Those Maucks!: September 2014

August 25, 2014 | 8:16 am | 8 lb 1 oz | 20 inches

This is her birth story....

I have to start out by saying that this was absolutely my best, most enjoyable, pregnancy! Maybe I wouldn't have said that in the first trimester, when I couldn't eat anything, but from week 12 forward it was awesome! I wasn't sick, I wasn't sore, I wasn't uncomfortable. I was just happy and pregnant. Knowing this was our last baby, I thoroughly enjoyed every kick and flip of this pregnancy. So much so that even up to the day before I went into labor someone asked me if I was ready to be done and I couldn't say yes. Yes, I had been pregnant for 39 weeks and from that perspective I was over it. But as much as I wanted to not house a human in my body anymore and as ready as I was to meet this baby girl, I really wasn't sure if I was ready to be done being pregnant forever (yes, it was 100% my choice to be done... but that doesn't mean I won't miss it!)
The last few weeks of pregnancy I was having a ton of Braxton Hicks contractions. Not painful... just super annoying! The last week, I started having real contractions a couple times, but they never lasted more than an hour. On Sunday, the day before she was born, I literally felt like the entire day was one long Braxton Hicks. It was wearing me out, but I knew it wasn't "the real thing". However, we were at church that night for Nate's Fight Club graduation, and on the way home I told him I really felt like she was going to come soon. So I made a mental list of everything I wanted to get done before she came home and I intended to knock that list out on Monday. If you are curious, the list included - among other things - getting all the laundry done, packing my hospital bag, cutting and coloring my hair, painting my toenails, and finally really lining up a place for the girls to go when labor started. I made this mental list at approximately 10pm on Sunday night.
Fast forward to 4:09am Monday morning. First noticeably 'real' contraction. I assumed these would go away as they did a few days earlier, but I started timing anyway. 10 minutes, 10 minutes, 10 minutes, 10 minutes, 10 minutes. Then Nate wakes up. He sees me playing on my phone and asks what I'm doing. So I told him I thought we might be having a baby. :) I saw 'the look' on his face, but I had already been up for an hour, so I had plenty of time to prepare an answer for that look... I told him to just go to work. I didn't want him to waste an entire day at home watching me contract. I knew he had things to get done at work, so I told him to go get it done but never be more than inches away from his phone. It wasn't easy to convince him. Honestly, I never did convince him, but I like to pretend I was close. He just said he'd take a shower and then see how I was doing. But I knew he'd go to work. because at 10 minutes apart, these things could last all day. And I had a to do list to conquer and I didn't want to leave until that was done. Besides, I had decided a couple weeks earlier that I was really going to try to take a really relaxed approach to laboring this time around. I didn't want to rush to the hospital just to sit in bed all day... I wanted to labor at home as long as possible. My husband proceeded to take the quickest shower possible. While he was showering, I had a contraction... 5 minutes after the previous one. Didn't expect that kind of jump! But I figured it was a fluke. Then another 5 minute contraction.... (At this point I decided he was probably wise in thinking he should stay home. I swallowed my pride and confessed I was wrong) Nate offered to wake the girls. I told him it was too early for that. I called my parents - I knew that even if this lasted all day or turned out to be a false alarm, I had a doctor appointment scheduled for that afternoon and I forgot to ask my mom if she would watch the girls. And I also knew that my dad was planning to leave that morning for Canada and he was going to be gone for 10 days. As much as I didn't want him to have to change his plans for me, my [wise] husband kindly reminded me that he needed to make that decision, not us. I got in the shower [confession: I really did consider coloring my hair before I showered. That tiny decision could have turned this into a post about our first home birth or, at the very least, a TrailBlazer birth]. Then a contraction 3 minutes later. Thankfully Nate called my bluff and was already making arrangements to get Eden to school. 3 minutes later, another contraction and the timer app I was using started flashing "Go to Hospital!" I hit ignore each time it popped up. 3 minutes later. OK, I woke the girls and made arrangements for Jada and Kate. Nate finished getting ready, I started packing my bag and the diaper bag. I really wanted to paint my toenails, but decided I should probably erase that from the to-do list, too. I also gave up the idea of starting a load of laundry before we left because at this point I was scared of the stairs and I knew better than to ask Nate to do it. (Why? Why couldn't I just let go of the stuff I thought had to be done?? Man, I'm stubborn!!) So, Nate took Eden to the Watts' and I waited at home. He got back home and loaded the other two up... we took them to Miss Amanda's and headed to the hospital. Once we were on our way to Goshen, the contractions jumped back up to about 5 minutes apart. A couple were closer than that, a couple were farther apart. But they were all about a minute and a half long. And oh, so very painful!! I swear to you, the closer we got to Goshen, the bumpier and more unbearable those stinkin' county roads got. I was really trying to relax and breathe through it all, but it was getting harder and harder. We were a few minutes from the hospital and I told Nate I was pretty sure I was going to break with tradition and have him push me up in a wheelchair this time. With the other three, I took my pride by the hand and walked myself right up to the third floor (ok, I walked myself to and from the elevator... whatever!!) No contraction was going to keep this girl down! But I just wasn't sure I could do that this time. However, those of you that know anything about my husband know that he challenged me. And even though I knew he was just joking around, I can't back down from a challenge from my husband... that's the same as letting him win, and I just don't do that!! So, I was going to walk up. But I told him he had to compromise and drop me off at the doors. We arrived at the hospital and my loving husband dropped me off at the main entrance and went to park the vehicle. I didn't even make it through the revolving doors before I realized there was no way I was going to walk all the way to the elevators. So, I limped my way over to the desk and asked for a wheelchair. The wheelchair and the husband arrived at the same time. I sat down and away we went. We got to the desk on the OB floor and the nurse smiled at me and asked how she could help me (Why do they do that? I'm in a wheelchair and it looks like I have the world's largest watermelon tucked under my shirt. Your job is to deliver babies and you are at work right now. I think you know how you can help me.) "I'm here to have a baby." So, they start the check in process. Neither one of us thought to look at the clock when we got there, but based on everything else that happened that morning, we are guessing we arrived at the hospital at about 7:40. I got changed and proceeded to answer the registration questions. The nurse finished her first set of questions and then tells me that she'll be back in about 20 minutes. She never checked me to see how I was progressing. This shocked me for a few reasons - 1. I'm here to have a baby. Don't you want to get a general idea of when that might happen? 2. Every time you asked me a question you had to wait about a minute for me to answer because I was having another contraction. You know how these things work, right? 3. I told you this is my fourth baby. So you know this isn't my first rodeo. I know a lot of ladies come in here and sit for several hours before anything major happens. I was that lady a couple times, but at least give me the benefit of the doubt and check. (Don't get me wrong... this nurse, and all the other nurses I came into contact with, was awesome!! I was just a bit shocked that she was willing to leave for 20 minutes without knowing our 'starting point') She came back in almost exactly 20 minutes. I was getting pretty uncomfortable but I felt like I was doing a pretty good job just staying completely relaxed and focused. She finally checked me and was shocked to see that I was at 7cm already (side note - I was not shocked. Just saying.) I see panic in her face, she says she's going to go call Dr., and out the door she goes! The door barely shuts and then it opened back up again. It felt like an army of nurses and hospital staff were charging my room, but I think it was probably just three of them. :) But they were busy little bees getting everything set up and chatting about how they didn't have a whole lot of time to get this ready. Nurse #1 returns pretty quickly and tells us that Dr. was in the hospital parking lot just getting ready to leave, so he was coming back in and would be right up. A couple minutes later, Doc strolls in, gloves up and does his own check. In those few minutes I went from 7cm to 9cm and basically 100% effaced. It was go time. Insert my holy crap panic here because I went from my relaxed, zen mode to "I know how this baby has to come out of my body and I don't know if I can do that again!!" My water still hadn't broke, so the doctor got his hook and did his thing. I kid you not, friends... this is the order that things happened, but from where I was sitting, it basically all happened simultaneously: He stabbed my water bag, there was a gush of liquid, he removed the amniohook, and OH.MY.WORD.... "I need to push!!!!" The Dr., facing away from me as he is getting his gloves on (this never occurred to me until right now, but I'm not exactly sure when that first set of gloves had time to come off. hmmm...), turns and sees my baby crowning. With my first delivery, I told the nurse I needed to push and she told me to wait. Nobody was going to tell me to wait this time, so I don't think I even asked permission (if I did, I certainly didn't wait for an answer!) Now I see the panic in his eyes, similar to the look that first sweet nurse gave, and he fumbles to get that last glove on so he can catch my baby. 2½ pushes later and, just like that, 35 minutes after we arrived, our baby girl was here with us!
I can't lie, as the doctor held her up, we both took a quick peek just to make sure, then we looked at each other knowingly... yes, it was definitely a girl. Our hearts were readied for another girl and we loved her already, but there was still a tiny chance that maybe, just maybe, it would be a boy this time. I'm so glad it wasn't!
This little princess has stolen our hearts and - I know I've said this three times before but the words are so true every single time - our lives will never be the same!

Welcome to the world, Brenna Paige! I hope you love it here with us, because we love you!!

Many of you know that Nate and I really struggle with the "Name Game". The nurses quickly caught on to that fact and after about 4 hours, this is what went up on the board. :)