Eileen Lorraine Parks, 3/28/11

I've neglected my blog long enough. I guess I was preparing for our little one to come and it slipped my mind. I wasn't walking much, and I wasn't cooking from scratch much in the past couple weeks, so I really didn't have anything to write about. I have made Huevos Rancheros, corned beef and cabbage for my birthday (not a cookbook recipe, but it's tradition), Tacos with sweet potato puree and deer meat, and others that I will get to at a later time.

On Sunday I woke up having minor contractions. I had been having these kinds of contractions for about a week and they would go away, so I thought it might not be the real deal. As the morning went on they kept up and got a little more intense. I told Don that he may not be going to work on Monday, which he didn't mind one bit.

That afternoon Don had to time the Cooper's Rock 10k, and I took Travis to Morgantown to the Dance Baby Dance children's cancer fundraiser. We were having a great time, and we saw lots of friends. These friends all thought I was joking when I told them I was in labor. Nope, I was serious. It's kind of funny to tell people that though, standing there having a contraction "Yeah, I'm pretty sure I'm in labor". I was the only one that knew there was no reason to panic, after all I figured it would be about 18 hours. Travis was 36 hours with 2 1/2 hours of pushing. No fun at all.

I picked Don up on the way home and still the contractions were getting more intense, but still bearable. We got home around 4:30 and Don went to go do some chores around the farm. I thought he was only going to be gone for about 30 minutes or so. An hour went by and the contractions were getting bad. Travis was not feeling well, so he wanted to be hugged. Every time a contraction would come on I would ask him to get off me. He had no idea what was going on and I was getting pretty upset that Don was not back yet. I called Don and said "WHAT ARE YOU DOING?" To this he responded that he would be home shortly.  At that point I was in tears and Travis was saying "Don't cry mommy!" I felt so bad.

Don came home and we made Tacos. I still didn't really know if this was a fake out, so I wanted to eat some spicy food (well, spicy for me). I could barely make it through the meal. I called the mid-wife and she said I'd better come in sooner rather than later so I could get an IV in. So I called my assistant track coach and told him to come get the track book, then I called Travis' baby sitter and asked her to come get him. We still weren't in a panic yet, but by the time everyone came and went, my contractions were 5 minutes apart and we live about 40 minutes from the hospital.

On the ride in my contractions continued to be 5 minutes apart, so we were now panicking.  I could hardly stand to walk, and of course they wanted me to fill paper work out when I got to the desk. Why do they ask you if you have a living will and power of attorney right before you're going in? Not very reassuring!

So, at about 9 pm I layed down in the bed and my contractions of course slowed down. They were so intense though that I could hardly breathe through them and I would tense up. I got the nubane but it really didn't help at all. I knew I still had a while to go, so at midnight I gave into the epidural. I don't know why I tried to tough it out. With Travis when  I got the epidural my contractions got closer together and more regular and did their job! Same thing happened here.

While Don was trying to sleep in a recliner, I also tried to sleep all the while looking at the monitor for Eileen's HR and my HR and wondering about contractions and being worried that maybe I'll have to have a C-section if she doesn't progress. I was having flashbacks of Travis' birth.. The mid-wife refused to break my water which was making me angry, but I'm no doctor, so whatever.

At about 6 am the mid-wife came in and said "well, you're 9 3/4 dilated, but you're water hasn't broken yet." Great! Jeez! I've got some stubborn kids! She told me I would know when my water broke and that I would feel some pressure when it was time to push. The 7 o'clock hour came and I didn't think my water broke, but I was starting to feel some pressure.

A little before 8 o'clock a new mid-wife came in, fresh off of vacation. She said "oh, you're water broke" and I said I had been feeling some pressure, and she said "Oh, there's the head, we're ready to push"! Not 15 minutes later (thank GOD!) Eileen came into this world, all 8 lbs. 12 ounces of her. 

So now we're recuperating. I went on my first walk yesterday (Friday) and another one this morning. Just an easy 30 minutes and some very light abdominal exercises. I will do this for another 2 weeks then I will hopefully try running. Easy does it! I hope Eileen likes being outside as much as Travis does!