a bunch; they can hurt a lot; and they can be getting you absolutely NO-WHERE.

Finally, the day came when I was over-due! I would be able to sign up for an induction. (Judge me if you will, but after a while – you just need that baby out!) I was all registered at the public hospital. I had been planning this for months! They were booked for the next week. No room for us. Not unless my stubborn, snuggly baby decided to come out on her own. BUT there was another option: the private hospital. Now, I had not wanted to go there. I figured it would be a little more expensive, and I still really wanted to save money. But, by this point, I was willing to take a tour of the hospital and talk with the nice people in billing.

I am so very glad I did!

It was wonderful! The delivery rooms, the nursery, the waiting room, and the recovery rooms where all on the same floor – and so close! The family waiting room was connected to the nursery by windows, so our parents would be able to see the baby as soon as they took her away to get cleaned up. Once we talked to Rhonda down in billing, it was set! I had fallen in love with the hospital and the staff – Peyton would be taking her first breaths in Mary Black!

I called my doctor Monday morning, and told them what I had decided. They had me come in and get some things together and ready – I would be induced the next morning at 6AM.

When Ben came home, he found me on the front steps crying my eyes out. I was a crazy mix of emotions. The worst part was that they actually expected me to sleep that night! How in the world would I sleep?! I think I got a total of 4 hours… if you stretched them REALLY far.

I showered, did my hair and make-up, and had to pee 500 million times. In fact, because of all of my “Just let me pee one more time.” ‘s, we were late! Only by like 10 minutes, but late we were! It was dark, foggy, and we got stuck behind a really slow, green truck – who kept popping his brakes at us. We finally made it. I held Ben’s hand as we walked into the building and talked about how weird it was to think that this was the last time we would just be a little family of 2. In a couple of days, we’d be walking out a family of 3.

As we walked in, the security guards joked with us that we were like the fifth couple that they had seen go up that morning. (I didn't realize how important this information would be to me later.)

They checked us in, put some bracelets on my arm, and I changed into my gown.

(Ben was my favorite, though. He was already pumped up, but they had told us that it would probably take a very long time. Trying to look ahead, he figured that he would do some homework... but he would need to take his ADD meds.... With the most sincere and calm look on his face he says: "I know it looks like I'm already excited on the outside, but it's no comparison to how I'm freaking out inside.")

Then we met with the most important man ever - the anesthesiologist. I immediately told him that I wanted any and all pain meds - as soon as possible. I'm a yellowed-belly chicken, after all. He assured me that they would take good care of me.

By eight o'clock, I had met my nurse, Rhonda, and gotten hooked up to the baby-ejecting juice. (There were a MILLION questions to answer!) I was so nervous to get hooked up to the IV, but it didn't hurt at all! (Needles are not my friend.) By eleven, I had made only a little progress. But hey, the contractions weren't that bad. In order to help things along, the doctor came in and broke my water. (Not enjoyable... maybe it's because I knew what they popper-thing looked like. Maybe it's because I felt like I had wet my pants. Either way, not my favorite part.)

And that's when things started to happen...

(Okay, baby's asleep. Got to go to bed while I can!)