Well, I promised that the next post would be announcing the details of our little girl's arrival, I just didn't expect that it would take me almost 3.5 weeks to get around to! Remy Elise Muir entered our lives at 1:56 PM on April 24, 2012 in Hays, Kansas. She weighed in at 7 pounds 3 ounces and was 20.5 inches long. I will start the story from the beginning and I apologize in advance for the length, but I don't want to forget anything! :) Bryant & I decided to stay in Hays the night before so that as we didn't have to wake up so early, since we had to be at the hospital at 6 AM the next morning to be induced. We went out to dinner at Gella's, which also happens to be where our wedding rehearsal dinner was. We enjoyed our last night out as a family of two. Our last night of not worrying about whether or not we packed the necessities in the diaper bag. Our last night of eating a dinner without a baby in our arms. (At least for awhile!) It was a great dinner. We talked about how lucky we have been in our lives and how excited we were that the next day we would finally become parents! After dinner we went to the hotel, laid in bed, and watched "Cocktails." I tried to sleep, but was far too nervous and excited to even close my eyes.
We headed to the hospital at 6AM on Tuesday and made ourselves comfortable. The nurses started me on Pitocin around 6:30AM - and in case you don't watch "16 and Pregnant," Pitocin is a drug that starts the labor process...mainly contractions. At first it was all fun & games and I finally was able to feel what a contraction was. However, it didn't take long for these mild contractions to get uncomfortable, to say the least... More on that topic later... :) At around 8:30AM Dr. Hodny came and broke my water. While it wasn't painful, it made the whole thing very real - because it meant that I would have to deliver this baby within the next 12-24 hours. For a few more hours we just sat around waiting for things to get going. Around 10AM I started hinting to the nurses that I would like an epidural soon. The nurses told me that it could take anywhere between 15 minutes and an hour to get the epidural once I asked for one, so I told them to go ahead and get the process started...just in case I was the one hour scenario. Well, it definitely took longer than an hour and during that time I went from a 4 to a 9 in about 30 minutes. Not only did I progress quickly, but my contractions were coming around every 45 seconds to a minute and they were intense! (A side effect of Pitocin.) Once the anesthesiologist showed up and got the epidural going it took the epidural awhile to catch up to me since I was progressing so fast. At around 12PM I was dilated to a 10 and was given the green light to start pushing.
For whatever reason, I thought that I would push hard a few times and we would have a baby...turns out I was wrong. I spent approximately 2 hours pushing (hard!) before I was finally able to see my sweet baby. Thank God the epidural kicked in during the pushing because after the horrible contractions, I didn't know if I would make it through the whole process without some help. The whole thing seemed to go by quickly and was far less dramatic than expected. Bryant was amazing during the entire process and I think we both stayed fairly calm for the most part. (I did have a slight freak out moment when they told me I was going to start pushing and my epidural hadn't started to kick in yet.) Bryant was so sweet and encouraging, even if he did eat McDonald's WHILE I was pushing! :)
The last few moments of pushing were filled with some crazy emotions. I was exhausted, ready to see and hold my baby, and also worrying about whether she was going to be healthy. In the last few pushes the nurses had me stop in order to wait for the doctor to arrive. "Stop pushing" is NOT what you want to hear during that time! Then, right before my last push Dr. Hodny had me stop yet again because the umbilical cord was wrapped around her neck tightly. Scary! He quickly cut the cord and then apologized to Bryant since he would no longer have the opportunity to cut it himself. (Fortunately, I don't think Bryant had any plans on cutting the cord anyways!) :)
Finally, finally, FINALLY after what seemed likes years of waiting, our sweet baby arrived. She was absolutely perfect in every way and has the best set of lungs we've ever heard! The nurses cleaned her up and gave her to me to hold in my arms for the first time. There are no words to describe how that moment felt, so I'm not even going to try. Her little face was the most beautiful thing we had ever seen. After I held her, Bryant held her. I thought my heart might explode. There is nothing better than watching the love of my life hold the other love of my life. The next few hour were a whirlwind of nurses, paperwork, family, learning how to breastfeed and care for our new daughter, and taking picture after picture of the cutest baby in the world. We decided to go home after just 24 hours since I was feeling good and Remy was as healthy as could be. I will do another blog post soon on how we've been since bringing Remy home. Stay tuned! :) Love, Bryant, Danielle, Remy & Belly
