The Early Bird Gets the Worm!

So after all that work, we were looking forward to a couple of weeks to finish up some last minute things before we welcomed our little girl into the world. Well... she had other plans. I had some signs of labor the morning of Wednesday, August 4th. I have to say I kind of freaked out! I wasn't quite ready yet - hadn't even packed my hospital bag! I called my doctor's office and the nurse advised me to go to the hospital to get checked out. I was in absolutely NO pain and was certain they were going to send me right back home and just tell me to be ready for showtime in the next couple of days.

My mom came over to drive me to the hospital, but I told Ryan to stay at work. While I got ready, Mom packed my hospital bag for me (Thanks, Mom!) just in case. The entire time I was very put off that I had to waste my morning going to the hospital just to be told to go back home. We made it to Labor and Delivery triage around 11:15am and got ready to wait... and wait... and wait. They had tons of women coming in and since I did not appear to be an urgent patient we were bumped to the bottom of the list. I didn't even get on the monitors for a couple of hours.

Meanwhile, Ryan was starting to feel guilty for not being with me, but I again assured him I was fine and would be back home in a few hours. We even took this photo and sent it to him to set his mind at ease.

Once I was finally hooked up to the monitors, however, I was shocked to see this...

My contractions were coming in a very regular pattern and I continued to dialate in triage. I was in labor!! I really couldn't believe it because I still felt very little discomfort.

Finally, about 4pm my doctor decided to admit me. Now, we had to call Ryan and tell him to get to the hospital in a hurry. At this point, contractions were about 2-3 minutes apart and I was dialated to a 5. My poor hubby had to rush to a hospital downtown in rush hour traffic - after we had been telling him all day to stay at work! I was really worried he wasn't going to make it before I got my epidural, but he literally made it with minutes to spare.

Speaking of the epidural... Though I still felt no pain, I was encouraged to get the epidural early before it started to hurt. I don't think my doctor and nurses were very confident in my pain tolerance! After the medicine started to take effect, I became VERY upset. I didn't like feeling like I couldn't control my own body and since I never felt the alternative (read: excruciating pain) I felt like I had maybe made a mistake getting the epidural. Once everything settled though, I was fine and I absolutely do not regret that decision.

Now things came to a complete standstill. I had progressed relatively quickly to this point and then... nothing. We had lots of friends and family ready and waiting, waiting, waiting. Luckily I was in good spirits and was able to visit with everyone. I was just VERY hungry - I hadn't even had a chance to eat breakfast that morning!

Finally, at 1:52am on August 5th, Ryan and I got to meet our precious little girl! Charlotte Rae Carey was a tiny thing at just under three weeks early - weighing in at 5lb 13oz and measuring 18.5 in long. I can't even begin to tell you the love we felt for her immediately. Only parents can understand...

Laying our eyes on the most precious gift from God...

We are just TOO proud!!

My two favorite people in the entire world!

Things went well at the hospital and we were discharged on Friday afternoon (August 6th). We were so happy to take Charlotte home and sleep in our own beds!

The new and improved Carey family!

One quick note about our homecoming... we were greeted with a neighborhood power outage! In Texas. In August. Luckily, it hadn't been out long (our neighbors filled us in) so it was only in the mid 80s in our house and our food hadn't ruined yet. We found that our next door neighbors were the only ones with power, so Ryan ran an extension cord over so we could plug in a fan. This helped a little to circulate the (hot) air. Power came back on in about an hour and a half, so we didn't have to suffer for too long! It just goes to show you - there's always SOMETHING to deal with, right?