The Ronins rule: Looking back

Thirteen days until Adeline Wearestilltryingtodecideonamiddlename Ronin is due. I've been doing a lot of daydreaming about how I want the labor to go and I realized that I never got around to recording Lilly's birth story. I think this would be something cool for her to eventually read and I want to get it all down while it's still (relatively) fresh in my memory.

So, here we go...

On Saturday, October 3rd, 2009, at around 8 p.m., Aaron and I were just leaving church. I had been really cranky all day and I was mad about something stupid. (Whatever, Lilly was due in 4 days so, I think I totally had the right to be cranky. I was ready to pop!) We decided to grab a late dinner and we joked that it was probably our last date night. (Little did we know...) We went to BJ's, one of our favorite places, because I was really, really craving their avocado eggrolls.

Aaron and I walked inside and got in line to put our names in for a table. As we were waiting there, I felt this weird sensation and I ran to the bathroom. As soon as I got in the stall, I realized my water broke. I started laughing like crazy and ran back out to Aaron, leaking amniotic fluid all over my jeans.

"We have to go. My water broke!" I yelled at him.

"We have to go! My wife is in labor!" Aaron yelled at the hostess.

We walked back to the car and I asked Aaron if it looked like I peed my pants. He checked me out and confirmed that it did. Awesome!

Aaron drove like a maniac back home. We grabbed our bags and a few towels and headed to the hospital. He continued to drive like a crazy despite me telling him that there was really no rush. (I think he was hoping a cop would pull us over and after we explained our situation, offer to give us a police escort. No dice.)

We got to the hospital around 9. I waddled through the emergency room with a towel between my legs and we headed to Labor and Delivery.

We had to check-in at registration and this awesome lady with crazy long nails took all of our information. She was grooving to 2 Live Crew's "Me so horny" the entire time! It ruled! (She was actually super sweet, too.)

We were sent to triage where they monitored my contractions for a bit. I wasn't feeling anything more than mild cramping at this point. We were then led to another room where they hooked me up to more monitors and an IV. We were also introduced to our nurse, a really nice lady named Grace. (She was pretty stoked when we told her Lilly's middle name was going to be Grace.)

Aaron called the parentals to let them know what was going on and before we could tell him otherwise, my dad was on his way to come hang out and wait. The doctor came in to introduce himself and he informed me that he wanted to start pitocin because my contractions weren't strong enough. (Booo! My original plan was to go as natural as possible.) I tried to stand my ground but I ended up caving and going along with the doctor.

We took this picture just before we were moved to another room where I would actually have the baby. They started the pitocin. My dad and brothers stopped by for a bit and the contractions got progressively worse. (For the record, pitocin was created by the devil. My contractions seriously went from zero to sixty in no time. It was the worst.) I tried to hold out as long as possible but after a few hours, I decided to wuss out and get an epidural.

All kinds of crazy stuff started happening after that. My blood pressure dropped and so did Lilly's heartbeat. I was put on oxygen and they applied an internal monitor to Lilly's head. I couldn't move my legs. I couldn't feel anything... no contractions, no pressure, no anything. It was a nightmare. The nurses assured us everything was going to be fine and told us to rest until it was time to push.

Aaron pulled up a chair and took a little nap. I tried to rest but every time a machine beeped I would jump, thinking it meant something horrible was happening. I watched a lot of infomercials that night.

Around 5 a.m. our nurse came in to see how I was progressing. She went to check my cervix and immediately woke Aaron up. She told him to grab the camera and get ready.

"For what?" Aaron asked. He was still really out of it.

"For the baby! It's time to push!" The nurse said.

I think I did one practice push before the nurse told me to stop. She ran to grab the doctor. Aaron started looking a little faint, so the nurse instructed him to sit down. Less than five pushes later, the doctor was catching Lillian Grace Ronin. Aaron cut the umbilical cord and they laid Lilly on me. The nurse asked where Aaron was and I looked around the room. That's when I heard him puking in the bathroom. Haha.

They cleaned Lilly and we spent the next hour or so getting to know each other.

We were head over heels for this new little alien. She weighed in at 7 lbs, 7 oz and was 21 inches long.