Jess and the terrible, horrible, no good, very bad week...but we did get a baby out of it

Let's recap my last hours of pregnancy, and my first days as a mother of three, shall we?

Saturday morning, May 12th, 2012, I take the early shift with Baby C and get up with her at 5am.  Her sleeping has been horrible, as I think she is better preparing us for what's to come with our new addition...

B suggests we go for a long walk that evening to try and get things going in the labor department.  We head out on a long 2 mi stroll to try to induce labor...in hindsight, kinda wish I had waited until the next morning to take the stroll, after a good nights' sleep, because the long walk worked...

I went into labor at 9pm that night, followed by my water breaking pretty much as soon as I lay down to rest...so much for a few winks before the next phase of my night begins...

Uncle D comes over to watch the other two munchkins, as we call Mimi and Pop-pops to come up from CT.

We drive to B&W, get admitted - we knew that after my water breaking that we would need to deliver within 24 hours = petosin (ouch...not looking forward to that bitch...)

My doctor came in to examine me and looked at me funny.  She was young, and had a somewhat odd bedside manner.  In between contractions, she informs me that I look familiar, and that she knows me from somewhere...wtf is this, Facebook?  I am in horrible pain, and this doctor wants to play the name game with me.  As she goes through her checks and balances (meaning checks my nether regions a number of times with gloved hands, oh so pleasant), she puts it together that she and her husband sat behind us last year on the plane on our way to St. John.  Oddly enough, B was wearing his La Tapa shirt that night, our favorite restaurant on the island.  I wish I could have been more excited to hear her epiphany, but in all honesty, I could have cared less if she told me we were somehow distant cousins...would have been the same lack of shock value...

Hellish progressively strong labor over the next seemingly thousands of hours...and I stall around 7 cm.  I withstand it until 8cm w/out an epidural, when I called in the troops.  Anesthesiology arrives, and since B&W is a teaching hospital, Doogie Howser shows up with the real doctor, and they seem to think that now is a good day for intern Betty to try to get the job done.  Clearly she failed, as I was writhing in pain so much that I could not sit still long enough for her to properly insert the needle.  She kept hitting nerves that sent electrical shock waves down my legs...B was yelling to call the epi off, but I was yelling louder to keep trying.  There was no way I could have lasted an hour or more longer in that sort of pain.

Finally after half an hour, I am relieved of pain (after almost seeing B lose his dinner after hyperventilating into a mask)
I finally dilate enough to push, when we find out that Moo Man has his umbilical cord wrapped around his neck.  I have to stop pushing, while the doctor makes a hand puppet out of me and vacuums him out.  At this point St. John doc has stepped out, and Dr. O stepped in.  Moo is perfect and pink and screaming after a few scary blue-colored moments when he first came out.

Later that week, I continued recovering from stitches (lovely - delivery does some damage)...my milk came in (engorged breasts, but not sexy engorged, more like rock-hard and painful engorged), and I haven't slept all week...

Once home, I have to adjust to having three...on my first maiden voyage with all the little people, it takes me two hours to get out of the house.  Once home from the park, I try to get every last thing done (put away laundry, bathe the Moo, shower myself, take out trash and recycling, ready dinner, etc...) - life does not stop when you add another mouth to the mix.  Last on my list is to change fish tank water as I do every two weeks...this time I decided to give the rocks a little wash, as they were nasty.  Apparently, when you do this, you remove "good" bacteria from the tank, and instead of making the fish happy, you turn the water into ammonia and, well, I killed both fish.  I needed to tell CR, who was obviously upset, and B is pissed at me because I killed our pets...

So there you have it - Moo's birth story, and my initial experience with all these creatures B and I managed to make.  I am constantly amazed when at the end of the day, all three are fed, bathed, and happily snug in their beds.  The whole thing is a blur, so I'd better get back to blogging to keep track of all the little things...