Carter Alpine Housley

Carter arrived 10 days early!

January 16th 2012

7:06 pm

7 lbs 4 oz

20 in long

Sorry this has taken me so long to get around to writing! It has been a crazy 3 and a half weeks. I finally feel like I'm not running completely on fumes. :) Besides trying to get used to taking care of our little guy I spent 3 days last week back in the hospital so it's been a little harder to adjust than expected. But I'll write about that later.

Rory and I were excited about the 16th because Rory had the day off for Martin Luther King's Day. We were going to use the day to wash our baby clothes and finish getting last minute things done before Carter came. We still had a little organizing to do and we really needed to clean our apartment. Plus we needed to get our hospital bags and stuff ready.

Well, around 5:30 that morning I woke up with pain in my abdomen and lower back. I tried to keep sleeping for a while, but it didn't go away so I got up to go to the bathroom. It kind of felt like cramps telling me I needed to go to the bathroom. That didn't help anything either. So around 6:30 I gave up trying to sleep and decided to read on the couch. About an hour later Rory came out and I think he was pretty surprised to see me up. (Rory knows how much I love me sleep.) He asked if I was alright and I said I thought I was having contractions, but I didn't know if they were real or Braxton Hicks. I had been keeping track of them for about an hour and they weren't consistent, but they were pretty frequent. I didn't go much more than 5 minutes ever before the next one hit. Around 9 I decided I should call my doctor because they weren't going away. She told me I should probably go to the hospital to get checked out because they

were so frequent. I decided to shower and eat something before we left. Showering is fun with contractions. :)

All this time I have been having contractions Rory has been trying to get things ready. He got all the baby's stuff for the hospital and put the car seat in the car. We both got our bags ready and around 10 we headed to the hospital. At this point it didn't feel real. Even when I was having

contractions my stomach muscles were not hardening like I thought they should. So I thought they had to be fake contractions. At 10:30 I was finally taken to the triage center to get checked before they admitted me if I was really in labor. As I talked to the nurse and explained how I felt it was clear she thought I was having fake contractions. That's what I'd been thinking so it wasn't a surprise. But it was 10:30 so I'd been having contractions for at least 5 hours by now and they weren't getting better. After asking me all her questions the nurse checked to see if I was dilated. Come to find out I'm 4 cm dilated and about 90% effaced! The nurse was like, maybe you're one of the lucky ones who gets through this easy.

Looks like I'm in labor! It's a pretty surreal feeling to think that we're actually having our baby. I'd been carrying him in me for almost 9 months and he was finally making his way out!

I was moved to a labor and delivery room. It was a pretty nice room. It was really big and we had it all to ourselves! I think we figured out later that a baby had been born early that morning, but we were the only other baby all day. So we had a lot of attention. :)

Once we were in the room I got my IV and they took my blood for testing. After I was all settled I finally called my mom and told her I was in labor. :) She was just as ready as we were for our baby to come so early. Luckily she was able to change her plane ticket for not too much so she could fly in the next day.

Rory and I settled in to wait after that. At 1:00 in the afternoon my doctor came by to check on me. I was still about 4 cm but I was almost completely effaced. My doctor broke my water and started me on a small amount of pitocin. Within minutes my contractions kicked it up a lot. At this point I decided I wanted an epidural. I called the nurse and said I wanted one. Shortly after, the anesthesiologist came and they kicked Rory out so they could set me up. It was about 1:30 at this point. Receiving the epidural was a piece of cake compared to the contractions. Except for the fact that it's hard to sit up through a contraction while they're trying to put it in. :) Once they were done I finally got to lay back down and Rory came back in. Within minutes my pain was gone! I turned to the nurse and asked if I was still having contractions. She was like, year you can't feel them at all? Yay! No pain! My legs felt really weird, but I got used to it and I'll take that any day over contractions!

After the pain was gone I tried to take a nap to save up my energy. It was not that easy to sleep when I knew our baby was on the way! At 3 the nurse came in to check on me. I was 9 cm dilated! That was quick! The nurse told me my doctor would come by after work to deliver our baby. She said it wouldn't hurt me to wait a little longer so that his head could drop further so that I didn't have to push so much. My doctor finally came around 5:30. Then the real fun began. :)

I think I ended up pushing for about an hour and a half. It might have been a little quicker without the epidural, but I'll take it over no pain. Besides my doctor I always had at least two nurses and Rory helping me push. :) I told you we had all the attention. :) Everyone was very encouraging and supportive. I'm pretty sure Carter's head started showing pretty quickly. They even let me feel the crown of his head at one point. That was kind of crazy. At the end my doctor said I was tearing and she said she was going to cut it a little more so we could get his head out. Once she did that Carter came out pretty fast. Carter was born at 7:06pm!

The next thing I knew little Carter was laying on my chest! The nurse cleaned him off as best she could while he was on my chest. What an amazing feeling! I could finally see and hold the little baby I'd been carrying around for 9 months! It was so much fun to see his big eyes as he looked at his new world. He was so alert for the first little while. I know I am biased, but he was the cutest baby I'd ever seen! Besides his funny shaped head he looked pretty much perfect! And his head rounded out pretty quick.

After an hour or so the nurse from the nursery came in to give Carter a bath. She washed him by the sink in our room so that I could kind of watch from my bed. As she bathed him she gave Rory instructions on how to bathe him when we got home. Once he was squeaky clean and I could feel my legs a little better we were moved to our recovery room.

What a day! I was in labor for about 13.5 hours. All in all it wasn't the worst experience ever. The epidural was definitely a life saver! It was all worth it to finally be able to hold Carter in my arms!

My little burrito!

48 hours later we were headed home!

What an experience! And then there were 3. :)