April 20, 2012

Introducing ...

Miss Daphne Rose Angelus
Born April 20, 2012 at 8:32 am
7 pounds 8 ounces, 20.5 inches

Daphnes's Birth Story:

October 11, 2011:
 So here's the birth plan; myself, my hubby and my wonderful doctor are all on board for our amazing baby girl (name still has not been chosen) to be born via VBAC (Vaginal Birth After Cesarean). I am so super excited and super scared. The only thing that could stand in my way of a VBAC is if I do not go into labor on my own by April 21st.
 

April 30, 2012:
Yay! On April 19th at about 5:30 in the morning I began to feel contractions. They were mild but still quite painful. Dean was still sound asleep and I didn't wake him. I timed my contractions and they were about 11 minutes apart, I knew we still had alot of time before even calling the doctors office. My doctor instructed me to call when my contractions were 8 minutes apart for 1 hour. I guess typically it would be 6 minutes but since we're tying for a VBAC they want me in sooner. So around 7am my contractions did start coming at 8 minutes. I called in and they told me to go ahead and go check into the Hospital. As we waited for my mom and aunt to get to our house to watch Athena for us, my contractions died down, alot. We were back to 11 minutes. I called my OB/GYN's office and they suggested for me to wait til they are back to 8 minutes to go to the hospital. I decided on my own to wait til they were 6 minutes apart.

At 10:30 my contractions were coming 6 minutes apart, but I still held off on going to the hospital. I just wanted to be sure this time.  I found this text between my best friend and me and thought it was pretty funny.

10:45am
K: "Any progress"
C: "At 6 mins apart, called doc and they said to head to Hoag, I'm gonna finish up laundry first then head out"

We finally left the house around 2:30pm and went to Hoag Hospital in Newport Beach. When we arrived at the hospital they couldn't determine whether to admit me or send me home. They decided to check if my bags of water had broken. While sitting on the hospital bed it suddenly appeared as though my water had just broke. So they admitted me.

From this point on things moved very very slow. Also turns out my water didn't break, only sprung a small leak. Also at this point we still had not picked out a first name. We knew her middle name would be Rose but could not determine a first. We had narrowed it down to; Pamela, Daphne, Josephine or Penelope.   

8:15pm my water broke and contractions were 3 minutes apart (Yay!!) BUT I was only dilated 3cm (Booo!)

And now we're into the next day.
April 20

5:15am I reached 9cm, the epidural was in and I only had 1cm more to go.

I was very excited when 8am finally came, no more on call doctor, my awesome wonderful doctor had started her shift. Yay!! Don't get me wrong, the on call was great, but he just wasn't my doctor. I had been feeling quite nervous up to this point that she wouldn't make it in time. Being that I was attempting a VBAC, I really wanted MY doctor. Plus the on call doctor looked a bit too much like my bestfriends husband (lol). I cannot ever say enough how great this doctor is. She's like having a really close friend as your doctor. She knows my history, she's been with me through the whole pregnancy and she knew how much I really really wanted to accomplish a VBAC and did not want another C-Section. I love how much she also wanted me to have a VBAC.

8:00am 10cm! The nurses wanted me to do a couple practice pushes, after the first one they frantically said for me to stop. The baby was so low that if I would have did another practice push, she would have been out before my doctor came in from prepping.

8:10am Time to start pushing. I only had to push for 22 minutes and at 8:32am our adorable little angel was here. :) Everything was so wonderful and I felt great. Of course there was pain and exhaustion, but it was all masked by the overwhelming joy. I love that the moment she was born I was able to hold her in my arms. It was such a treasured moment.  Ridiculously in love with our new baby girl.

April 21, 2012

1:00pm We still haven't picked a name yet. :/ The hospital is ready to release us but we can't leave til we name our little one. Why oh why is this so hard?? At this point it's narrowed down to Pamela Rose or Daphne Rose. Pamela to be named after my mom, the only thing holding us back on that is my mom doesn't even like the name. We do love the name Daphne, but unfortunately (for some crazy reason) no one seems to be able to pronounce it correctly. I keep hearing people say Daff-a-nee instead of Daff-nee, and I think that will drive me crazy. Oh the pressure to name her was so bad, I almost wanted to stay another day at the hospital to give me more time. I know crazy right. We couldn't come up with a name in 9 months and somehow I thought that if we just had one more day we would be able to pick a name.

1:45pm We finally got to leave the hospital and take our baby Daphne Rose home :)

It's really strange now looking back, not too long ago I didn't think I was ever going to be blessed with children and now here I am with two itty bitty's that are only 17 months apart in age from each other. So much fun is up ahead for us. :)

~ Christi



 


 

November 30, 2010

Introducing ...

Miss Athena Korinne Angelus
Born November 30, 2010 at 11:42 am
6 pounds 14 ounces, 19 inches

Athena's Birth Story:
On the morning of November 29th Dean and I were lying in bed when all of a sudden I felt my water break. So many emotions ran through us both. Excitement and fear were at the top . I called my doctor's office and they told me to go to the hospital and check in. I remembered from the classes we took that technically we had a bit of time to spare. So we showered, got ready and headed out. Along the way we stopped to grab some food. We knew there was a chance that we'd be in for a loooong day (and we were). We were both surprisingly calm.

We arrived at Hoag Hospital in Newport Beach and checked in. They had me sit on what looked to me like a puppy potty training pad for a while to make sure that my bags of water really had broke. And yes it did. So we moved into our room overlooking the beautiful ocean in Newport Beach and  began the long waiting game. As soon as I was admitted, the nurses were hooking me up to machines and IV's and later I found out that they gave me Pitocin. Really wish they would have ran that by me first, I would have held off for a bit to see how I would progress naturally.

It wasn't until the evening that I finally started feeling contractions strong enough to ask for the good stuff (the epidural), unfortunately I hadn't dilated enough yet. So instead they offered me Morphine. Which I took and then regretted. It really helped the pains stemming from the contractions but boy did it make me sick. Finally during the night I was dilated enough for the epidural. Once I received it, it was naptime. :)  Throughout the night the nurses checked in on me and my progress, but unfortunately dilation slowed down and Athena's heart rate was now causing concerns. They said it's natural for the baby's heart rate to decrease during a contraction but should immediately return to normal once the contraction had ended. Athena's was taking too long to return to normal. The on call doctor came in and told me that he'll allow us to hold out a little bit longer but he thought that a c-section was in order. I honestly was very upset and sadden by this. I had spent the last nine months feeling anti- c-section and constantly keeping my doctor aware that I DO NOT want a c-section. And now I'm being told this might be the only way to deliver our little baby. Dean and my mother were so amazing, they knew how I felt and just kept reminding me of the bigger picture. This little human being that I've longed for for 5 years is going to arrive very soon and it really doesn't matter how she gets here, as long as she is safe and healthy. They were able to really help me prepare emotionally for the inevitable c-section. A couple of hours went by and there had not been any changes. By this time my actual doctor had started his shift and had popped in a couple times to prepare me for a c-section.

On November 30th at about 10:30 am the nurses took Dean and I to surgery to prep us both. Dean got to wear the very  fashionable hat, gown and mask ( I got to be fashionable too with a blue shower cap like hat). I wish I could say that the c-section experience was great and it wasn't as bad as I had anticipated. But sadly I cannot. Surgically, there weren't any problems, the procedure itself went very well. The doctor went in, got Athena out, sewed me up and all was well. The only problem was that due to meds, and nerves, I was so so very sick during the whole thing. So there I am, arms tied down, giant curtain in front of me (so I can't see what's going on), and I'm dry heaving. Laying on your back unable to move while feeling the urge to throw up, is not so fun. It was awful. In addition I had the shakes like you wouldn't believe! The nurses kept putting more and more blankets on me (which made me feel a little suffocated), but the blankets were not helping. I could not stop shaking. I had Dean and the anesthesiologist (I think that's who he was) sitting at the head of me trying so hard to help me out. Finally at 11:42am my doctor announced that he had her out. Oh the joy! I still wasn't feeling good but hearing him say this was just the most wonderful thing I had heard all day. I was super excited and couldn't wait to see and hold little Athena.

When they brought Athena to us, I was still feeling woozy and very shaking, I was so afraid that I would drop her so instead I asked them to give her to Dean. He was such and amazing and proud daddy. I absolutely loved seeing our tiny little bundle of love resting peacefully in his arms. Once I was in recovery our nurse handed Athena off to me. We had a very peaceful and tender moment and it was so very thrilling :) So so so in love with this little girl.

~ Christi

We're Back

So after basically abandoning the blog for a very long time and then forgetting the log in information, we are back. Hopefully I wont be such a blog slacker anymore.
When I eventually remembered my log in information, I found a few post that I had written but never posted. Two of them I will now post. They are the birth stories of my two beautiful daughters. I can't believe that I left them as drafts for all this time. Anyway, here they are.
~ Christi