My Little Alexsi Nicole

Yesterday, February 15th, we woke up at 4:20 AM and got ready to go to the hospital to have our little girl.  We got there a little before 5, and by 5:30 I was in bed hooked up to Pitocin.  At this point I was dilated to a 2, so I had a long way to go!  The nurse offered to get the anesthesiologist to do my epidural right then, but I declined.  Honestly I was just nervous about getting it so I decided to put it off.  After a few hours and contractions getting a little more painful, I was dilated to about a 4 and I decided to get the epidural, mostly cause I knew my doctor would be in soon to break my water and I didn't really want to feel that!  I was nervous when the anesthesiologist came in and explained how he wanted me to sit, and explained what he was going to do.  But seriously, epidurals are no big deal!  It honestly didn't hurt any worse than getting my IV in my hand earlier that morning.  Within minutes, I was so much more relaxed and feeling better than I had in weeks!   I was happily chatting with my nurses, texting family, and generally enjoying life!  The doctor did come in and break my water, which clearly I didn't feel cause of the epidural.  They also put a catheter in, and I must say-- I kinda loved that!  The past few weeks I've had to pee so often, so it was soooo nice to be able to just lay in bed and not worry about getting up to pee every 20 minutes!  Call me crazy, but honestly I thought it was awesome (still do, actually!).  I progressed pretty slowly, about 1 centimeter every hour to hour and a half.  During that time, I was just relaxing, and it was awesome!  I seriously dozed off and on all day, and it was beautiful.  I expected it to be such a long day, but the time flew by.  Seriously, people, epidurals are heaven sent!  I think the day was worse for DJ than me, cause he didn't have any drugs in his system :).  At some point the doctor decided he wanted internal monitors for my contractions and Alexsi's heartbeat.  The contraction monitor went in fine, but the heartbeat monitor promptly came unhooked.  They attached a new one, which worked for about 2 minutes, then came unhooked as well.  After 4 tries, they decided to just stick with the external monitor, and told me it wasn't working cause she had so much hair!  I was ecstatic to know that my 9 months of heartburn was well worth it!  Finally, around 3:15,  the doctor told me I was ready to start pushing!  DJ and one of my nurses would hold my legs as I pushed, 3 pushes for each contraction.  I could feel the pressure of pushing and contractions, but no pain, which was awesome.  Seriously, in between contractions we were all laughing and talking and having a great time!  DJ and I told the nurses how we met, and they told us stories about themselves.  It was just fun!  DJ even worked on his dance moves between contractions-- he was a great entertainer!  He was also a PHENOMENAL coach!  The nurses said they wanted to hire him to help other people too!  The contractions were showing up on the monitor, and every time I pushed, the line would shoot up way over 100.  DJ was thrilled by this, and encouraged me to get them up over 100 every time.  We were joking about how competitive I am, and how I was going to continue to push like crazy just to make that line go up!  After about an hour of pushing, my medication was starting to wear off some.  The nurses encouraged me not to take more, because I might be able to push better if I felt more pain.  By this time, I was literally playing tug-of-war with one of the nurses-- during each contraction, DJ and one nurse would still hold my legs up, and I held on to one end of a knotted sheet while a nurse held the other end and I seriously did some tug-of-war with her.  It was pretty funny.  Alexsi's head had come down pretty quickly, to the point that they could easily see it (they asked DJ if he wanted to look and he rejected the offer--haha!).  The problem was, each time I pushed, her head would move forward, but when I stopped pushing it would slide right back.  During my second hour of pushing, as the medication wore off, I was having much less fun than I had been previously.  I was getting exhausted, and the pain was getting pretty bad.  In between contractions I just laid with my eyes closed, and tried to pump myself up for the next one, when really I was just on the verge of tears and having a come apart due to the pain.  Finally after 2 hours of pushing my doctor gave us some options; keep trying to push her out, try using a vacuum to get her out, or have a c-section.  He gave us the pros and cons of each, and both of us immediately felt certain that the c-section was the right route to take.  The anesthesiologist came in and gave me a really heavy dose of drugs through my epidural, which numbed my bottom half completely.  Previously I could still move my legs around, just didn't feel pain.  Now they were complete dead weight, which was kind of funny.  DJ got suited up in his Operating Room clothes, which were lovely!  They wheeled me into the OR, and transferred me from my bed to the operating table.  There were lots of nurses and doctors around, and they got me all prepped.  I was so exhausted at this point that I was having a hard time staying awake.  I suddenly felt someone grab my hand, and I looked around to see DJ sitting beside me.  I could hear the doctors asking for scalpels and other instruments (there was a sheet up in front of my face so I couldn't see what they were doing- thank heavens), and I could feel pressure that they were cutting into me and stuff but of course couldn't feel anything.  Because her head was so far down, they had one of my nurses go in vaginally and push her head back up into me so they could pull her out from my stomach.  Within a few minutes of them starting to cut, they told DJ to stand up and watch her come out, and he did.  I heard her squawk and immediately just felt relief-- she's really here!  They let me see her for a minute, then took DJ over to the scale and got her cleaned up.  She weighs 7 lbs 13 oz and is 20.5 inches long.  They took her out of the OR and DJ went with her, and I stayed on the table for about 20 more minutes while they sewed me up.  I was impressed that the whole c-section process, from the time they took me in to the time they rolled me out, was less than an hour.  What they discovered while they had me opened up was that I have an unusually large sacrum.  Because of that, Lexsi's head could fit down and start to come out, but her shoulders got caught on my sacrum, making it impossible for her to come out.  I'm going to have to only have c-sections the rest of my life.  That's okay with me, because at least I know in advance now and won't have to labor for 12 hours before the c-section :)

It's been nearly 24 hours now since she came into our lives, and we absolutely adore this girl!  She's a good eater and a great sleeper.  Her full head of dark hair is perfect, and she's just a doll!  She's absolutely a daddy's girl-- the two of them are completely smitten with each other!  I really love their relationship.  DJ is such a great dad, and is completely wrapped around that baby's little finger already.  We're just so grateful that she's here safe and sound, that she's healthy, and that she's actually ours!  We are so blessed!

And now, for your viewing enjoyment:

DJ in his OR gear

Alexsi Nicole

Proud daddy and baby

With Grammie and Tooge (can you tell how excited my mom is??)

With Aunt Nikki and Grammie

Sooo much hair!!!

Two tired girls!!!