ok, it's time to explain.

dear team,

well, here we are on day 9 of Tillie Mae's life. Feeling good. Ready to type. Ready to explain the whole labor/delivery situation that took place. I feel like I have TOLD the story a billion times, and if you have heard it already, feel free to skip ahead and just look at the darling photos of our sweet baby cakes. Okay? okay.

So, here's the 411:
Wednesday 6:30 a.m. -- alarm went off to wake Aaron up for school and I was already awake feeling killer contractions in my back. (mind you, I was used to the whole contraction situation, they had been going on for days (some braxton hicks, others timed out and were bad, but they kept stopping after an hour or two)---these ones were so bad they would wake me up and it was shooting pain in my back too. So, I get up with Aaron and we pull out the clock to start timing. Sure enough, they were going every 5 minutes, on the dot.

7:00 a.m. -- I reluctantly let Aaron go to school and he has his phone ready to answer the second I dare call. (we were told to not start going anywhere until the pain was so bad that I couldn't talk/do anything during the contraction, so he went).

8:00 a.m. -- called the Dr. on call at my dr's office and she told me to not stress until I go to my appointment at 10:30 and can be checked by my doctor... that is, unless I didn't feel I could wait any longer. She also said to get a ride ready, just in case.

8:30ish a.m. -- call Kajsa to be on stand by. So sad that I woke her up, but I thought it was better to give her a head's up rather than call last minute for a plea to take me to the hospital.

waiting. waiting waiting. Contractions, still every 5 minutes exactly. Aaron was able to speed through one of his labs and be home by 9:45 to take me to my appointment. Kajsa was off the hook, Aaron was by my side... feeling good (Except for the contractions, of course).

10:30 a.m. -- Dr. said that I had not dilated any more (still at a 1, grrr! and had been for the last two weeks), but I was 90% effaced. She told me that she could have me admitted next door at the hospital then, but thought it would be better for me to "labor" at home where I could still eat and drink and be more comfortable. But, she did reassure me that we would be having a baby within 24 hours and if nothing else, she would see me the next morning around 7:00. !!! We left feeling relieved and celebrated with a Chicken Breast fillet sandwich & Frosty at Wendy's (I had to gear up! who knew? it could have been my last meal for a while!).

12:00 p.m. -- Aaron drops me off at home, gets me settled and goes back to school for a quiz. Nice. Kajsa, again, is on standby. My mom is freaking out in Alpine and I am still dying over the contractions.

I watched Gidget Goes Hawaiian and ate some food... tried to get comfortable and waited.

5:15ish p.m. -- Aaron gets home from school. The contractions are worse now, but I can still barely talk. We call the Dr. on call, and she said it is wise for me to come in.

6:30 p.m. -- Check into hospital. The nurse who had to see if I was "fit to be checked in" was SUPER rough and grrrr!---I wanted to give her a piece of my mind. Let's just say I was SOOO mad and ready to bite her head off. Fortunately, she saw that I was in mega pain and decided that they would admit me. And did I mention she gave me some morphine? I felt much better after that, and for some reason, wasn't so mad anymore.

More labor. More ouch-ness. Cried a bunch. Waiting. Meanwhile, the pain was getting REALLY bad. The morphine had worn off and finally at around 1:30 a.m. they checked me and saw that I was 100% effaced and had finally dilated to a 3. Now I was a candidate for an epidural. YeSsss PLeAsE! Ok, what do people do without an epidural??? I mean, it was amazing!!! I kept thanking the anesthesiologist and praising her name. It didn't hurt at ALL! She was incredible (found out later she had been doing it for 18 years. Love that). The medicine was incredible. And the pain just slowly went away. Love that. After that I was able to go to SLEEP! So nice, and Aaron slept too. Suddenly this labor stuff wasn't so bad.

8:00 a.m. -- My doctor came to check on me and was right. We were definitely going to be having a baby within her said time-line. Love that. She was really nice and super aware of me. Throughout the span of the morning, she kept checking back and looking at my progress for herself (even though she had appointments all morning). We were making SLOW progress. By that time I was only at a 4 or 5. She decided to give me some pitocin to see if we could speed things along.

Sometime later I was killing on my left side. Thinking the epidural had worn off, we upped my dose... but later realized that it was my sciatic nerve having a ... something? it was KILLING. I think it was worse than any of the pain that the contractions were giving me. And the epidural wasn't deadening the pain at all. So, that stunk. I kept making Aaron rub it as hard as he could---later I saw that I had a major bruise. :) Thanks honey.

1:30 p.m. -- Are you tired yet? Yeah, we were too. 30 hours had came and went... still no baby in sight. The doctor came back in, checked me out... I was dilated to a 9 and the baby was "very low" but it was crazy that I had moved so slowly. My contractions weren't strong enough, and the doctor said that my body was going to need to compensate for it and push even harder to get the baby out. Nice. Tell that to me after 30 hours. I was exhausted and felt like I was ready to die. Tell me that I was going to have an even harder time than most to get the baby out.

Then the doctor realized that the baby was actually occiput posterior (aka sunny side up), meaning that she was facing my belly button instead of my spine. Hence, the reason my body didn't want to deliver her. So, seeing the whole situation, she decided that we were going to go ahead and have a c-section. My body had been working so hard and even though the baby's heart beat was still so strong and constant, she worried that there could be major complications if I tried to deliver her vaginally. So, c-section it was.

Aaron and I were a little sad, but I think mostly relieved. Poor Aaron had been glued to the monitors watching to see if my contraction levels were getting higher to no avail. We were glad that they were finally going to get this little one out!

2:00 p.m. -- Aaron went to change into a white willy wonka jumpsuit (looked SO handsome) they shoved a beautiful blue cap on my head (Gag, nice pictures, eh? It was about ready to fall off when Aaron took some pictures of me, so beautiful). And they pumped a different kind of medicine in me and took me to the O.R. By this time we were on our third anesthesiologist and he was really nice. Offered to take lots of pictures to record the event and was very friendly. My dr. had another dr. come into assist so she could help push the baby up from the the birth canal (or something down there) while my doctor pulled her out from my belly!... and the NICU team was on hand because apparently the baby had already pooped inside of me and they were worried about that. I love that the staff were counting all the tools to make sure that none of them got stitched up inside of me. (ps - this is aaron - i got to be there the whole time and watch them pull matilda out; then pull out melissa's uterus, fallopian tubes, ovaries and all; then pull the placenta out of the uterus. it was crazy seeing melissa's uterus completely outside of her body!)

2:33 p.m. -- Yep, that was the time of Matilda Mae's birth. She was finally here. The nurses all exclaimed that she had a head full of red hair. (yeah, it has a little bit red tint, in the sunlight, but definitely isn't red red. kind of funny). She had a major divot in her head from being down so low, but it went back to normal shape after a few hours. She cried. Aaron was crying and saying "Oh my goodness!" and I was in shock. Happy shock, but really was just... in a weird state. (Any moms out there know what I am talking about??) So relieved, however, that she was here and they said she looked great!

***YOU MADE IT! *** That was the story. After 31 hours of labor (yes, we are counting EVERY single hour) Tillie Mae came to us. 8 pounds, 2 ounces and 20.3 inches. She is perfect. She is totally perfect. We love her SOOO much and spend lots of time crying out of the blue because we are so overwhelmed at her perfect-ness. She is beautiful and we are so happy she is ours. I love that I get to kiss her as much as I want!

Aaron is so great with her. She always seems to stop crying when he holds her. She sneezes in twos, just like her dad. Her toes are crazy long... looking like mini mini fingers, just like her dad. (seriously, it is nuts...I am going to take pictures to prove my point).


Basically we love her more than we ever could have imagined. So, go ahead and enjoy these pictures of her in what I fondly call the "Lace and Ribbons with Chef Hat photo shoot." Enjoy.
love our family of three.

"is it hot in here?"

"you want me to cook? but I am so little."

"shake-ah-shake-ah I'm a little bake-ah! i can't stop!"
(these are things I imagine are going through her little head).