1775 Days

4 years, 10 months, and 8 days. That's how long it took to receive our gift from God. Benton was born February 3, 2011 at 10:24 pm via c-section. He weighed 9 pounds 1.6 ounces and was 21 1/4 inches long. He's the most beautiful, most perfect, most amazing child in the world and I couldn't be any happier.

On Thursday, the 3rd, I had my weekly doctor's visit with Dr. Allerkamp. I was 40 weeks and 4 days. I went in, did our normal checkup routine, and then we started discussing induction. I, of course, was begging him to induce me that day. He didn't want to since he wouldn't be working and didn't want to pass me off on another doctor. Then he decided to double check the size of Benton since he's always measured large. He did an ultrasound and came up with and estimated weight of 9 pounds 15 ounces. He sat in his chair and contemplated pretty hard. He decided to call Metroplex to see if they could fit me in for an induction. After all was said and done, my doctor's appointment ended, and I drove across the street to the hospital. No time to go home and get my stuff. Nothing. Straight there I went. My doctors appointment started at 9, I got to the hospital at 10, and started pitocin at 11.

On my way to the hospital I called my mom and she got all the stuff rounded up and got to the hospital just as I was given pitocin. Dad showed up a little while later because he was still at work. I was already on the phone with Paul and it stayed that way the majority of the day. We couldn't get any kind of video messenger to work so unfortunately he didn't get to see me the whole time.

As the hours drew on, Dr Allerkamp broke my water, and the contractions got stronger and stronger. I swore I wouldn't, but the contractions got so strong that I asked for an epidural. You would swear I was the girl off The Exorcist before they gave it to me. I guess my pain tolerance isn't really as great as I thought. That, and I lost my ego of wanting to be Super Woman and just kept my options open.

After my epidural I was the happiest person alive. I was happy to be having a baby again!

Around 9 pm or so it was time to push. Pushing was actually quite entertaining because the nurse was fun, and my legs kept flopping all over the place because I couldn't feel them. We were laughing pretty good. Mom and the nurse held my legs and Dad had Paul on the phone up by my head. After an hour of pushing, the on-call doctor discussed that a c-section would be a better option. I had made no progess pushing and it looked as though Benton's head was swelling and he was trying to come out face-forward. We'd also had problems with his heart rate lowering. So around 10ish they wheeled me off to the OR and mom scrubbed up to go in with me.

My epidural was increased greatly. Couldn't feel a thing. It was really weird. I honestly wasn't scared at all. I started tearing up a little though, but that was because my little man was about to be here. As soon as they had me prepped, mom came in and sat by my head. She kept making sure I was okay. There was a lot of tugging and pulling and nausea (which the anethesiologist fixed quickly) and suddenly mom says, "They cut the cord!" and I hear him cry. And of course I started crying. Then I started feeling really nauseous again and started to feel pain on my right side. All I barely remember after that was a crazy dream about dying, my name being hollered, me kissing my son twice, and I was back out of it.

I woke up in recovery pretty sore. It wasn't near as bad as I thought it would be though. Around midnight to 1 am they wheeled me to my postpartum room. I was wheeled by my family who was in the lobby waiting room. They were all smiling and happy and saying "Good job!" "He's beautiful!" A short while later, they brought him to my room and he was just so freakin' beautiful. Perfect pink skin. Perfect eyes. Perfect nose. Perfect face. Perfect hands. Perfect toes. Perfect body. PERFECT. PERFECT. PERFECT.

After all the trouble my husband and I went through, from pain-in-the-ass doctors, to surgeries, to fertility treatments, to heartache, to c-sections, we finally got our little miracle.

WE MADE IT THROUGH HELL AND GOT OUR GIFT FROM HEAVEN.

It Hurts!

Last night I had my very first painful contraction. That or I had a spazm in my belly. I'm not sure. But it hurt like hell. Normally I sleep on my right side. I have the entire pregnancy. If I sleep on my left, I get really bad gas and it's painful to roll over. Last night I was sleeping on my left side and woke because I had to go pee. I got halfway over to my right side and this excruciating pain shot throughout my entire abdomen. So I rolled back to my left side as quickly as possible. I then tried rolling onto my belly to get on all fours. It took me a good minute to accomplish that. The pain was still barely tolerable. I somehow made it to the side of the bed, halfway dangled my legs over, and was hunched into a ball. I couldn't sit up straight. It hurt bad enough curled up. I texted mom to let her know what was going on. The pain went from a 10 to 9 so I scuffled my way to the bathroom as quickly as possible. As soon as I sat on the toilet it was back at a 10. Mom called me and I told her how it hurt. She wanted to start timing. The pain went back to a 9 and I quickly wiped and scuffled back to bed, only to have it go back to a 10. There was no way I could tell when it was coming and going. After a few minutes on the phone with mom, they started subsiding. We hung up and I was able to go back to bed after that. I'm not sure what caused the pain, whether it was a contraction or maybe a charlie horse in my uterus (if that's even possible), but it really really hurt.

So today every time I have a contraction, I get this slight pain. I'm not sure if it's from the intense pain I felt last night or if it's from actual contractions starting. I have a doctor's appointment in the morning so we'll see how things are moving along.

And I've noticed about the past week, especially when I wake up, this feeling "down below." It feels almost as though I rode a bicycle after not riding one for 10 years and it had a REALLY hard seat. I believe this is from the baby dropping even more and my pelvis is starting to separate.

Boy, I sure can't wait until that appointment tomorrow. I hope we can get things moving along!

Oh, and I bought a new camera yesterday so I can take millions and millions of pictures of Benton. :)