~Welcome Little Miss Hams~
Look who's here! Baby Hams made her debut at 1:52pm on October 15th, coming in at 7 lbs, 3 oz, and 21 inches.
After 18 hours of labor + 4 days in the hospital we are all happy, healthy, and enjoying life at home.
Hour 1: Waiting in the triage room at the hospital after my water broke at home at 7:30pm right on her due date. Luckily we hadn't done anything too strenuous on Sunday (watching football+pizza) but I definitely still wasn't prepared to be awake from Sunday morning - Monday night.
Hours 3-17: Labored in the evening and overnight naturally, then with an epidural around 2:00am, then with oxytocin at 6:00am to get from 6cm to 10cm, then pushed for an hour from noon-1:00pm with no success. Not pictured: lots of vomiting, crazy pain in my left hip beginning around 11am, and a few epinephrine injections to counteract low blood pressure I developed after the epidural. During this time we ended up not watching any TV and only listened to music for about an hour. Matt read to me from the crazies on message boards to distract me for a little bit, but for the most part, I just stared into space. Being in labor was quite the time warp - the hours went by so fast.
Hour 18: 1:00-2:00pm - Here comes baby via c-section. The Dr. said I could wait and try to push more but the chances were slim she'd come out on her own before the 24 hour time limit in place from when my water broke the night before. Due to her positioning and my pelvis shape she never really dropped down all the way prior to labor, or during, and was also coming down facing my side instead of back, unfortunately.
Days 2-4 at the hospital learning the ropes
During our stay we had friends and family visit, and my mom came to help Wednesday morning so Matt could teach a class for a few hours. The rest of the time I spent coping with a c-section recovery (not so bad after the first night actually, just couldn't use my abs for about a week), learning how to breastfeed, and getting accustomed to sleep deprivation.
Heading home on Thursday, October 18th
Welcome baby Clementine - we are loving our new adventure with you!