The Story of Sully
Saturday, November 20th
Monday, November 22nd
I was just over 36 weeks pregnant and I really was not feeling well. I have Mondays off so I was at home feeling dizzy and nauseated with a lot of Braxton-Hicks contractions (I had been getting them for about 2 weeks prior to that). Clayton was not feeling well either and we assumed it was something we ate over the weekend. That night, the vomitting started. I never had vomitting in the first trimester like most people did and I sure paid for it that night. I had about 4 vomitting episodes, I was unable to keep anything down or sleep. My BH contractions were really intense now and I was having a constant pain in my abdomen. I really did not think this was labor as I still had 3 1/2 weeks to go. But, I knew I was getting dehydrated and had Clayton take me the the ER for fluids and antinausea medication. I was there for about 5 hours and I did feel better after the fluids and Zofran. I was 1 cm and 50% effaced at that time.
Tuesday, November 23rd
I stayed home from work that day as I was still feeling off. I had major body aches and the sweats. I felt even worse that day than the previous day but at least I keeping liquids down. At that point, I decided I was staying home the rest of the week. No way was I going to tough it out at work the way I was feeling and being super huge pregnant.
Wednesday, November 24th
I slept most of the day and I was starting to feel better. No vomitting and only a few BH contractions.
Thursday, November 25th (Thanksgiving Day)
We spent the holiday at Clayton's Mom and Dave's house. I was feeling pretty good and definitely ate too much. After dinner, I remember sitting on the recliner thinking, "I am feeling strange again. I don't think I am going to make it to my due date." (My due date was December 19th)
Friday, November 26th
I got up and was not feeling sick so I felt silly being home from work. I decided since I was feeling ok, I was going to get the Christmas decorations up. I got the tree in the dining room up and put up the other dining room/kitchen decorations when I realized I really needed a nap. So I layed down on the couch. I was woken up about an hour later with a call from Clayton. He needed my social security number for something but I could not answer him, my brain was not functioning and I couldn't say anything but "ummmm, yeah, ummmm, I don't know." It was so weird, I swore I was having a TIA. Anyway, I hung up the phone and tried to fall back to sleep but, of course, I had to pee so I got up to go to the bathroom. When I sat up, I felt a gush and ran to the bathroom. There was no doubt about it, my water broke. (Thank God I stayed home that day) It was 2:30 pm. I called my doctor's office and they told me to go to L&D. I called Clayton and he headed home. I showered, packed my hospital bag and grabbed the baby bag. When Clayton got home he was rushing around, getting some clothes together for himself, installing the car seat base in the car. We left for the hospital around 3:45 pm. I was getting a few contractions but they didn't really hurt. Once I got checked into the hospital and into my room, they checked me and I was 3 cm and 75% effaced. I dawned on me that this was really happening. Since I wasn't having real regular contractions, they gave me the option of starting Pitocin or walking around to get things going more. I chose the walking, I really did not want Pitocin because then I knew I would need an epidural. So we walked and walked and walked. My contractions picked up and became really regular. Below is me at about 10:15 pm that night at about 6 cm.
Saturday, November 27th
By about 4 am, I was 9 1/2 cm, fully effaced and still doing well with the pain. Unfortunately, my contractions dropped off and my progress stalled. By 10 am, I was still at 9 1/2 cm. According to the doc (which was not my doctor), I was not progressing because either he was too big to come out or my contractions were not strong enough to get him out so I needed Pitocin. Booo, Hisssss! I was not happy about this and now I was starving, tired and starting to have a lot of pain. I wanted an epidural if they were going to start Pitocin but this doctor would not let me get one until my contractions were regular again. So Pitocin was started at about 10:30 am. Finally, they let me get the epidural at 1 pm and it was HEAVEN!!! I took a little nap and at 2 pm, I was actually at 10 cm!!!!!! It would not be long now, I thought (fool). And so the pushing began at 2 pm, almost 24 hours after the whole process started with my water breaking. I pushed, and pushed, and pushed and pushed some more until I was positive my eyes were going to pop out of my head. About an hour after I started pushing, that heavenly epidural wore off. Completely. I begged and pleaded for some more meds to be pushed into the epidural but it was no use, the epidural was not working at all and I still had this baby inside me! Alright, fine, I will just push through the pain. Getting him out was the only thing that was going to end this horror. So I pushed and pushed for another 1 1/2 hours with no results. I swore a lot. So many F-bombs. At that point, I had hit my limit. I was done. It was 4:30 pm. I refused to push anymore and the C-section was set into motion with a flutter of activity- blood drawn, Clayton donned the OR gear, the anesthsiologist came back (and became my best friend again). I remember telling Clayton to get the camera but he was way to flustered and said he could not find it (are you serious?!?!). As they wheeled me into the OR, my mom, dad, aunt Val and niece, Harlie had arrived and were walking to my room. I got to see them before getting into the OR and that was comforting. Once in the OR, they set up the scene with the drape and strapped my arms down. The surgery began. At 5:27 pm, I heard his cry for the first time. Then they held him to the side of the drape so we could see him and he looked like, well, he looked like a blueberry. He was totally blue with lots of curly black hair and crying and the anesthesiologist must have seen the horror on our faces because he quickly reassured us that he looked perfectly normal and will pink up quickly. And he did. It seemed like only a few minutes and I was in the recovery room and my family was allowed in. Here are the proud grandparents meeting the little man for the first time!
We were so exhausted, we were taken to our new room, sent the baby to the nursery and basically passed out. We could not even name him yet but we did think he looked like a Sully. We decided to sleep on it.
Sunday, November 28th
We officially named him Sullivan James. We always knew the middle name would be James (after my grandpa, it is also my brother's middle name). About 5 minutes after we officially named him, the visitors arrived and we were able to share his name with our family.
Tuesday, November 30th
A picture of us right before leaving the hospital and beginning our new life!
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