How To Have a Baby

On March 12, 2012 at 3:49 am, we welcomed Gwendolyn Maxine Markov into this world. Here's her story.

Sunday, March 11th started out like many other Sundays. I walked two miles while watching Buffy, helped out with the little kiddos at church, and headed up to book club. While eating yummy guacamole and chatting with friends, I noticed that I was getting hot flashes and having some tightening in my tummy. I thought, "well, these might be contractions," but didn't do anything about it. I called Al on my way home and told him I was pretty sure I was having contractions. In fact, I was having one while on the phone with him, and I continued to have them on my drive home. They started around 2:30 in the afternoon. Around 5, we decided to start timing them to see if we met the 5:1:1 rule. Contractions should come every five minutes, last for a minute long, and fit this pattern for at least an hour long. Most of the contractions were about 40 seconds long and came every 5 to 6 minutes. So, we decided to hold off on going to the hospital.

We headed up to Indy Racquet Club a little after 6 for Al's tennis match. I watched his match (which he won...yay!) while having contractions that were coming pretty regularly now. Around 8:30 we decided we were probably going to have a baby, so we called the doc. She recommended we stay home as long as possible because I wasn't uncomfortable and it would be better to relax at home as opposed to the hospital. We got some dinner at Boston Market then headed home. I relaxed in a bath, put some laundry away, and watched an episode of Grimm. Around 11:30pm I tried to lie down. Al watched me struggle through two contractions then said, "ok, we're going to the hospital."

We arrived just before midnight and checked in at triage. I got dressed into the fancy gown and hooked up to the various monitors. The nurse, Trina, started off by checking to see how far dilated I was. While she was checking me, my water broke. Yeah, warm and gushy, and all over the nurse's hand! And the not so fun news, I was only at 4 cm. But since my water broke, we were officially checked in! Before we headed off to our room, we got to hear someone else give birth...in triage. Wow, lucky her!

We headed off to room 4208. I settled in, while Al parked the car and brought up our overnight bags. We took a couple laps around the maternity ward to help with the pain. At 2am, our labor and delivery nurse, Andrea, checked me again and I was only at 6 cm. Oh geez, I thought we were going to have a long night ahead of ourselves. Andrea worked with me and Alex on comforting techniques but I wasn't having any of it. I didn't want anyone to touch me, let alone massage my back or put lotion on my hands. At this point, Andrea was telling us that we had til about 3am to decide if we wanted an epidural. I had gone in there saying I didn't want any drugs. I mean, how bad could the pain be? I was about to find out.

Since I couldn't be touched, we opted for another walk. At 3am, Andrea checked me again and I was dilated to 8 cm. I thought, "well, we made it from 6 to 8 in only an hour, so maybe we only have an hour left." So, no on the epidural--Yeah, I'm crazy. She also told me it was time for me to get into the bed, especially since I was beginning to feel the urge to push. The pain intensified immensely as I laid on my right side to soften that side of my cervix. All I remember is Al and Andrea saying, "Don't push, don't PUSH, DON'T PUSH!" as each contraction came along. It was so hard to not push and it just felt natural to push. But instead I had to breath lamaze style during those times. So freaking hard to do, and I'm stubborn, so I needed to be told at every contraction to not push.

By 3:28am Dr. Stuhldreyer was in the room, and it was time to start pushing. HOORAY! So, for 20 minutes I pushed. The worse part about is that the baby's head is crowning and stretching out my hoo-ha. It's just sitting there in my hoo-ha, stretching it out, and you can't do anything about it. At each contraction, I would grab my legs and push through the pain for three blocks of ten seconds each. I don't know what was more painful: pushing through the contractions or waiting with a stretched out hoo-ha for the next contraction. the doctor was numbing me the entire time and I all I remember thinking was that I wanted that baby out of me. Poor Al felt so sorry for me. He knew I was in pain and couldn't do anything about it. But he was a fabulous encourager and the best supporter!

Finally, at 3:49am I gave my final push. As the doc was telling me not to push out the rest of the baby, I couldn't help it and she just kind of slid out. Good thing the doc was good at catching slippery little suckers! The doc held up the baby for Al to cut the umbilical cord and asked him what the gender was. On first look, he said, "Oh, it's a boy!" But the doc corrected him with, "No, it's a girl!" Apparently the genitals are so swollen from the traumatic experience that they can look like testicles. We heard the first cries as she was brought to my chest. She passed all her tests as I delivered the placenta and was stitched up (I had a small tear). I remember my legs shaking from all the adrenaline and I vaguely remember the stitches. But, honestly, it didn't matter. Just knowing that we had a healthy baby made it so much better. And we couldn't have been more stoked to have a little girl. Of course we would have been thrilled with a healthy little boy, but we both were secretly leaning towards a little girl.  

And that's how we welcomed our 7lbs 3oz, 21in long, dark-haired beauty into this world and our lives. We are so blessed to have a healthy baby and to have had a quick labor. We thank God everyday for her! We love our Princess Gwendolyn!

Happy Birthing!
--Am

PS - I did poop on the table! :)

How To Make a Tree Bookshelf

Wow! It's been quite a while since my last post. I'm going to stray from my usually format and try to give you an actual how to, since I think it's something people might actually want to make.

When deciding on a theme for the nursery, Al and I went back and forth between and under the sea theme and a woodland theme. Not knowing if we are having a boy or a girl, we needed something neutral. Eventually, we decided on the woodland theme. Somewhere along the way, we thought a bookshelf that looked like a tree would be pretty cool. We found two different types online: Graphic Spaces Woodland Happy Tree for $2100 or Shawn Soh's tree bookshelf for $850. Yeah, we can't afford either of those!! Since Al is pretty handy and artistic, he decided he could whip something up for around $250. I love a handy husband! :)

Here's what you need:

12 2" x 6" x 6' planks
Wood glue
Sander
Saw
Paint of your choice
L brackets and hardware

We decided the bookshelf would be more space efficient and look more 3 dimensional if it was in the corner as opposed to just stuck on the wall. The bottom branches would be three feet long, the middle branches two feet, and the top one feet. Keeping that in mind, we took two of the planks and cut them so we had two 3ft pieces, two 2ft pieces, and two 1ft pieces. We drew branches on each of these for our template. For the trunk, we used two 6ft planks and drew our template on those. Al then cut out the templates. Each branch was 4 pieces thick, so Al was going to be spending many days cutting and gluing pieces together. Fortunately, my dad knows a guy with a state of the art woodshop (Thanks Dad and Steve!). He let us drop off our remaining pieces for him to glue and cut out. Not only did this save us a lot of time, but it looked more like one piece as opposed to multiple pieces glued together.

Once all the pieces were cut and returned home, we glued on our original templates and began the painting. As usual, we couldn't decide what the right paint color would be, so we ended up taking the bedding into Home Depot and matched it with a green and red. I don't know what made us do it, but we went with the red. And I must say, that it looks stunning! So glad we went with that over the green. After it was painted and dried, we got assembling. We found some pieces could be assembled to the trunk, while other pieces were better attached to the wall using L brackets. After it was set up, we painted the hardware and started decorating. Thanks to my sis for having guests at the baby shower bring a book in place of a card, we are able to stock the tree full of books. And thanks to my mom and aunt for providing stuffed animals for additional character. We couldn't be more pleased with how it turned out!!

the finished and stocked tree bookshelf

 

Don't you just love it? :)
Happy Bookshelfing!
--Am