I feel alive! (well, sometimes!)

Well, almost a week after giving birth... I think that I feel like a human again!!

Here's the low down on what's happened in the last week...

Last Monday we got a big surprise after I went to the OB. Without my knowledge my water had broken, well, began to leak.... so they decided to get me in the hospital asap, get me on some antibiotics and induce labor (in fear of the baby getting an infection). I had a little freak out moment driving home from the appointment, thankfully the drive is only about 3 minutes. I just kept hearing what the doctor said, "Well Emily, you're going to have this baby today." Oh my! Well, I got home, woke up Morgan went on into the hospital. I started pitocin at about 10:30 in the morning. I labored until about 4pm without an epidural, when I got the epidural I was dilated to a 6. Whoo Hoo! I was pretty proud of myself! But man, epidurals are nice! My mom was able to get to the hospital at about 8:30 pm (she had raced up here from Atlanta). I started to push at about 10:30 pm and he was born at 11:56 pm. The sweet nurse kept telling me that he was going to be born on the 13th, which gave me a huge burst of energy at about 11:45, I knew I could do it! I did! Morgan and my mom were in the room, they said that it was pretty amazing to see the little guy be born.

That night got pretty crazy. About 15 minutes Andrew was born my blood pressure went down to 60/20. They were trying to find if I was bleeding anywhere, they couldn't find anything. They put me on a ton of fluids to get my blood pressure back up. After a while it got to a better level. (They said that I looked pretty pale!) After that fiasco, the nurse was going to take out the catheter that was feeding the epidural in.... and that was a whole other crazy story disgusting story short, the anesthesiologist was rushed in and I'm still alive whoo hoo!

Tuesday morning started out pretty well, but the day digressed. I started to develop a really bad headache and we came to find out that I was part of the LUCKY 1 % of people who have epidurals who get spinal headaches! Basically I was leaking spinal fluid so my brain wasn't "floating" the way it should. So, I was hooked up to some major pain killers and had to lie flat on my back for the day. Thankfully, Andrew is SUCH a sweet baby that he didn't mind!

Wednesday morning I was given a blood patch (they insert a ton of blood into the epidural spot to build pressure to stop the fluid from leaking... but sometimes it doesn't work). Lets just say that I wish that on no one!! It increased the headache 10 fold, I was VERY discouraged. The doctor reassured me that the procedure had worked, so I waited. The headache got better, but all the pain in the rest of my body was awful. My sweet husband and a great friend gave me a blessing and I started to feel better after that. Oh, how I am grateful for the Priesthood!

I felt well enough by Wednesday night to get out of bed and move around and I was gratefully able to be discharged from the hospital on Thursday.

The headache persisted up until last night. I was so happy to wake up this morning feeling like a real person!! Hooray!

So there's the story on how I survived child birth. The birthing process was just fine, it was the postpartum that was so difficult! But I am grateful that the problems happened to me, and not to Little Andrew.

We're all doing alright now, still getting a handle on the whole nursing thing and the lack of sleep, but life a great and couldn't honestly get any better than what it is right now. Yeay for little babies. They are truly a gift from our Heavenly Father.