Life Update – Baby Girl Is Here

On August 24, 2017 our baby girl was born in Austin, Texas. I was at 40 weeks and 4 days. It was also the day Hurricane Harvey hit Texas. Here’s my story about the last 2 weeks…

Labor

Labor couldn’t have gone better. My water broke on Wednesday, August 23 at 8:45 pm when I was sitting on the floor at home and felt like I had just peed myself. Contractions had not started. I called my doctor’s nurse and was told to head to the hospital as infections can occur after the water breaks. We could take our time though. So I took a shower, we finished packing and an hour later went to the hospital, 5 minutes away. I was nervous.

They put me in a triage room (the temporary room), to confirm that in fact, my water had broken. Then I was moved to a labor and delivery room where the contractions started to get more and more painful. There was no way I was going to get any sleep and it seemed like it was going to be a very long night. I wanted to go natural, as in no epidural or meds.

To distract myself, I tried watching some TV on the laptop but by midnight I was shaking too much, hyperventilating from the pain, I was only at about 1.5 cm and it was going to be several hours until anything happened. I couldn’t go on like that. So we ordered an epidural. With modern medicine, why suffer in vain?

Paul, the anesthesiologist came around 1 am, gave me the epidural, which wasn’t very painful for having a needle stuck in your spinal cord, and almost immediately after, the nurse said: “you’re having a contraction.” And I was like “I am?” .. Man, this epidural is awesome. I slept until 6 am, when Kelsey, the nurse, came to check my progress. She said, “hm, I can’t find your cervix.” So another nurse came in to double check, and she was like “yup, she’s at 10.” 10 cms. Which means go time. They were kinda surprised. So, I slept through the contractions and it was great.

I’m not a morning person so I was quite sleepy and tired and was worried because I thought I didn’t have any energy for the next step. Pushing. They said they’d hold off on the pushing until 7 am because my OB doctor was in surgery.

Nurse shift change occurred at 7 am, and Becca, was my new nurse. She coached me into getting a head start in pushing before my OB came. I think we started around 7:30 am. I couldn’t feel a thing down there because of the epidural but she told me I was doing great. A little while later the OB arrived. I pushed for what felt like just a couple more minutes, and suddenly there was a baby on my belly (no longer in it). At 8:09 am, our healthy baby girl was born.

6lbs 7oz & 19 inches. Or 2.9 kg & 48cm.

I couldn’t believe how fast and relatively easy it went. The OB came and went in like 10 minutes. When he basically threw a crying baby into my abdomen, it was totally unexpected. It happened SO fast! I believe I loudly said: “really?”.

Overnight(s) Stay

That night we were transferred to the postpartum room where we stayed for two nights. The pain those days was worse than the actual labor haha. Had a second-degree tear with episiotomy. OB’s decision to do the episiotomy. But they kept me on the clock with Motrin and Tylenol. And lots of ice packs.

But both me and baby were healthy. We had zero complications all throughout the pregnancy. Very grateful for that.

We only had a few visitors, which was good too.

The first night home

The night we got home, it was stormy and windy from Harvey and the power went out in our area for 9 hours. I was up at night with candles nursing by the window, watching the storm. It felt like a scene from the 1900s.

But we were lucky. We only got hit with winds and rain. Check out the map of where Harvey actually hit:

It barely missed Austin.

Back at the hospital

Today it’s been 2 weeks and 5 days since she was born. And it has been a rollercoaster. Not easy, to be honest. But nobody said it was going to be. The first week was brutal. I was feeling exhausted and just plain bad.

By the end of the first week I was back at the hospital with a fever of 103F…

On Wednesday, August 30, I woke up with a fever of 101. My husband wanted to take me to the hospital, but we waited it out. I slept and several hours later, the fever increased and he was like “that’s it we’re going to the hospital.” But I refused. In my mind I just needed rest. I felt so bad I just didn’t want to even bother going to the hospital. He called my doctor’s nurse and handed it over to me, and she said to go to the hospital. So we went. I should’ve listened to my husband.

I had been feeling under the weather for several days but I thought it was simply from sleep deprivation. It turns out my body was trying to fight something and couldn’t do it on its own, as it usually does. So the fever got out of hand.

At the ER they moved me to Labor and Delivery. I was back in the exact same triage room from a week ago.

After a few hours of testing, several blood cultures from both arms, a uterus exam, and other things, they could not figure out the source of the fever/infection. This concerned the doctors so they moved me to a room in Postpartum for the night where they put me on broad spectrum IV antibiotics. The nurse called it “the big guns”. They would attack any kind of internal infection. By noon next day, I was discharged without a fever and with a prescription to continue taking antibiotics for 10 days.

It was a mystery fever. But infections are no joke and can kill people in 24 hours. They didn’t treat my fever lightly, like I wrongly did at first.

You don’t get fevers from sleep deprivation. But it does cause your immune system to weaken.

The second week

The second week was a bit better because I could feel the big difference between being very tired and very sick and tired.

It’s still a struggle getting into the rhythm of things, basically because there is no rhythm. But I know this part is temporary and should get easier, aka with more sleep and more time to do things.

Luckily, my mom left a bunch of cooked food before she left back to Mexico City about 5 days ago. She was also very helpful during the first week, helping me with the house, cooking, cleaning, and taking care of the baby while I napped in between feedings.

Hubby took a week off work plus the following Monday which was Labor Day. My mom left last Thursday morning, so that day was my first day by myself at home with the baby.

Baby girl is the sweetest and a bundle of joy. The best part is when she smiles, and all her funny noises.

I can’t believe I am a mom.