Freshly delivered.
Proud Papa
Tired Mommy, but HAPPY!
4 am. It's been a long, but rewarding night!
It all started Thursday night. Through the night I woke up with small cramps. My body had been doing this for a week so I didn't know delivery was so near. Fridays are normally our "day off" or "family days." We got up as usual and began to prepare for our snow storm coming up which was suppose to produce 8 to 12 inches of snow in our area. Went to Lowe's to get a generator, went to the bank, etc. Came home and I washed clothes, cooked and cleaned up in preparation for the power going out. I told Jason that my cramping was more and more with a few contractions here and there. I could not at that point articulate weather all the hype in my body was from Alexa or from the excitement/stress of preparing for the snow??? So this continued throughout the day with the contractions getting stronger.
With all this in mind, Mom decided to come up, stay with Shane, and be here in case we needed her. She got in town Friday afternoon and we planned on meeting her and Shane for dinner and also to get her 4-wheel drive SUV in case we needed it in the middle of the night. GOOD IDEA MOM! Mother's have an intuition sometime. Those plans did change slightly...Mom and Shane were headed to the restaurant and I called to say please just come to our house because my pains were worsening. We packed Caden up, Mom and Shane left with our car and met Debbie who was going to take Caden to my Dad's in Wilson. Getting Caden to Wilson before the snow was a last minute decision and boy was it a smart one b/c from there on our night of action really started to heat up.
From 7 til 9pm, Jason and I finished packing for the hospital. Then at 9pm we sat down to watch our show, American Idol (we had recorded it from Wed. night). The contractions started to get consistent then. Every 7 minutes. This lasted until 11pm and we went to bed to try and get some rest not knowing what lied ahead. I feel asleep for 7 minutes and then another contraction woke me up. "It's go time" is what ran through my mind. The contractions went from every 7 minutes to every 5 minutes over the next two hours. We called the doctor at 12:45 am to see if we should come to the hospital and she didn't give us any advise of whether we should or shouldn't. Then about two minutes later, in the middle of a contraction, my water broke. I jumped in the shower and the pace was fast and furious from then on out. I could hardly wash my hair in the middle of contractions. They went from 5 minutes to 3 and 2 minutes apart. There were times I thought, "are we going to make it to the hospital in time with this weather and ice on the roads?" By this time there was 3 to 4 inches of snow covering everything and it wasn't letting up a bit. The roads were absolutely covered.
My husband is amazing! He rubbed my back through many of the contractions up to this point. Yes, I did have back labor all over again. When I jumped in the shower, Jason dressed and got the car packed and de-iced. This was a 30 minute process of scraping and shoveling. In the meantime, Heather was still not ready. I couldn't get it together. With God's grace and Jason's help, we finally got on the road. It was dangerous no doubt. We were reminded of this by the many cars we passed that were wrecked into the sides of ditches because of the ice on the roads. But Jason focused on driving as I was having intense contractions and we finally made it safely. It took us about 45 minutes to get to Rex and upon arriving there at 2:10am I knew Alexa was coming soon.
We went upstairs to the waiting room and all I could do was cry and ask Jason to hold me. After having about 2 or 3 contractions there, I told Jason, "I feel like I could push her out right now, you've got to get us in a room!" So Jason pressed the nurses and they took us immediately to a room. After 30 minutes of doing hospital logistics in between contractions (e.i. filling out paper work, getting hooked up to monitors, answering seemingly endless questions, etc.) I actually vomited all over myself, the bed and the floor. I was a mess. I finally told the nurse, "you have go to check me to see if I can push." Finally she complied. Once she checked me, she said, "how far along do you want to be?"
I said, "10 cm so that I can push her out."
"You've got your wish," she said. And, I kid you not, within 2 minutes the room went from there being just myself, Jason and the nurse to us three, the doctor and six nurses. Everyone was scrambling to get things ready because they knew I could not hold Alexa in my body much longer. Jason had to call Mom, who was downstairs, so that she could run up and see the baby delivered. It all happened so fast, she almost missed it. But when she walked in I was getting ready to push. After 2 minutes and three pushes Alexa Bree McDaniel was here. Jason and my Mom were both crying. It was such a great moment and our family will never forget it.
She came out perfectly healthy and weighting 8 pounds, 9 ounces. She is 20 1/4 inches long, has lots of dark hair and a beautiful dark complexion. She def. resembles Caden some but in no way could be considered his twin. She is beautiful and we are in love with our little snow baby!
