Hello friends! Where to even begin. It's been, like a year since I've done a blog post! The last post was a little life update catching you all up on what had been going on with us and a little bit about how my pregnancy had been going. Well, our baby is now 8 months and I haven't been pregnant for a while now LOL! I have been meaning to get this post all typed up to look back on for years to come, and I finally sat down and just did the dang thing, lol. This post will be a mini recap on how my pregnancy finished out and the birth story of our beautiful baby girl, Decker!
Ahhh...okay! So to start lets chat about how the rest of my pregnancy went. Like I had touched on in my last post, my pregnancy was going super well! And thankfully it basically stayed that way. I never really had any morning sickness, never had any food aversions or crazy weight gain. The only thing I struggled with in the beginning for a short period were headaches, but honestly that was it. I felt really good majority of my pregnancy and I am so thankful for that! I know that isn't the case for everyone :(
During my second trimester I honestly didn't even really feel pregnant, haha! Besides the bump finally making its appearance of course ;) But other than that, it was pretty smooth sailing. At the start of my third trimester trimester I did start to develop some indigestion which I went through about 2 1/2 bottles of Pepcid for LOL and got the dreaded leg cramps (OUCH!) Nothing unbearable and again so thankful for that! The second trimester was definitely the easiest for me, which is what a lot of women say. So if you are pregnant right now and almost to your second trimester, hang in there! :)
The third trimester is when we also started up our basketball season. Due to everything being shifted around in 2021, our basketball season ended up taking place during the spring sports season. As the planner that I am, I was hoping to be done with our basketball season by the beginning of the third trimester, but instead things got reversed lol. The season went well and I still felt pretty darn good throughout! There were days when I'd need to sit down more than usual, which we got this cute yellow stool for me to roll around the gym and still coach, haha. The season did take its toll on me towards the end though, so when it did come to a close I was glad to finally be able to sit at home and do absolutely nothing. Jeremy and I ended up taking a little "Babymoon" to Maui which was incredible! We ate good food, went to the beach, swam in the ocean, laid by the pool and had just the absolute best time together.
Towards the end of the third trimester I developed a super annoying and itchy rash-type thing called PUPPP. It was completely harmless just incredibly annoying and was not fun to have while in 100 degree + heat. There was a week where it was no joke 113 degrees almost every day of the week and I never left my house, lol. Air conditioning and ice packs were literally the only thing I could do to keep it at ease. Thankfully, it did end up totally going away about 2 weeks postpartum. For my next pregnancy I am hoping I can just skip all that together, haha. It definitely just was not fun to deal with.
My due date with Decker was July 4th, 2021 (I know, so cool!) However, she entered the world two days later on July 6th, 2021 at 10:41am. I started to go into "labor" the evening of July 3rd. And I put that into quotation marks because that night my contractions weren't nearly anything I would eventually start to experience, lol. With this being my first pregnancy I had no clue what to expect. I downloaded a contraction app to help me keep track of how long they were and how frequent. We live about 40 minutes away from where I was going to deliver and I was NOT going to be that woman who ends up giving birth in her car on the side of the road LOL. So, naturally as a first timer we headed to the hospital that night after my app told me we should start heading in. Once I got there the contractions were annoying, but they weren't unbearable. The nurses checked me and told me I was about 70% effaced but was like barely at 1cm dilated. They prescribed some Tylenol PM so I could get some rest and sent us home.
The next day was her due date! I had a feeling she might come that day but with how the morning and afternoon was going, I had a feeling we were going to be waiting a bit longer to meet our girl. Since it was the 4th of July we had my family come over for the day and we ended up BBQ-ing at our house and visiting. I was still contracting throughout the day and they were still annoying and painful, but again nothing that was unbearable or something I couldn't talk through. By about 6pm I was starting to get uncomfortable so my family decided to take off and let us have our privacy and have me go and rest. By about 2am I told Jeremy I think we should head to the hospital. The contractions were now painful to the point I wasn't talking through them and they started to make me cry a bit. The thing about how Decker was positioned was that she was already so low and she was "sunny-side up" for a bit, so I ended up experiencing intense and painful back labor. And let me tell you...BACK LABOR IS NO JOKE!!!
We arrived again at the hospital and they got us all checked in and by that time I felt like I was a little more relaxed just being in a hospital setting, but I was still in pain. The nurse came in to check me again and OH MY GOSH. It was the worst pain I had ever felt to that date. I don't really know why it was so painful, I think just Decker's position because she could barely reach my cervix, but oh my gosh I was literally writhing in pain on the hospital bed and screaming. It was terrible. I hope that doesn't scare any of you, haha but thats just what happened! Once she was done she said she still couldn't really tell and would guess that I was maybe at 2cm. I was upset. I thought to myself "NO WAY does this get worse..." LOL. Oh, Micaiah. I remember the nurse saying "Think about the worst period cramps you've ever had, and that is just the beginning" ...Um, what!? That was not fun to hear.
The ended up giving me a morphine shot so I could get some sleep. Thankfully, that did knock me out and work for about 3 hours. Since my mom lives close by the hospital we decided to go over to her house and wait until it was time to go back to the hospital. I woke up about 9am on July 5th and from then on I labored HARD. Jeremy was so amazing and helpful during the entire thing. Every time I would have a contraction he would be right there to apply counter pressure or rub my back or just hold my hand. I tried all kinds of things and it just was awful. The one thing that did feel good for a bit was hopping in the shower and having hot water on my lower back. Once I got out of the shower it was about 4pm and my mom suggested we head back to the hospital. She could tell I was in a lot of pain and just felt we should go. Thankfully, third time was a charm! BARELY. We arrived again at the hospital and they checked me again and at first they said "I'm so sorry, it still looks like you are at 2cm" I could NOT believe what I was hearing. There was no way. With the pain I was feeling and everything I just thought there is no way I am leaving this hospital again. The on-call doctor came in and checked me herself and was able to get a better feel and said I was more at like a 3-3.5cm so they were going to admit me. HALLELUJAH!
We got admitted and Jeremy brought all of our stuff up from the car since we were for sure going to have a baby this time, haha. I wanted to hold off on receiving the epidural because I wanted my mobility for as long as I could stand. I did however get some sort of pain medicine, I can't remember what it was. I want to say fentanyl but that doesn't sound right, haha. Who knows, anyways! Whatever it was it worked fairly well and I was able to get a little bit of sleep and rest. Once the medicine was wearing off I was having Jeremy apply more counter pressures. During one contraction I was having I was on the hospital bed on my back and I had Jeremy push up on my knees. As soon as he did that I felt a huge gush of water...yep! My water broke. It was actually hilarious to me, haha. It felt exactly how movies and others describe. Just a pop and a bunch of warm fluid lol. Sorry if that is TMI. I told my nurse and she suggested I order my epidural as things can move quickly once you water breaks. I don't remember the exact time my water broke, but I do remember it was later that night. I did receive one more round of pain medicine to hold me off until the anesthesiologist could arrive.
Surprisingly I wasn't scared or nervous to get my epidural. I was actually really excited haha. And honestly, not once did it cross my mind "What if this doesn't work?" I just don't think I ever let myself get to thinking that. I just KNEW it was going to work. I had faith it was going to take. And it did! I remember sitting on the edge of the bed, holding Jeremy's hand and me and my nurse were talking about Hawaii, haha. Once the epidural took effect, it was a night and day difference. I did have a little bit of a dead spot on my right hip/butt cheek where it wasn't taking effect, but my nurse was able to get that figured out and eventually I had absolutely no feeling at all. PURE BLISS!!! I was able to relax, I had no more pain, no more back labor and I could just start to get excited and prepare for what was to come. Meeting our baby!
Like I mentioned before, Decker was "sunny-side up" for a little bit, so my nurse had me up on my knees hugging the top part of my bed for about 45 minutes. That wasn't very fun and ended up being a great leg workout, haha but it did the trick! It was about 7am on July 6th now and the on-call doctor who had been around all night was ended her shift. I didn't get my actual doctor that I had seen all throughout my pregnancy, but the doctor I did end up having deliver Decker was amazing and I wouldn't have changed a thing. He came and checked me at about 9am and recommended that I receive some Pitocin to get things moving just a little bit because I had been at about 8cm for about 4+ hours. After about an hour of waiting I got checked again and I was at a 10! It was go time!
I honestly can't express how amazing all of my nurses were during my entire experience at the hospital. Every single one was so incredibly helpful, caring, sweet, and just amazing. I can only pray and wish that everyone receives that kind of care when they have a baby! I ended up pushing for about 40 minutes. That may sound like a long time but it really wasn't! I think I pushed maybe a total of 10 times. My delivery nurse was there the entire time encouraging me and just being so incredibly supportive. The doctor and the rest of the team arrived and with 2 more pushes, Decker Ann-Marie McCreary came into this world! She was born at 10:41am weighing 7lbs 8oz and was 20 inches long. She was absolutely PERFECT.
We ended up staying in the hospital for 2 days until we went home. It was so special. Since COVID was still high, only Jeremy was ever allowed to be in the room, so we spent the entire time as a new family of three. It was a time I'll never forget and I felt so close to Jeremy. I'm so so thankful for him and the person he is. I truly couldn't have done any of that without him.
I think I'm going to need to do a separate post just to describe everything I felt and went through after having her. It wasn't anything dramatic or serious or anything like that, it just was such a new experience, obviously! :) It was one that I will forever remember for the rest of my life.
Pheww! I'm so happy I finally got that all typed out. Only took me 8 months, but that's okay! ;) I'd be more than happy to share all about what I brought with us to the hospital, what I used the most postpartum, whatever! I'm so excited to share more about being a mom, what our little family is up to and sharing more about Decker :)
Thank you all for reading this extremely long post, lol and you will be hearing from me again soon!
xo,
Micaiah