Norah Jane

My due date with Norah was on February 4th. She was born on February 4th. This caused me much anxiety and stress.

Let me back up.

When I was pregnant with Liam, I had high blood pressure. The whole time. From my very first appointment. They ran tests and did ultrasounds at almost every appointment to make sure he was growing correctly and the tests checked to see if I had preeclampsia. I didn't. 

I was never totally sure of when I got pregnant and so my due date was moved forward by a total of 3 weeks based on measurements. My official, ending due date was November 27th, which happened to fall on Thanksgiving. At my last appointment on November 18th, my blood pressure had jumped up pretty high and the doctor decided that it was time for me to have my baby. I started crying when I received this news. I hadn't started my maternity leave from work yet and I had things I needed to get done before I had a baby. He was pretty insistent and painted me some pretty gloom and doom pictures and basically scared me into checking into the hospital. Roughly 3-4 weeks earlier than my original due date. From the moment I checked in my blood pressure was lower than it had ever been my entire pregnancy. Labor did not go smoothly. My poor body was not ready to deliver a baby and my poor baby was not ready to be born. His heart was not responding well to contractions and I was told that if things didn't start progressing the way they "should" that I would have to have a c-section. I was scared and confused and pretty much in the dark about everything that was going on. Luckily my beautiful boy decided to come, 24 hours after check in, and was perfect. Minus his inability to start breathing on his own and the fact that he had contracted some sort of infection... from me? from...? No one every really cleared that up for me. I was able to hold him for maybe 30 seconds before he was whisked away from me and taken to the NICU and it was hours before I could see him. It was so scary. 

So having had that as my first childbirth experience, I was absolutely determined that I would ride out the pregnancy and that my baby girl would come when she was ready, not when some doctor decided that it was time. I was so careful with my weight gain, and I tried to be active and my blood pressure stayed normal! All the way until my doctors appointment in the middle of January. It was slightly higher than normal, but not high enough to be too alarming. Then at my appointment on January 31st it was even higher, 154/90 or something. The doctor didn't like that number and asked me to come back in on the 4th to have it checked again. When I went in, the nurse checked it and it came in at 161/100. Not good. And the doctor said it needed to be time. My last "check" had shown no progression towards labor and here I was being told it was time for my baby to come. Again. I was very upset and asked if I could just go home first (I needed to wash my hair, haha). I was given a check in time of 12:30 and so after finding arrangements for Liam, we headed to the hospital. We were finally checked in and settled into our room around 1:30 or 2. The doctor came in to see me (honestly, this doctor was amazing. He made me feel so comfortable at every appointment and I never felt in the dark and he listened to my concerns and really, was just so much better than my first doctor) and jokingly said "that was a pretty awesome blood pressure you came in with!" He then said that even though all the tests came back negative for preeclampsia, he wasn't comfortable letting me walk around with my blood pressure so high. Things were pretty slow going until about 7:00 or so. I had sent Darrell to his school class because nothing was happening and I didn't want him missing class for nothing. He usually got done between 8:30 and 9 and was close enough that if something did happen he could get to me really fast. By 7:45 I requested an epidural which was lovely and then I got a little extra shot of pain medication at about 8:20. I fell asleep, which was so, so nice. At 8:45 I woke up because suddenly I couldn't hear the babies heartbeat on the monitor and my nurse came in just a minute later. Baby had dropped! She checked me again and I was at a 7! I texted Darrell to let him know what was happening and the nurse said it was time to call the doctor! WHAT?! Darrell got to the hospital just before the doctor did and suddenly it was go time! Baby girl was ready to come. I pushed for 10 minutes, maybe and on the last push the doctor almost didn't catch her! She was here and perfect and healthy. And things were not so confusing. And even though I needed some stitches, the doctor still kept everything feeling happy and light. It was just so different than the first time around. The handed my baby girl to me and I realized that we still had to decide what we wanted to call her! We had decided that we like either Norah Jane or Wren Marie. And I had no idea. Finally Darrell whispered to me that he liked Norah and so thats the name we announced to our parents. Little Norah Jane. 

Now that she is here, she is wonderful. Such a good baby. So sweet and snuggly. A little grumpy sometimes but for the most part so happy and content. Liam is slowly warming up to her, he finally said, about a week after she was born, "I love Norah" and then gave her is glow-worm that he had when he was a baby. It was very sweet.