Midget Invasion: Her royal highness turns 4

4 years ago today I gave birth to my first little princess. A child that knows what she wants in life, and has let people know that from the minute she was born. We knew we were in trouble from the very beginning. Most babies calm down a few minutes after they are born and settle into that quiet and alert phase, or they sleep. Not our princess! The hospital would leave you alone with the baby for the first hour to bond before they took them to be cleaned up and all that stuff. Well, little Miss Lindsay cried for the entire hour after she was born. I was so relieved when they came to take her away!

Her birth story since I am feeling a bit sentitmental this morning:

On November 19th I had my last appointment with my OB and he agreed to induce. Jeremy flew in the night of the 20th very late. We got up at 5 a.m. and I drove myself to the hospital. Already having a few contractions, like I had been having for the past few weeks, that didn't go anywhere. We got to the hospital at 6 and checked into L&D. Since I was the first one there, I was hooked up to the pitocin and things were moving by 6:15. Since I had already been contracting a bit on my own, it didn't take long for the contractions to get regular.

Around 9, a nurse came in to do a blood pressure check, and when she did got a singsong voice and said "it's a bit high, we are going to just give you some medicine to help." later I found out "a bit high" was 150/100 and "some medicine" was magnesium sulfate, which is evil stuff. The singsong voice was apparently to keep us from freaking out about how dangerous things actually were.

Around 10:30 the OB came in and broke my water. Which hurt. I think Jeremy about had a cow when he saw the tool they use to do that kind of thing. The contractions really picked up after that and it didn't take me long to ask for an epidural. They finally got that in around 11:30. (just a side note-they didn't check how far dilated I was when they gave it to me, the nurse just threw out a guess based on what I was when the OB had broken my water. I think she said I was about a 6.) I sat happy for about 30 minutes, then started to feel this searing pain about where my pubic bone is. I buzzed the nurse, and they brought the anesthesiologist back in, who had a little vial with him that he dumped down the epi line. Then I really was numb. Normally with an epi, you can still feel your stomach tightening a little, but now I couldn't feel a thing.

At 12:30 a nurse comes in to finally put my catheter in. (exciting!) As she lifts my gown up, this look of shock/horror crosses her face and she goes "Oh my gosh there is the baby's head!" Then suddenly my room was the place to be. It seemed like there were a billion nurses in there running around like chicken with their heads cut off. Every once in a while one of them would look at me and say "Don't push." As if I was secretly pushing when they weren't looking or something. Finally, someone locates the dr. who rushes in and gets into position. He thought he was being funny when he held out his hands like he was going to catch a football and said "Hike!" So I pushed even though I couldn't feel a thing. I didn't even have to push that hard. 3 pushes and at 1:01 p.m. there she was! It was kind of a weird experience being that numb, I felt more like a spectator than a woman having birth. But then they placed this warm and gooey baby on my chest and I had a daughter.

A proud daddy holds his new daughter