Camden's Birth Story

On Tuesday morning I woke up to Maddie saying, "I want pancakes."  Eric had turned on Daniel Tiger for her right before he left for work and in this episode Daniel and his family were eating pancakes.  I told Maddie I'd make her pancakes on Saturday (which I did!) and asked her to come help me get her breakfast.

While I was getting Maddie's food ready, I had a contraction.  It was 7:47 AM.  I'd been having a ton of Braxton-Hicks contractions so I wasn't too terribly concerned about this one.  Five minutes later there was another one, followed by another one.  My doctor (and everyone else) had assured me that I would certainly know the difference between a real contraction and a Braxton-Hicks contraction.  The real ones would make me stop what I was doing and take my breath away.  These contractions weren't doing that, they were simply more uncomfortable than usual.  It was their regularity that caught my attention.

I decided, at the risk of sounding overly paranoid, to call Eric and let him know about these three contractions just in case with time they proved to be more significant.  I also called my mom and asked her if she would take Maddie to school for me.  I did not mention the contractions to her since I didn't know what was really going on.

My contractions came pretty regularly as I continued to get myself and Maddie ready for the day.  Finally around 8:30 I called Eric and told him that I thought we might need to head up to labor and delivery to be monitored.  I told him I was going to feel really dumb for pulling him away from work if these weren't real contractions, but I also knew I didn't want to have this baby at home.

By 9:15 Eric and I had finished packing our suitcase and were ready to head to the hospital.  At this point I had had a few contractions that were only three minutes apart.  Before we left our house, I made sure Eric took a picture of me with my pregnant belly, just in case this was the real deal.

When Eric and I arrived at the hospital, he quickly filled out the paperwork and we were taken back to triage.  By this time it felt as though my contractions had subsided and I was kind of embarrassed to be there.  I hate to be wrong, can you tell?  :)  After hooking me up to a couple of monitors, the resident left the room and Eric and I watched as the monitor began to register my contractions.  At this point the contractions started becoming a little more intense.

Shortly after monitoring began, the resident came back in the room and said he wanted to go ahead and check to see if I was making any progress.  It turns out I was already six centimeters dilated!  Suddenly we were talking about being admitted to the hospital and getting an epidural.  Eric sent out a text message to our families to let them know what was happening.  My mom's response:  R u serious?  I don't believe u.

A little after 9:45 I walked myself from triage to the labor and delivery room where I continued walking around as we waited for the anesthesiologist to arrive.  By the time he arrived I was in quite a bit of pain.  I wanted to tell him that I really didn't care about the risks and to just stick the needle in my back.  At 10:30 the anesthesiologist began inserting the epidural and I heard the nurse ask Eric if he was feeling okay.  Turns out Eric was getting nauseous and was asked to sit down.

After I finally began getting some relief from the epidural, my nurse was able to continue asking admission questions.  Shortly after that my doctor came in to visit and to see how I was progressing.  Surprisingly I was already at a 10.  Dr. F suggested doing a practice push to see if Camden was ready.  Turns out he was!  Dr. F never had the chance to leave the room.  As he got dressed in his delivery gear, a team of nurses entered the room.  At 11:15 I started pushing.  Four pushes later, on October 30th at 11:26 AM, Camden was born.  He was 20 inches long and weighed in at a whopping 9 pounds, 6 ounces!

Welcome to our family, Camden!  

I'll do another post later about Maddie meeting Camden for the first time.  It made my heart so happy!

Okay Camden, here's the deal:

You have a little less than five hours left today to make your grand entrance.  If you choose to wait, then you better plan to stay in for three days.  We'd like to avoid Halloween and the surrounding days if possible.  Thank you.

39 Week Update 
Since Maddie was born early, this is the first time for me to experience 39 weeks!

Size of baby:  Camden measures about 20 inches long head to toe and weighs a bit over 7 pounds, about the size of a large rabbit.

Emily's bunny, Bernie  :)

Total weight gain/loss:  +37 lbs.  Eek!  I haven't yet reached the weight I did when I was pregnant with Maddie, but I'm getting terribly close.

Maternity clothes:  Yes, of course, and now I'm even resorting to wearing some of Eric's shirts just so I can have the extra length.

Gender:  Boy!

Movement:  Late last night and at church this morning he was moving quite a bit.  There have been several times in the past week when he's been pretty still.  I just have to keep reminding myself that there's not a lot of room left.

Sleep:  What's that?

What I miss:  Being comfortable, sleep, holding Maddie in my lap.

Cravings:  Well, I just ate three nine cookies.  Someone please take the cookies away from me!

How I'm feeling:  Ready to be done.  I know it's unlikely that my water will break early this time around, so I'm anxious to know how long I'll be laboring at home.

Highlight of the week:  Finishing up my last week at work.  It will be such a relief to not have to kneel and bend over to change diapers and reach down to pick up toys.

39 weeks

When we pull this up on our TV Maddie goes crazy, Eric gets a good workout, and I have a good laugh.  Enjoy!

Isn't it funny how when you only have one experience with something, you expect the same results the next time around?  All throughout this pregnancy I have assumed that my water would break to signal when I should go to the hospital and that Camden would be born prior to 40 weeks.  After all, that's how things went with my first pregnancy.  So here I am with 11 days to go.  At this point in my last pregnancy my water had broken and I was being admitted to the hospital.

I thought it was funny tonight when Eric asked me to play Mario Kart on the Wii.  I can't even tell you the last time we played, but I can tell you that with 11 days left of my pregnancy with Maddie my water broke while playing Mario Kart.  So Eric and I went ahead and played tonight, not truly expecting anything to happen, but thinking that it would be pretty darn funny if it did.

Wouldn't this be a great point in the post to announce that my water broke and I am currently in labor?

Well, it didn't and I'm not.  Instead I'm thinking about what I'm going to do with my preschoolers tomorrow and remembering all of the little (and big) things that I'd still like to get done around the house before Camden makes his entrance, which technically could be any day. . . but probably not tomorrow.

Several of you asked for me to tell you how Maddie's toddler clock worked out, so here's your update:

When we first got the clock we explained to Maddie that she was supposed to stay in bed until the bunny woke up.  She seemed to understand, and we went to bed feeling pretty hopeful.  Unfortunately, she was up bright and early the next morning. . . and the next morning, and the next.  Nap time seemed to be getting shorter and shorter as well.  Maddie truly did seem to understand the concept, she just didn't care.

After becoming frustrated about spending money on a clock that wasn't giving us the results we wanted and me freaking out about what would happen if Maddie was still doing this when Camden was born, we decided to try something new.  We kept the clock and the concept, but added an incentive.

I recently checked out a Halloween book for Maddie from the library and there's a picture of candy corn at the end.  Every time we'd get to that page Maddie would say, "I want some."  So we bought some candy corn and that night we told her that if she'd stay in bed until bunny woke up, then she could have a piece of candy corn.  Guess what?  It worked the very first night!  We've been using the candy corn incentive for both nighttime and nap time for a little less than a week now and she has gotten a piece of candy corn every single time.

Does this mean she actually sleeps or is quiet until bunny wakes up?  No.  We occasionally hear her cry out, but more often she just talks.  As soon as the bunny wakes up, she starts calling out, "Bunny's awake!"  We then go in her room and tell her what a good job she has done and give her a piece of candy corn, even if it is 6:35 in the morning.

So, would I recommend the clock?  Yes, but be prepared to use some sort of incentive.

I have decided to begin doing weekly updates since we have reached the final countdown.  I like how in my newest picture you can tell that I'm just about over being pregnant.  This pregnancy certainly has not been as kind to me as pregnancy #1.

38 Week Update
*Please click HERE to participate in Camden's Baby Pool.  Get your guess entered before the end of the day tomorrow!

Size of baby:  Camden weighs about 6.8 pounds and is over 19 1/2 inches long, about as long as a leek.  Sorry it's another vegetable.  Lame.

Total weight gain/loss:  +32 lbs.  Hopefully this one pound weight gain will offset the 7 pound weight gain from the previous 2 weeks.  :/

Maternity clothes:  I have nothing to wear!  No really.  I ripped an irreparable hole in one of my two pair of maternity jeans and even my maternity shirts are too short.

Gender:  Still a boy.

Movement:  Slower than before, but I don't suppose he has too much space left.

Sleep:  Horrible!  I cannot get comfortable.  Pretty much everything between my belly and my ankles aches when I lay down.  I am in desperate need of sleep.

What I miss:  Sleep.

Cravings:  Not much.

How I'm feeling:  Achy, swollen, tired, impatient, anxious, excited, not ready, so ready, etc.

Highlight of the week:  Finishing up Camden's room.  It's not completely done, but it's so much closer to being finished than it was this time last week.

38 weeks

*Please click HERE to participate in Camden's Baby Pool.  Get your guess entered before the end of the day tomorrow!