This is kinda long, but I wanted to record it for Tinley. Feel free to not read the entire thing;)
Monday, Nov 7th Carleton and I went to Red Robin. I bought him some clothes and asked him to try them on, he hates buying/trying on clothes so he refused. That night I went to bed irritated.
1:40am I was in bed, asleep when I felt a sudden urge to pee, I jump up the same instant I woke up and dashed for the bathroom, luckily I made it there in time:) I was pretty sure my water had broken so I walked back in our bedroom and tapped Carleton on the shoulder. After about 20 seconds of tapping he woke up. I told him I thought my water broke but I felt fine, so I was going to take a shower, and that he was welcome to do the same since it'd be a few days before he'd get the chance to take a shower with a nice towel... or he could continue sleeping. He decided to get up and get the car packed.
We got to the hospital around 3am, my water was still breaking (I had NO idea how much water there would be, I felt like pitchers of water were coming out). I still felt great, just really excited and wet! As I was walking to the bathroom I heard someone call my name. My friend, Hayley (who shares her birthday with me!) was there with her husband. She'd been having contractions and came to the hospital. She and her husband, Jason, were walking around trying to get her water to break so they wouldn't have to send her home. Unfortunately, that didn't happen so she was discharged. Anyway, I got to the bathroom and changed into a hospital gown, robe, and the famous (awful) mesh panties. A few minutes after checking in I could feel the contractions better. It was a little uncomfortable but nothing bad, I was still too excited to care and barely even noticed. A nurse took my blood pressure and weight (I gained 36 lbs. total) and admitted me. Next thing I know I'm being wheeled away in a wheelchair to my room. I felt really embarrassed for some reason, I guess because it made me feel so helpless, and since I felt great, I thought I should be walking.
My doctor wasn't on call when I got there but I immediately met my first nurse, she was super nice and had only recently (6 months ago, I think) switched to labor and delivery. She was a little rough when she checked for dilation and effacement, the other nurses were much gentler, but I really really liked her! Carleton called my parents house around 5am and his mom shortly after. My mom was slightly offended we didn't call earlier, but we figured we'd wait til she'd be up for work since there was no way I'd have the baby before she arrived. I told them to take it easy, shower, take your time, and come in a couple hours. Not too long after getting in my room, the on-call doctor put me on pitocin without even seeing me, I said ok, Carleton was a little shocked that I said ok so quickly since I was already contracting on my own. They just wanted the contractions a little closer together. I was warned several times by a lot of people (and books/online material) that pitocin makes contractions a lot more intense so I really didn't want to have to have it. They started me at 6 (I don't know the unit) and pumped up the increments by 6 until reaching 48. My dad had a meeting that morning so he only stopped by for a few minutes hen came back later. My sister, Weston, and Taylor were there for the majority of my labor. Taylor was funny, she didn't look at me or acknowledge my existence the entire time she was there. I was hoping they'd take me off the pitocin because my contractions were EXTREMELY close together and very very painful. The nurses kept saying the doctor wanted me to get an epidural but I kept telling them I'd think about it, especially since the first several times I'd been told he wanted me to get it, he hadn't even seen me once. I hadn't made up my mind about an epidural beforehand, I felt like I'd probably end up getting one, but I was open to either way. My nurse offered to get an exercise ball for me to sit on which helped a lot. I did NOT like sitting in the bed. I sat on the ball for four hours, after I got back in the bed the nurse said that she's never seen anyone sit on it for more than 15 minutes. I don't know why more people don't use them! Carleton was great through the whole labor, massaging my back the majority of the time.
Throughout my labor I drank chicken broth (disgusting) had a popsicle, and jello. I was so hungry and it didn't help seeing other people eat. I guess it's a good thing I wasn't given anything else because everything I ate or drank the entire time, I threw up. I was filling up pitcher after pitcher, it was pretty intense.
After returning to the bed I again felt a lot of pressure to get an epidural. Eventually, I gave in. The guy who gave me the epidural was tall like Carleton and when he walked in and saw him said, "hey, brother." He had me lean forward against Carleton, which was AWFUL. I was having very intense contractions with hardly any break in between at this point, and when anything touched my stomach during a contraction, it was agonizing. My legs were touching my stomach since I had to lean forward, I asked if I could just sit up straight, but no, I wasn't allowed:( I was only supposed to feel 2 or 3 more contractions at most. 8 very painful contractions later I stopped feeling them on the right side of my body. I had to lay on my left side to try to get the medicine to flow over to that side. Eventually it worked a little. I got tired of laying on my side though so I moved back to my back. My doctor got there a little while later.
Lana, my grandparents, and my dad all came to the hospital and were with me as soon as they could be. Jes left to go get pick up the other two kids from school but then came back with them and Phillip.
After a while the pain on my left side was so bad I decided I needed to turn back over on my side. Within a minute or two of getting back on my side my doctor came in to tell me it was time to push and to turn back over...that figured;) So 5:10, I started pushing. It ended up being really nice though because nobody had to tell me when to push, since I could feel everything on my left side. Carleton, my nurse, and doctor were all so wonderful and encouraging the whole time, telling me how great I was doing and telling me about our baby's hair. They asked if I wanted to see and at first I was reluctant. Carleton told me how cool it was so I said ok, they brought a mirror in and I took a quick look then had them turn the mirror around and finished doing my thing. 30 minutes later exactly, our baby girl was here at 5:40pm. Carleton had gotten special permission a few months earlier to deliver her, so that was really cool. I spent some time making my camera and flash settings perfect for the delivery...unfortunately, the nurse zoomed in and somehow focused on the tools in the back, rather than Tinley and cut Carleton out of the picture completely, so you can't tell it's him catching her. Maybe I'll take the pictures myself next time;)
Carleton plopped her on me within seconds of her first breath. She was a hungry thing and latched on almost immediately, which was wonderful, we've been so lucky that she's been such a wonderful eater. After her measurements and stats were all taken they gave her back to me for a while. Our family came in in rounds of three until everyone had seen her. Since Kaylee was grounded during my baby shower and she really wanted to come I told her she'd be the first to hold our baby when she was born. She ended up being the only one, aside from me, who held her until after she was bathed and moved to the recovery room a few hours later.
It was a little weird because there were so many people in my room, then nobody. I wanted to send out a mass "she's here" text but my phone all of a sudden said "unsupported battery see user manual". The battery is what came with the phone, I hate when it does that, it didn't work for probably two hours, so irritating. What else was annoying? I was STARVING and had no food. I finally got the chance to order, but it took forever to get there. When my phone finally started working I saw I had a text from my sister asking where I was. I told her I was still in the labor and delivery room, and asked where they were. Everyone else had left except Jes and my parents, it was pretty late by this point. They were in my recovery room and Tinley (she still didn't have a name at the time) and Carleton were still not there either, they thought we were all together. I told her I wasn't allowed to leave until I could get up and go to the bathroom on my own, which wasn't possible. Jesica suggested I fake it...although I have no idea how I'd have been able to do that. Eventually my new nurse let me get on this thing, sort of like a segway and wheeled me to the bathroom. I was told the epidural would wear off within an hour or so but it didn't. My left leg was fine, but my right side I think was double-dosed. I had to continue using that thing through the night and the next morning/ afternoon (I think, it's kind of a blur now, I wish I would've written this down earlier!)
After my parents and sister held Tinley for a little while they all headed home. Tinley had a rough night and nobody got any sleep. This was the case each night in the hospital and the first night at home.
The people who are in charge of getting the name on the birth certificate kept calling, but we had to keep telling them we still hadn't decided on a name. Carleton had decided on his name but I still had a list of 5. He wanted her to choose her own name so if in 15 years she complains that she hates her name he can say, "well you chose it!" How is a baby going to pick her name you might be thinking...well Carleton thought the best way to do this was to put two styrofoam cups at her feet, each with a name on it and whichever she kicked over first would be her name. Since I couldn't choose I told him to go ahead and write the name he'd chosen on one cup and "Ashley's name" on the other. I figured if she didn't kick over my cup it was a moot point and I could stop wasting time dwelling on it. Well as luck would have it, she kicked over my cup so we laid there another couple hours while I finally chose her name. A lot of people ask where we got her name...I made it up. We like unique names, but nothing that is too crazy to try to spell or pronounce. Also, I've always loved how my mom's middle name is a combination of her parents first names. So I copied the idea for her first and middle names. Carleton (Tin) + Ashley (ley) = Tinley ...and Ash(ley) + Carle(ton) = Leyton (pronounced Layton). Our little munchkin was officially named the night before we went home...although I considered changing my mind several times. It's hard enough for me to decide what to order from a restaurant so you can probably imagine this was quite a challenge for me.
We were so ready to go home by Thursday morning, we were practically begging and standing in the hallway. It's been so nice being home with our little girl! Thank you to all those who stopped by!
birth stats:
weight: 7lbs 5.8 oz (down to 6.13 when we left the hospital)
length: 19 3/4 in
head circ: 14
