Haag Party of 5: July 2009

This whole week has been a blur and a roller coaster of emotions. Finally, I have a moment or two to process and write out what exactly happened to bring Miss Anna into the world.

Sunday morning, I woke up around 1:45 and just didn't feel great and then it hit me, I was in labor! We called Grandma to come up and then headed to the hospital. I had been forewarned that since I hadn't gone into labor before with my other two that my contractions would be more powerful this time. And boy were they right! Right off the bat, the contractions were 2-3 minutes apart and lasting for a minute or longer. No break in between, just constant. We got to the hospital and got checked in. I was about 3 cm and contractions still coming strong. I got to 5 cms rather quickly and then my blood pressure decided to go through the roof - they said it was probably a reaction to the pain. They gave me 2 options - epidural or csection. I chose the epidural. The epidural did it's job, got me relaxed and my blood pressure came down to normal levels. My water broke on it's own after this and it was filled with meconium. They prepped the room for the NICU staff to be in on the birth as well due to the meconium. After my water broke, Anna didn't engage in my pelvis as she should have and ended up in my ribs. 3 hours later I was still at a 5 and I started hemoraging and Anna's heart beat would be lost or extremely low during contractions. Since I was bleeding, there was no way to know where it was coming from - uterus rupture or placental issues. We were wisked immediately to the OR for a csection.

I have to say this csection went much better than Paul's section. With Paul's I kept getting sick and they ended up putting me all the way out. I was awake during all of Anna's. It was a great experience in comparison. I am at peace with Anna's section as I know it was needed in order to save her. The bleeding ended up being from her placenta prematurely separating from my uterus. So this could have quickly become very very serious. Even if Paul had been a vaginal delivery, Anna would have still been a section baby.

We came home Tuesday, much earlier than anyone anticipated. I bounced back from surgery with flying colors and have been doing extremely well since. Finally getting caught up on phone calls, emails, etc. Gotta get some thank you cards in the mail soon too. Hubby has been a huge help - I haven't even changed 1 diaper yet! Gracie and Paul are doing very well and are eager to help with Anna or help pick things up for me. I feel extremely blessed with my 3 children and things couldn't be going better.

Now, I know you're wanting to see more pictures, so here goes!

Here's Anna at birth - I'm amazed how much she looks like her cousin Bo here!

One proud Daddy

Meeting mama

Meeting big sis

My little mullet baby! She has short hair on the top and long hair in the back!

First bath

One of my sweetest friends sent us a huge delivery from Schwan's! She truly blessed us and helped Chris out by not having to worry about dinners for a long time!