Mackenzie's Birth Story

I've been seriously slacking on my blog, like bad. Being pregnant w/ baby #2 really makes me want to get K's birth story down though, I know it is a day I will never forget but don't want the details to get murky after going through labor and delivery a second time. Plus she is 2 now so its probably time. Here goes nothing!

Me at 39 weeks pregnant on July 1st, 2010.

 

Diving right in, I had my 39 week o/b checkup July 2nd, everything was great I was 1 1/2- 2 cm dilated and things looked great. I woke up at 6:30 a.m. on July 3rd having weird stomach twinges. I had no idea what it was but then I started to realize they were pretty consistent. I kept an eye on the clock and they were exactly 5 minutes apart. It was Saturday so we were sleeping in.  At 7 I woke Eric up and told him we probably needed to go for a walk(hoping to either make the contractions worse or make them go away). He asked me if it could wait so he could sleep for another hour and I said no I think we need to go now. He asked if I was ok and I told him I wasn't sure. We got up threw on some clothes and walked down the road to the neighbors barn once we got there I realized how uncomfortable I was with the stomach pains, heat and being hugely pregnant. We turned around and came back home and I hopped in the shower.

The contractions never changed their times they were always less than 5 minutes apart. This also happened to be the weekend that Eric was on call (of course) but all 4 of his employees were on alert that if I went into labor someone was going to have to cover for him. Of course as soon as I got out of the shower his pager went off. I went pee and was having a little bit of bleeding. I knew at that point it was time to call the hospital and see what they thought. I called and the L&D nurse told me it was probably best if I came in and get monitored for a little bit. Eric spent the next 1/2 hour trying to find someone to to take the call and cover the rest of the weekend for him. This was NOT good for my mental state. I was starting to lose my shit so I just grabbed my bag and told Eric to get in the car he could figure it out while we were at the hospital. I'm getting ahead of myself though, while he was in the shower I called our parents- mine were going four wheeling for the day, I asked them to not go to far and to please stay in cell reception area (we do live in Vermont so that's not always easy). They said they would. I called Eric's Mom who was haying and told her to keep checking the phone just in case.

When we were 5 minutes from the hospital one of Eric's co-workers called and was more than happy to take the call and to cover the rest of the weekend, we both had a sigh of relief at that. When we got to the hospital we went up to L&D and they made me change into one of those hideous hospital gowns where your ass hangs out... luckily (or not) they gave me 2, one for each side. How thoughtful huh? The nurse (who was amazing and I can NEVER remember her name) check me and I was still only 2 cm dilated but my contractions were very regular. They monitored me for 15 minutes before the Dr (who was not my Dr but the on call Dr) showed up and he checked me again, we talked because he wanted me hooked up for another 15 minutes or so and in that time I could decide if I wanted to go labor at home or if I wanted to stay at the hospital OR he suggested I go hang out at the parade (it was the 3rd of July). At this point I looked at him like he was f*&^ing crazy. It was 100 degrees outside, I was having contractions every 5 minutes or less apart and he thought I wanted to go stand and watch the parade? Um, no thank you, crazy sir. I told him I would feel more comfortable hanging out at the hospital for another hour or so and then re-evaluating at that point. He was fine with that and he left at 10. Eric and I walked the halls and bounced on a exercise ball and basically kept moving.

At 11 the nurse asked to check me again. I laid down, he checked me and asked the Dr to come back in. They were both glad I had stayed because I had dilated from 2-6 in less than an hour. (This is the part where some of you are getting jealous that this was going to be a fast and easy delivery.... easy yes, fast? Not so much). Dr. S stated at that point that I really needed to stay so we called our families and told them that today would likely be the day. I had sent out a mass text to my friends on the way to the hospital with a tentative "this might be it" notification. At this point I sent out another and said this was very likely it. They hooked me up to the IV (yuck) because I had tested positive for group B strep so I had no choice unfortunately.

So after getting checked and monitored some more we proceed to walk, walk, walk, bounce, walk some more, climbed in the tub a bit. My parents stopped in to say hi and then left and just told us to stay in touch. We knew when it came to "go time" we wanted it to just be us in the room. The nurse continued to check me every hour or so but progress had slowed quite a bit. I laid down to (try to) rest for awhile.

 

 

At around 3:30ish I was having a rough time this was probably the worst part of labor for me. My body was trying to push and the Dr was telling me that I couldn't because there was something that wasn't fully disengaged from the babies head yet. I fought my way through that and at about 4 the Dr broke my water. That was the weirdest sensation ever. I hated just laying there while the nurses were soaking up all of the fluid and feeling like I really couldn't do anything for myself. The got most of it cleaned up and the Dr gave me the go ahead to start pushing. I pushed, and pushed, and pushed. This for me was kind of an out of body experience I think. I was so exhausted at this point. Eric tells me that he is pretty sure that I was pushing, falling asleep and only waking back up to push again. This is all sort of a blur to me, I remember thinking that if I laid there and pretended that I didn't feel the contractions that maybe they would let me rest for a minute. I also remember asking for water and choking on it EVERY time I took a drink. Eric kept a cold wash cloth on my face and he and the nurse held me legs.

 

At 7pm my nurse went off duty and I remembering crying asking her to please stay she had been with me all day and she was AMAZING I cannot say enough good things about her. She asked me at one point during the day if I wanted pain meds and I said no we were going to try and do it naturally. She told me that would be the first and last time she would mention it but if I changed my mind to tell her. I LOVED her for this. I didn't want someone pushing drugs on me and she didn't. Anyway, she explained to me that she really wished she could stay but she had 2 little boys at daycare that needed to be picked up and fed and put to bed. I of course understood this, I still hated it but I understood. So they swapped nurses I was much less impressed with the second nurse (more to come in a minute). So I continued pushing, finally at 9:05(?) the Dr gave me a shot and grabbed the knife for an episotomy. This was something that was in my birth plan, if I needed it done I wanted it done, plain and simple. I had a friend who had torn horribly during labor and I didn't want to deal with that. Judge away. I remember my last push I could FEEL the baby coming out and was so relieved as the Dr was telling me to stop pushing (I think I was slightly crazy at this point and just said hell no, there is no stopping this time) and at 9:11 p.m. on July 3rd, Mackenzie Alexis made us parents and a family of 3. Also, if you are keeping track? I pushed for FOUR HOURS!

 

Here is where I have to take a minute and so how friggin AMAZING my husband was this whole day. Eric is very queasy when it comes to blood, someone being in pain or anything like that. Which is hilarious if you consider the fact that he grew up on a farm. However, he never left my side the whole entire day. He watched the Dr cut me, watched me poop (yes ladies, everyone poops while pushing), watched me push a kid out of my vagina and NEVER once fainted or felt faint. BUT the MOMENT (and I mean MOMENT) the Dr laid that baby on my belly he looked at me completely white, hooked his foot to the chair behind him and fell into it saying "I think I need to sit down now". Hilarious. Seriously, probably one of the best parts of the day. At this point I had gotten my adrenaline rush and had all my energy back so I just laughed at him. Moving on...

 

The Dr. laid the baby on my and we just stared in awe. Then Eric looked at me and said wait, what is it? I laughed, I think most Dr's (and nurses) expect everyone to know the gender of their baby before delivery, we did not. She hadn't cooperated at the one (and only) ultrasound we had. While I was laughing I was thinking I had heard the Dr say "she" and the nurse say look at "her" hair. So I looked at him and said I think its a girl! We had both been sure it was a boy. We looked to the Dr for confirmation and he laughed and said it most certainly is a little girl. When I delivered her we had the o/b, his 2 nurses, the pediatrician and her nurse because she had pooped earlier in the day and they wanted to make sure she was fine. I delivered the placenta and got stitched up essentially with no recollection. I remember the Dr telling me to tell him if I felt him down there and I said he did and he gave me another shot and I felt nothing else. We got her to latch on right away and the pediatrician checked her out from afar saying that she looked great. We were all able to relax for a bit before they checked her out and weighed her and then Daddy got to hold her for the first time.

 

 

At this point it was like 12 a.m., I got up to pee and was so shaky the nurse was worried about me, I told her I was just really hungry. I had eaten lunch at like 11:30 and nothing since. She remembered that they had left me a dinner tray in the fridge so she brought that in along with our parents who had been waiting in the waiting room for HOURS (they are awesome you guys), Daddy wasn't giving up baby girl so everyone had to peek over his shoulder to meet her. Thankfully no one stayed very long and Daddy was able to give K a bath with the nurse while I ate. This is the part where the nurse just unimpressed me, first of all (and these are all very petty things mostly) she was horrible at holding my legs while I was pushing, very wimpy, letting them flop around. She and Daddy were giving K a bath and she was telling another nurse how sick she was and she didn't know why she came into work. UM HELLO BITCH you work L&D with newborns, if you are sick keep your ass home. Someone must have told her and after K's bath we didn't see her again. We got moved and settled into a non delivery room and everyone tried to get some sleep and this pretty much ends her birth story. Oh except you probably want to see a picture of the beautiful girl huh?

Mackenzie Alexis Maxwell

July 3rd, 2010

7 lbs 11.9 ounces

19 1/2 inches long

 



Removing Temptation

One of the things I agreed to do on our saving money journey was to unsubscribe from "sale" emails.... this one guys? KILLS ME! I want deals! It is way to much temptation for me though to buy things we DO NOT need. But those cute little outfits for Kenz? Or those hot boots for me? Yeah.... don't need them. Wouldn't even know about them if I didn't get the stupid emails in the first place.

I am going to stay subscribed to:
-Wal-mart (actually home goods we MIGHT really need)
-Carter's (come on, I can't quit Carter's! The cute!)
- Price Chopper (food actually is in our new budget... shocker, right?!)
-No More Rack (I can't quit it yet, I have to be weaned from this one)
-Coupon emails (we still need to eat people!)

I have let my emails pile up for a few days cause I wanted to have a do it all at once session while Kenz is napping. I have 133 emails to unsubscribe from and I am even doing the ones that go to my spam box.... I want to see no "fliers".

If my husband were here he would be so proud. Go me!

My next goal? Getting rid of drama via Facebook.... cutting back my friends list!

Laundry!

I'm going to start our saving money plan by cutting back on laundry. No, not cutting back on actually DOING laundry, by starting to dry all of our clothes on a wooden rack and fluffing them in the dryer. I'm also hoping to convince hubby to put up a clothes line in the spring! Nothing better than clothes dried outside in fresh spring/summer air! This will probably mean clothes will need to be ironed more, and since I've never done that, another learning lesson! I got an awesome iron for my bridal shower oh about 4 years ago and I've never used it. Oops. Good excuse to start right? I am getting an inexpensive ironing board also ($11 table top board from Amazon).

We are also washing everything in cold water to save money on heating hot water and therefore propane.

I am going make my own laundry detergent, but not use it immediately because we have an almost brand new bottle of detergent. The "recipe" I found online for laundry detergent calls for:

• 1 bar of laundry soap (Fels Naptha, Zote or Ivory)
• 1 box Borax
• 1 box of washing soda
• Essential oil of your choice, I'm gonna try peppermint and lavender (not together).

Once you have all of these items, you  mix together:

• 1 cup of soap
• 1/2 cup washing soda
• 1/2 cup of borax
• Few drops of essential oil

Use 1 tablespoon for light loads and 2 for heavy loads.




Cost breakdown looks like this:

Soap $1.09 a bar (3 cups shaved),
Borax $4.19 for a 4 lbs box,
Washing soda 55 oz $3.59

I don't have any essential oil (though I have ordered some), but I am thinking that I will not use it, this stuff smells yummy just the way it is. We found all of these items in our local grocery store, I was planning on buying them from Amazon but it was MUCH more expensive on there than at the local store, shame shame Amazon!

The finished product?

I'm sure that I was supposed to put it in the food processor and blend it up, but I got out the food processor and it didn't work, so this will have to do. I tried it out on one load of laundry last night and it seems to work great! Clothes are clean and smell good too. 

I am doing these things in hopes of saving money, saving wear and tear on clothes (hence saving even more money!). I found this neat website that has formulas for costs of electricity. If you run your dryer approximately 4 hours per day (this is probably a bit overkill in our case but nonetheless) it saves you $192 a year. That doesn't sound like a lot but I am 26, lets say I do laundry until I'm 80 (we can only hope) that's 54 years. $192 for 54 years is a total savings of $10368, that is CRAZY, do you know what you can do with $10000 over the course of your lifetime? Many many things, starting with a college fund for Kenzie!