We're Back and Bigger: And not JUST in terms of weight ;)

Sadly, it has been over a YEAR since we last posted. Our lives became so mundane, I could not find anything very post-worthy to talk about. BUT, if you feel like you missed out on a year of our lives, I will sum it up below for you:

We got up every Monday morning and drove to work. We worked all week with an occasional softball game for Chad, and Mutual every Wednesday for Danielle and relaxed and did chores on the weekends. Chad is in the Elder's Quorum Presidency so he moved like 100 families, and I am in the Young Women's Presidency so I hung out with awesome crazy girls all the time. Oh, and I can't forget the Sunday dinners at the Borg's (our adopted family in GA).

We did buy a house. THAT was post worthy, but I was so out of touch at that point...

That is pretty much it! Now you can see why we were missing from the Blogger world for so long!

However, our perfectly scheduled and organized life just changed. On September 8, 2012, Parker Michael Pharo was born. For those of you who are NOT interested in reading about the birth story, you can stop here :) I would leave it completely out, but I plan on turning my blog into one of those books, so would like to document it for memory sake - apparently you DO forget. (Side note- when my mother was in town helping us with Parker, I asked her how my birth was...she said, "oh, I can't remember"... after my traumatizing experience ;) I beleive now that I will NEVER forget, but I know that is just not true.

My due date was September 1, 2012, but that date came and went. In fact, I was pretty much MRS. grumpy pants at every social function after that date because I had PLANNED to have the baby by then. That word PLAN - will haunt me forever I guess, since with Parker, nothing has gone as planned... I saw the  doctor on the Tuesday after I was due and she decided that it was time to schedule my induction. The ultrasound was estimating my baby at 9 lbs and she did not want the baby to get too big for a vaginal birth, so the date was set September 6, 2012 we would begin induction in the evening. September 6, rolled around and Chad and I ate my last meal (Chick fil A) and called the hospital at 5:30 PM to see if they had a room. They didn't. Called at 7:30 PM...no room. Called at 11:00 PM to announce I was going to sleep. They laughed and said, you will most likely get called in the middle of the night. Sure enough, 2 AM rolls around and the hospital calls - it's time. (I had not gotten any sleep from 11 to 2 - too anxious) Now I know better and STARTING an induction at 3 AM with no sleep...not a good idea, but at the time I was blissfully clueless.

Chad and I gathered the 50 bags we packed and headed to the hospital anxious and excited. We checked in, signed a bunch of documents that we did not read (does anybody take the time to read all those papers?) and I entered room 309.

At 3 AM I started Phase I of induction with pills to force my body to dilate. Having no clue how long this process was going to take, I could not sleep so I watched some shows on my phone. Then 7 AM rolled around and the fun began - I was dilated to a 3 and so they started my first of many doses of Pitocin. They brought me breakfast right before, but the hospital food is disgusting and all I ate was the bacon - BIG MISTAKE. Any food is better than no food.

They started the doses of Pitocin off normal, but by body was just not reacting. I was contracting but not in a pattern fashion as desired and also not as intense as desired. So, my OBGYN came in and broke my water at noon. This was SURELY going to increase the contractions and jump start labor. It did not increase the contractions, JUST my ability to feel the contractions. After the 3rd contraction with my water broken, I ordered the epidural. The first epidural (yes, first) was heavenly. He put it in my back and my entire body went limp. My feet fell asleep and I could not feel anything. But, by late afternoon, after starting and stopping the Pitocin MANY times (seeing if they could jump start natural contractions), I had only dilated to a 5 over the course of many hours. Sure enough, come 7 PM when the day time nurse was leaving, I was still at a 5. She lied and told me a 6, because I think she felt bad for me, but when the night nurse came in to check me, she said 5. It was about this time too that the first epidural wore off and I was starting to feel some immense pain. For awhile I kept hitting the button to give me more drugs, but it was not having ANY effect and so we ordered epidural number 2.

I was so happy to see the anesthesiologist enter the room again. He put in a second dose and I felt the cold move down my back, but it did not have the effect like the first time and all it did was take the edge off. By this point, I am in mild to severe pain, but what was worse was I was STARVING. Once they start you on Pitocin, you can't eat anything. I had now not eaten for an entire day and my stomach pains hurt almost as much as the contractions. The night nurse said that at a last ditch effort, they were going to increase the Pitocin level - what they did not tell me is that they were raising it to a 7. All day and for most people, they don't go above 2-3. I was so spent at this point and all I Could do was sit back and say a prayer, asking Heavenly Father to help me dilate and have this baby. Later, Chad told me that he said a prayer at that exact same point in the process.

My doctor said she was coming in at 11 PM and would check my progress. If nothing had changed, she would have to do a C-section as my water would be broken for too long. This was when it got really hard. The pain was bad, I was so hungry and really nauseous. I kept telling the night time nurse that I was nauseous, but she kept just nodding her head, so I did not think anything of it. FINALLY, 11 PM rolls around and my nurse comes in to check me. Her face was PURE astonishment. She said that she had been watching my contractions and they were too irregular and not strong enough to dilate me, so she was merely checking because she was supposed to. She had NO FAITH that I had gotten past a 6. However, I know Heavenly Father had answered our prayers because I was at a 10. She called by OBGYN and I was going to begin pushing at midnight - almost an entire day after arriving at the hospital. 11:15 Chad took my mom home because I was having the baby and only 1 person can stay overnight. My mom did not want Chad to have to bring me home RIGHT after I had the baby, so she selflessly left to come back and meet him in the morning.

Right when Chad returned, I told him that the nurse has not checked on me and I was really nauseous I asked him to go get her? Immediately after saying that, I threw up all over myself...and I mean ALL over myself. So, add dehydrated to the list :) They came in the room and had to completely re-dress me. At this point I was spent. I tried to stay calm because I was going to have to push in less than 20 mins at this point.

The doctor came in at 12 AM and started prepping. I started pushing around 12:30 AM. The doctor was having a really hard time telling me when to push since my contractions were still very irregular and never really peaking at high points. I however, could feel the contractions since the epidurals wore off, so I was directing them as to when I wanted/needed to push. The nurse got nervous because she said that I was pushing too often and really close together (her exact words were, "we don't want to blast this baby out"), but I was in too much pain to NOT push. Chad said that I was very delirious at this point. The doctor, the nurse and he kept asking me questions while pushing and I was simply just not responding. It was like I was in a haze. After 1 hr and 19 minutes of pushing (almost constantly), Parker Michael Pharo was born on September 8, 2012 at 1:43 AM.

He had pooped while in me, so they immediately took him, cut the umbilical cord and started to suck the fluids out of his lungs. Luckily, he was healthy and all was well there.

Finally, after I had come to grips, Chad brought me some beef jerky and our son and we were both blissfully happy. He had a full head of hair and was so handsome.

I am tired of typing haha so look for the next post about our stay in the hospital: the good, the bad and the ugly.