When my water broke, I had no idea what was in store for us. I called the doctor's office to let them know, and was told to come in to the hospital as soon as I could. Right away, I was upset. Mark wouldn't be home from work for at least an hour, so I told them I was staying put until my husband got home. I also had wanted to labor at home as long as possible, and that option just went out the window. I knew when my water broke that there was a good chance we weren't going to have the birth experience I had dreamed of. And we didn't. But it's ok. I read something not long ago that really made me feel better about my birth experience - every baby is born just the way they need to be born. And for Lilly, it meant me being hooked up to monitors, laying in one position, not having the natural, drug free labor I envisioned. It's a good thing I caved (I did make it 17 hours drug-free, and 19 hours before I asked for an epidural though - I have to brag on that at least). If I hadn't, I think it would have taken me a lot longer to progress, and who knows what state Lilly would have been in at that point.
When Lilly was born, she scored a 1 on the APGAR test. The cord was wrapped around her neck, loosely though. Mark cut the cord before she was completely out. They placed her on my chest and very quickly took her away. My brother said he had heard the doctor say "It's a girl!", but my sister said she didn't hear her crying. She did hear them paging for more nurses and then NICU nurses/doctors. I didn't hear anything - I was worried about my baby, and also trying to ignore what my doctor was doing to me.
After what seemed like an eternity, they placed my little girl in my arms. The NICU doctor came over and explained what was going on. Her heart rate was elevated and her breathing was very rapid. They had given her oxygen but they wanted to take her down to examine her. I was heartbroken. No skin to skin, no immediate breast-feeding. No pictures of us as a family. No meeting Nana and Papa and Aunties and Uncle. I felt like I had been robbed. My family came in for a short period while I held her, but it was less than 5 minutes and she was gone. Mark went down with her and took pictures of her being weighed and measured, and then had to decide who needed him more. Since I'd had the epidural, I couldn't go down to recovery with her. We went down probably close to two hours after Lilly was born. Honestly, I can't remember all the details after she went down to the NICU. It's kind of a blur. I had been awake for 36 hours and I was exhausted. I really hoped everything was just a false alarm and we'd have her in my room that night.
Basically, I wasn't prepared at all for the next eight days.
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