On Monday, September 24, I attended a meeting for work. People could not believe that I was 9 weeks pregnant and due on Friday. Parker had still not shown any signs that he was ready to come, so I gladly helped stack chairs and set up the tables for the meeting. Monday night came and went, and I woke up Tuesday with horrible allergies. I got dressed for work as usual but as it got closer to leaving for work, I felt worse and with John's encouragement I took the day off. All day long, I had a shadow. Mercedes followed me everywhere and even had to sit on top of me. She seemed extra needy, and although it seemed different, I didn't think much into it because I thought it was cute. When John came home from work he was telling me how his boss was raving about a Chinese restaurant that is near our house. Although John and I have tried this restaurant before and would give it a one-star rating, many people we know love it. Since neither of us were in the mood to cook, we decided we would give this restaurant one more try. We took Mercedes for her nightly walk (nightly walks began with my desire to encourage Parker to come!), ordered our carry out, (My secretary had told me just the week before that the night she ate Chinese food, she delivered her son. I had also read that spicy food brings on labor. So, I ordered Hunan Chicken - very spicy!) and then went and picked up our food.
John set our table and lit the candles....he said we never know when our next candle lit dinner would be! As we ate, Parker kicked me every now and again; John kept saying that was Parker's way of telling me he didn't like spicy food! Sadly, neither John nor I changed our opinion of the restaurant. John's General Tso's chicken lacked flavor, and my Hunan Chicken, although very spicy, lacked flavor and excitement. We finished dinner and watched the new episode of NCIS in bed; I quickly fell asleep afterwards and John went to take a shower. The next thing I knew, I woke up and felt a small gush of liquid leaving me. I rolled over and said very calmly "hey John, I think my water broke." We both popped out of bed; I glanced at the clock and it was 9:57. I laughed as I walked to the bathroom, yet I was shaking with excitement and fear! As quickly as the gush came, that was as quickly as it ended. I did not know if my water had broken or if Parker had kicked my bladder and made me pee. Luckily Arkansas is one hour behind us so Nicki was still awake and she had just gone through this about 4 weeks ago. So of course I called her to ask if she thought my water had broken. She told me to lay down for 30 more minutes to see if it happened again; obviously she stayed on the phone with me to see what happened. Meanwhile, John was downloading a stopwatch for his iPad to time the contractions (contractions that were not any stronger than I had been having in the days prior), and Mercedes just followed us around, looking at us with the saddest eyes I have ever seen. Well, I didn't need to wait 30 minutes, within 15 minutes I felt another small gush. YUP, my water was breaking. We hung out at home for a bit and finally around 11:20 pm we decided to head to Riverside.
We followed the yellow signs and knew we needed to take the yellow elevator to the third floor. We laughed as we walked into the hospital because there was no one around. We stepped into the elevator and thought we pressed level 3. To our surprise the elevator went down and we were at Ground level! Once again, there was no one near us and when we tried to press 3 for the third floor, nothing happened! Luckily John was still thinking clearly and realized we had gotten into a staff elevator and needed a key card to make the elevator work. Eventually someone in scrubs at the end of the hall started walking towards us asking if we needed help. He politely showed us the elevators that would work!
Finally, we made it to the third floor, checked in, and waited for a nurse to check me over. She confirmed that my water had broken but also said my water had not broken completely. We were eventually taken to our room and I was hooked up to an IV (I had Strep B and they wanted me to have at least 2-3 doses of the antibiotic. Each one took 4 hours to go through the IV). By this time, we had called both of our parents and told them our exciting news. My mom had been sound asleep and my dad was just heading to bed when we told them we were at the hospital. They quickly woke up, headed our way, and arrived at Riverside around 3:10 am. John's parents had been in town staying at his sister's house, so they arrived around 1:30 am.
We had a lot of waiting around with little progression. I was pretty much stuck at 3 cm and they were not going to do anything to make things progress faster until I had the antibiotics. Although we had a long time of sitting around, I passed the time by watching the heart rate and contraction monitors, and emailing my student's parents to let them know that I would not be in "today" because I was in labor, as well as trying to set up a substitute! Eventually my contractions intensified and I asked for the epidural. I was terrified of getting an epidural- more so than I was for the actual labor! With two great nurses and an amazing husband, I survived having the epidural put in place.
My hips, legs, and feet quickly had a tingly sensation and I could not move them on my own, yet I could still wiggle my toes. For those of you who know me well, I like having control :) So, not being able to control my hips, legs, and feet was incredibly uncomfortable. At one point the nurse asked me to move backwards and I just laughed! I couldn't move!! John had to move me!
Around 10:30 am the doctor on call came in and broke my water the rest of the way. Things really moved quickly afterwards. My contractions were back to being almost unbearable. John had his stopwatch out on the iPad and every 15 minutes I pushed the button for more of the epidural; only one problem arose: the epidural was not doing anything for the pain. John went and got our nurse. She came in to check me out and call for the anesthetist so I could have more of the medicine put in. When the nurse checked me out, she said I had gone from 3 cm to 10 and she could see Parker's head! They called my doctor, so he could come to Riverside. While we waited for Dr. Melillo to arrive, the nurse had me push twice. I asked her how I did, and she said my pushes were okay, but I could do better. That was not what I wanted to hear. Dr. Melillo arrived around 11:30; he was as happy and excited as ever! He had me push once and then we waited for what seemed like eternity. I thought he was waiting to have me push on a contraction, but our wait exceeded the time between my contractions. Then, the pediatrician walked into our room and Dr. M had me push once more and at 11:39 am, Parker Scott Young came out crying!
I remember crying with joy at the beautiful gift God had blessed us with and then being in shock at Parker's huge cone head! After I was able to hold Parker, they took him to weigh him and examine him. (they did all this in our room). When the nurse laid Parker on the scale, he grabbed the side of the bed with his hands and was kicking it with his feet! We certainly have one active son! Parker passed all the tests with flying colors!
On our way home!
My mom and dad came and stayed with me and John for about a week to help us out. Parker loved cuddling with Nana and Grumpy (yes, my dad wants to be called Grumpy- although he is FAR from being grumpy!). John and I loved all their help; they have been gone less than 24 hours and we miss them immensely!
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| On our way to Parker's first Pediatrician visit! |
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| Cuddling with Nana! |
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| Not so sure I want to get a bath! |
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| My bath wasn't so bad after all! |
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| Mercedes is always close by! |
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| I like to sleep with my hands by my head. |
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| Mercedes getting ready to give me another kiss....she does that a LOT! |
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| Sitting with Grumpy. |
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| I can pick up my head! |
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| Mercedes did tummy time too! |
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| John cuddling with Mercedes so she doesn't get too jealous! |
To my amazement, Parker is 12 days old! He has incredible strength in his neck, belly surfs during tummy time to move across the floor (he scoots by pushing with his feet but he doesn't use his arms!), loves to cuddle, and puts up with Mercedes kissing him every chance she gets! Although Parker is just 12 days old, it's hard to remember life without him! He is our little angel!
