Keeping Up With The Wimberlys: May 2012

It was a busy Tuesday, running a few last minute errands, lunch with Chance, picking up around the house and packing our bags. We were all ready for the scheduled induction Wednesday morning! I got home with Ashlyn around 3 and we just played for a bit. I considered taking her out of yogurt, but wasn't quite feeling up to it. Around 4 I started having some contractions, but this was nothing new. They started coming a little more frequently, but still weren't all that intense. I called Chance anyway and told him to head home. My fear this whole time has been that I would go into labor and he would be at work and have to battle rush hour traffic to get to me! He got home around 5:30. The contractions were definitely frequent and seemed to be getting a little stronger. I started timing them. Chance cooked a pizza for dinner and something told me not to eat it. I am not sure if it was the fear of the heartburn that would likely result, or my body telling me no! Around 7 the contractions were 3-5 minutes apart and getting more painful. I called the on-call # and thank The Lord, Dr. Waldrep was on call! She called me back and told me to go ahead and come to labor and delivery and she would check me out. We called Gpa, Gma and Sarah and told them we would be heading to the hospital soon. It took us a little while to get packed up and Ashlyn ready, but we were on the road by 8:30. By this time, the contractions were getting intense. We got to the hospital around 9. (Funny side note: As we were driving, I asked Chance if we could say a prayer together as a family. I started praying out loud but a contraction interrupted me. I paused for a while and then said, "Sorry...that was a strong one!" Chance, maintaining his sense of humor said, "Ok, but can you hurry up and say Amen so I can open my eyes?" Cracked me up!) Anyway, we made it to the hospital, and I walked up to L&D while Chance waited for The Doyles to arrive to hand off Ashlyn. Dr. Waldrep was already at the hospital with another patient so she came in pretty quickly. She checked me and I was dilated to a 4. She wasted no time...nurse put in IV, Anesthesiologist came in and put in my epidural, Dr. Waldrep came back and broke my water (another fear...that my water would break in public...thank goodness it didn't because I had a LOT of water!) and put in an internal pressure monitor to measure the strength of the contractions. She also put me in a position called "the pretzel" that would help along the contractions. Another side note...not quite as funny...I slept in the pretzel position almost every night!! Oops! Gma, Gpa and Aunt Sarah were there and they hung out with Ashlyn for a bit. She started getting tired so Karen and Sarah took her home around 10. Mimi and PaJ got there around 11. Dr. Waldrep came back in just a little after midnight (after she delivered the baby next door) and checked me again. She said, "You're complete! Let's have this baby!" I was shocked! They prepped me and it was go time! I started pushing around 12:15. My contractions fizzled out for about 10 minutes, but then picked back up. Paxton started coming out face up so Dr. Waldrep had to turn him over. Felt weird, but not painful. Another side note...I had the absolute best experience with my epidural. I felt not one ounce of pain, but was completely able to move my legs. I didn't go through that awkward unnumbing phase either. It was awesome! Paxton Doyle Wimberly was born at 12:55 am on May 30, 2012 weighing 8lbs 8 ounces and measuring 21 1/4 inches long. He started crying immediately and scored a 9/10 on his Apgar test (which is excellent for a vaginal delivery!). He has a head full of dark brown hair and dark blue eyes. He is absolutely beautiful! I had a few complications following delivery. My placenta took a while to deliver and then I started bleeding pretty heavily. Once your placenta delivers, your uterus is supposed to contract to close off all of the open vessels from where the placenta was attached. Mine didn't which caused very heavy bleeding. They had to give me two different medications and do a fundal (uterine) massage...not comfortable even with the epidural. During my almost 4 years of going to her, I have never seen Dr. Waldrep worried and she seemed a little concerned. It took about 30 minutes to get it under control, but she finally did. Needless to say I lost quite a lot of blood. I had barely enough energy to nurse Paxton before he went to the newborn nursery to get his first bath and another check-up. I also had a raging headache. But I was on cloud 9! They took me to the postpartum unit on a stretcher because I couldn't even get in a wheelchair! They got me settled into my new room, I ate a few crackers and had a Sprite, fed Paxton once more then sent him back to the nursery around 5 am. I was in no shape to take care of him and needed a little sleep. I slept until about 7 then was ready for him to come back! All in all, it was an incredible, indescribable experience. Welcome to our family Paxton Doyle!