jared & whitney: April 2016

If you've never gone into labor before, labor contractions are somewhat of a mystery. Everyone kept telling me, "You'll know, you'll know." ...But would I? I was worried that my water would break when I was out running errands or that contractions would start while I was out and not with Jared; all these thoughts were starting to get to me. So for the last couple days of my pregnancy I really stayed kaput; I decided to finally let the nesting instinct come out :)

Late Saturday night March 12th (I was about 38 1/2 weeks pregnant), I started getting what I thought was early labor contractions - time able contractions, about 5 minutes apart and definitely NOT comfortable. Jared was so calming and really helped me stay focused on staying relaxed and breathing. We had already packed our hospital bag weeks ago, so we just kept timing the contractions until we felt we needed to leave for the hospital. After a couple hours of this we decided that it was probably time to go to the hospital. We got to the hospital at about 12:30am Sunday morning and turns out (after being there for 10+ hours) that I was having false labor and things weren't progressing (and because I wasn't 39 weeks along, they really couldn't do anything), so we went home. Needless to say, Jared and I were both a little sad because we went to the hospital thinking, "this is it!" Only to find out it wasn't.

Later that Sunday evening, I started getting hot flashes; my body would feel super warm, but I'd be freezing, and visa versa. Jared thought it would be a good idea just to check my temperature - I was 100.4, so nothing SUPER serious, but when you're this pregnant anything is alarming. I took some tylenol, which helped calm the fever, but we scheduled a doctor's appointment the next morning to get me checked out. The Doctor tested me for strep and the flu...and welp, I tested positive for the flu :/ not something you want to hear when you're almost 39 weeks pregnant. The next couple of days were focused on me taking tamiflu and getting better. And then Thursday happened...

At about 6am, I had a super strong contraction that woke me up. And because I had already gone through the false labor shenanigans on Sunday, I was not about to make the same mistake and just jump in the car and go to the hospital. I thought it might be a good idea to turn on a movie and just wait out the contractions and see if they got more intense. Well, they did. I didn't remember anything that was going on in the movie. By 7am, the contractions were 2-3 minutes apart and getting hard to breathe through and nearly impossible to focus on anything but breathing. But, I'm a little strong willed and didn't want to go to the hospital, just to get turned away or sent home. Luckily, I have a smart husband, who, after 10 minutes of the movie going on, saw that I clearly was not doing so well. He very kindly suggested that he was going to take our hospital bags down to the car and then come back up to get me - because we live on the 3rd floor, it probably wasn't a good idea to take them on my own.

Even though we are right down the street from our hospital (literally) - we, of course, were going RIGHT in thick of rush hour (715am). It was probably the most uncomfortable car ride I had ever experienced. I felt as though we got every red light and stuck behind every slow car. But, by the time we got there, checked in and introduced to our nurse Cindy, both Jared and I relaxed a little because our nurse was very sweet and calming. We will forever be grateful for her, she truly was an exceptional nurse - she is also from Boston and had a sweet accent!

By about 7:30am I was dilated to 3-4cm, and our nurse thought, because I wanted an epidural, that it might be a good idea to put the order in. Good thing too, because by 9am I was dilated to 7cm (and I wasn't doing so hot). I was so very grateful that Jared stayed next to me through everything and talked/breathed through every moment with me; truly a comfort I will never forget. By about 2:30pm I was fully dilated and ready to push. Our nurse was super helpful in just keeping both Jared and I distracted - I was apparently cracking jokes and very talkative. I had a really good epidural :)

By 3:12pm our beautiful Chloe was born. She came out super limp, pale and not breathing. I was expecting a cry, but there was silence. Almost instantly there was an additional 7 or so people in the room. The team of nurses in the room immediately took Chloe over to the warming bed and Jared quickly followed her over there. I couldn't tell what was going on, other than she wasn't breathing and there still wasn't any cry. Our nurse, again amazing lady, could tell that I was a little stressed, not knowing what was happening. She came over and explained that our little Chloe was stunned from the quick birth and had a fever of 102 degrees (residue from my flu, because I too had a temperature of 102). Our nurse then explained that the NICU (neonatal intensive-care unit) team was in there to make sure her vitals were functioning.

This was probably the longest 10 minutes of my life. This little girl of ours that I had carried for 9 months was over on a bed, away from me, helpless, and stunned; and there was nothing I could do except wait. After what seemed like forever (probably only about 10 minutes), Chloe's vitals still weren't strong enough to be stable completely on their own, but they wrapped her up and let Jared bring her over to me and we all got to be together for about 10 minutes. The nurses then needed to take Chloe to the nursery to monitor her for the next couple of hours. Jared followed our little girl to the nursery and kept me updated on how she was doing.

After a very long 3 hours, the nurses watching Chloe decided her vitals were stable enough that she wouldn't need to go to the NICU and could join Jared and I in our room for the night!

I cannot explain the emotions I felt after seeing Jared bring our little Chloe through that hospital door. She looked so calm and was so incredibly beautiful. She really is such a blessing to both Jared and I. Our little lucky St. Patrick's Day lady. We are so in love and very grateful to be home and enjoying every moment with our little miss Chloe - which is why I have lacked so much in the blogging department, oh the life as a momma :) I LOVE IT!

Here is just a photo overload of photos of Chloe for the past month in chronological order :)