Baby on the waaaayyyyyy

pregnancy update from march 1, 2012
From: Miranda Helterman <mhelterman@hotmail.com>
Date: Thu, Mar 1, 2012 at 4:05 PM
Subject: C-Section scheduled for Friday, 3/16!!!

hi, everyone! so, i just got back from this week's OB appointment, and since Butterbean is in the EXACT same place, we are scheduling a c-section for Friday, 3/16. i don't know what time yet, but will let you know, of course! Butterbean, whose name will be Sara Catherine, has been VERY active these past few weeks, doing some rib-climbing, some appendix tapping, some bladder stomping and, my personal favorite, some cervix line-dancing. accordingly, while i am not dilated whatsoever, i am about 30% effaced. so the most likely scenario is that a) we have the c-section birth on friday, 3/16 or, next most likely, b) we have an emergency c-section prior to that if sara catherine tries to bust out early.

i've not been feeling all that well for a few days - some pretty bad tummy distress in various forms, and as always, my darling andrew is SO patient with me, and doesn't roll his eyes (where i can see him) at my constant whining, and makes sure i am as comfy as possible, and eating enough for two, and that i always have my lemonade available. :) my blood sugar keeps plummeting even when i'm eating several small healthy meals a day, so i'm taking glucose tabs. the pinched nerve pain is down to about 30-40% of its prior strength, and is only really bad after several errands or lots of cleaning, or lots of stairs. so i'm trying to be prudent about it while also trying to get stuff done. and ruby having a dog walker has been a Godsend.

Sara Catherine's heart rate was good today - mine was a little high, but we're expecting it to go back to normal levels after the little muffin arrives. SC probably weighs just over 6 lb now and we'll do a better weight check next Thursday. i've now gained a total of 19 lb, which is lower than average, but would only be a problem if SC's measurements indicated a low birth weight, and they indicate she is right on track, which is AWESOME!! we tried to get more pictures of her today, but she was NOT having it, and kept both hands and feet in front of her face, the lil monkeypants.

as far as people coming to help! as this is our first baby, and a c-section, we must be in the hospital for 48 hours. not quite sure if that's a STRICT 48 hours, or if that means we'll be there friday and most of saturday, or what, but i will find out. one complication is that the hospital is 45 min - 1 hour away from home, so, coming to myrtle beach before we get to come home is not going to be convenient or fruitful for anyone, unless you just want to chill here, or CLEAN. WHICH WE WILL HAPPILY ALLOW. :) depending how i feel after the surgery, we THINK we'll be setting up the first floor for me to stay on the couch and have SC in a bassinet next to me, due to the stairs.

anyway, amie and i will discuss her visit separately, now that we have a delivery date, but if amie is able to come either late saturday or early sunday, and stay for a couple of days, that would be great. then, my mom will come from atlanta and plan to be here around the time amie is heading back to columbia, maybe mid-week. she'll be here a few days. betty will be here around 4/14 - 4/21 (or thereabouts) while andrew goes to a JAG conference in wisconsin. YES. wisconsin. once melanie's husband gets back from afghanistan (hallelujah!!!) in march, she'll look into maybe taking a long weekend between my mom's visit and her mom's visit in late march, early april. and since sara just started a brand new job, once she's accrued some PTO, she'll get her triflin' booty down here on a long weekend, hopefully not driving but with some awesome cheap plane ticket! :) maybe spirit air? and if jolyon wants to come down and help, he is welcome! and so is anyone and everyone else!

so, there we have it. once we're sure about Helper dates, i'll send out a little schedule to the awesome Helper-peeps. along with my ice cream preferences. :)

y'all are ALMOST done having to read these suckers, woooooo!! :)

love and smooches to all!

miranda :)

so, we got to 37.5 weeks and our little baby was still breech, with her head just under my left boob. she had been that way for months, with her little bottom near my cervix and her toes and hands up around her face. so we scheduled a c-section for fri, march 16, first thing in the morning - i'd be 39 weeks that day, which is the minimum, according to the ACOG, for scheduling a c-section. it's funny, but it's hard for me to really remember all of this now because you start to see things as BEFORE THE BABY ARRIVED &amp; AFTER THE BABY ARRIVED. and even though she's just 18.5 weeks old now, it seems like 18 MONTHS ago at this point. so, the nursery was a disaster - everything we'd ever gotten since we found out we were pregnant was in a huge pile in the nursery. it was an awesome pile, because we had so many wonderful friends and family bless us with so many gifts. but that day i kept looking towards in the future, the one where i got off my fat ass and organized everything, had never happened and we were having a baby in a few DAYS. and i had the pinched nerve and could barely walk, and andrew was having to do everything else in the house, plus work, so i took care of the problem by shutting the door and ignoring it. lalala. the monday of our last week, i still hadn't even packed the hospital bags. tuesday, march 13th, i finally felt like i needed to get some baby prep things done, so i packed a bag for me and one for the baby. my sister sara had gathered some necessities for me and they arrived that afternoon - i know it included a pack of portable enfamil newborn formula, and a bunch of other things i can't remember, but i also brought maxi-pads, big ole grannie panties, scrunchies galore, nursing bras, nipple cream, a little notebook to keep track of baby poops and diapers and nursing, etc, loose clothes for me, a couple onesies and a going-home outfit for the baby. and a bunch of other crap that made neither bag able to be zipped. i got some darling XXL jommies and tried them on for ensured comfort and took a picture:
<><><><> <> <><> <><> <> <><> <><> <>

Tuesday, March 13th, 2012

so andrew and i just hung out that evening, i think watching the rest of the walking dead series we had DVRd. about 9:45pm i started feeling some pains in my lower abdomen. it felt like menstrual cramps but sharper and covering a wider area. i told andrew i was having pains and he stopped drinking his wine mid-sip and put his glass down. i called my sister sara and asked her if i could possibly be having contractions, and she said, "when you're having contractions, YOU'LL KNOW IT." so, i let my sister go back to sleep, and andrew decided not to have anymore wine that night, JUST IN CASE, since he was the driver and the hospital is 45 minutes away.


at about 2am, i KNEW i was having a contraction, which woke my ass up out the bed. i didn't wake up andrew yet, but kept an eye on the clock as the contractions came and went every 8 minutes or so. within a half hour, they were down to 5 minutes apart and i woke andrew and said, "hey, baby, i'm pretty sure i'm having contractions now." he jumped up and out of bed and THEN said "what?" and looked at his phone and said, "what?"
so i went down to the first floor, ruby ignored us and kept snoozing, probably thankful our triflin' asses finally got out of her way and she could stretch out, and i heard andrew pretty much running up and down the stairs (we have 3 floors) gathering things together. THANK GOD i had just packed the bags that afternoon, AND i was super ingenious because i had tried on the above pajamas AND NEVER TOOK THEM OFF. so i was already dressed for the hospital, wheeee! of course, before we decided to go to the hospital and then just get sent home, i had to internet research When to Go to the Hospital. the suggestions varied from when the contractions are 4 to 6 minutes apart. i kept the little scrap of paper that i kept the times on, so i could put it in sara catherine's baby book. it's in a special place called, "i hope i find wherever the f^&amp;% i put it for safekeeping." andrew and i just sort of sat and looked at each other, in between contractions, and we might as well have been doing our Where to Go Eat ritual: so, what do you think? i don't know, what do YOU think? i don't know." i called the labor/delivery unit at Loris Hospital and they said, "come on in," which causes me to take a deep breath even just typing this, because that meant even REAL PEOPLE thought i might be about to have a baby, aaaccckkkkk, which wasn't supposed to happen till FRIDAY-UH. SO. andrew had already put everything in the car, and we walked out into the cool air about 3:30am or so, and then the first HOLY SHIT contraction hit me as we were walking. i almost fell, it hurt so badly, and i grabbed andrew and had to stop and wait for it to subside. see, i wasn't SUPPOSED TO BE HAVING LABOR. i had a SCHEDULED C-SECTION because my baby was breech. so i never prepared myself for how to deal with contractions, not that you can actually fathom the pain unless you've experienced them. but i will try: the pain is similar to a menstrual cramp, obviously because it's your uterus contracting. during your period, your uterus just wants to get rid of its pesky little lining. during labor, your uterus wants to EJECT A BUTTERBALL TURKEY. it's like someone has injected a wine bottle opener into your nethers, because there's pain there, too, and then is twisting the handle thingies, so that there is a searing, shooting, ripping, squeezing horrendous pain, and somehow, even though it's worse where you'd expect it to be, the pain goes through your whole body, and you can't even take a breath until it starts to ease up some.


so we got in the car and andrew is super-focused. the car is on empty, because we weren't supposed to be birthing till friday! so we stop and get gas and andrew gets me water. i'm afraid to drink anything because, if in fact i'm in actual labor and have to have my c-section early (i can still feel the baby's little noggin right under my left boob, so i know she's still breeech), i'm not supposed to eat or drink anything. i also didn't take my effexor, my anti-anxiety/anti-depressant pill, because i was scared to drink too much water which i would then aspirate or vomit or something else horrible, in my imagination. bad idea. shoulda taken it, because i didn't get to take another one until more than 27 hours later, or more than 40 hours after taking my last one. anyway, so we were otw to the hospital at 4am, with contractions wracking my body, and my mind racing -- oh my gosh, was it REAL? no matter how much you try to wrap your mind around it, or at least for me, i couldn't fathom that this little munchkin inside me was going to transition to life OUTSIDE of me. everyone kept saying, throughout my pregnancy, "i know you can't wait to just HOLD her." but that's actually not EVER what i felt. because i couldn't, despite a very active imagination, ever envision this baby AS A BABY. mostly i was scared. andrew and i had almost zero combined experience with newborns -- mine was limited to one week of helping my twin sister with her 3-week-old baby ellie, who was colicky, and that was IT. so, even though we were heading towards the hospital to most likely deliver this baby, and i was suffering through some very real and very painful contractions, it was totally surreal to me. like my own personal twilight zone.

OKELY DOKELY, I'VE BEEN TRYING TO WRITE THIS POST FOR 2 DAYS, BUT THE LITTLE MUFFINPANTS WANTS TO PLAY AND SO DO I, SO WE WILL CONTINUE THE DELIVERY STORY (IN EXCRUCIATING DETAIL) LATER. ANDREW IS CONSIDERING ADDING HIS MEMORIES OF THE DELIVERY AND HOSPITAL STAY TO THIS BLOG, WHICH I WOULD LOVE TO HAVE FOR SARA CATHERINE. WE'LL BE BACK SOON!! :)