We're Home

(another post by Josh) Today we were discharged from the hospital. It's nice to be home. And Baker thinks so too. Everything seems familiar to her, just in a new way.

Click here for some pics.

So here's Baker's memoirs to date:

It all started on a dark and stormy night... Well, it may have been, it was too early to tell. Amy had contractions around 2:50am on Baker's birthday. She had to go to the bathroom, and when she sat down on the toilet, her water broke (about 3:15am). She had excellent control to be able to hold it until she reached the bathroom! When she came back to bed, she woke me up and told me she thought her water broke. I wasn't exactly prepared for that! Especially at that hour. So we called the hospital and they told us to come on in. They also told Amy that if she wanted, to go ahead and take a shower and get ready before we come in. So Amy did. She showered, and ate breakfast, while I slept.
We got to the hospital around 5am. They used a ph strip to make sure her water did break, which it did, and then they told us congratulations, we're going to have a baby today! So then they hooked her up to all the machines and IV's and we waited.

Here's a not-so-brief timeline:

9:30 - Amy began pitocin, to speed up contractions
9:45 - we started to watch a women's high school basketball documentary (have I mentioned they have cable at the hospital... It was like going on vacation, not really)
10:00 - the woman in the room next to ours went into labor, and had decided against an epidural, consequently a great deal of screaming permeated our room
10:30 - the nurse told Amy she was dilated enough to get an epidural when ever she felt like she would want one
10:31 - Amy told the nurse she wanted one
10:45 - the anesthesiologist was able to come in and give Amy the epidural
10:55 - the anesthesiologist checked the epidural, only to find out it was only working on one side, so he had Amy roll over to her right side to see if it would work its way over
11:00 - the woman next door needed an emergency c-section, requiring a lot of the staff
11:10 - Amy was in a lot of pain from needing to to use the restroom, so we pushed the nurse call button
11:15 - no response from the nurses, so I went out to desk to request a nurse, and was told one would be in shortly. *labor screams in the background*
11:20 - no nurse, and Amy was in unbearable pain, so we decided I would help Amy walk to the restroom (against the advice of the nurse to not get out of bed once the epidural was administered)
11:21 - we made it half-way there before the nurse came in panicked that Amy was out of bed. So we got Amy back in bed and found other means to relieve Amy of her pain.
11:30 - the anesthesiologist came back and gave Amy a second epidural since the first one still wasn't working. The basketball documentary ended (with one of the star players getting pregnant as a junior, and ruining her chances of playing in college)
12:00 - Amy started pushing with the help of the nurse
1:15 - the doctor came in to check on Amy's progress
2:00 - after 2 hours of pushing, the nurse called the doctor back because she thought Baker was face up and stuck (apparently, not the preferred method of delivery)
2:05 - the doctor came in and agreed that Baker was face up, and wasn't moving and recommended a c-section.
2:10 - Amy went if to surgery, with me following close behind.
2:32 - After much pushing and pulling (by the doctors and nurses), Baker was born and got to see the faces behind those strange voices she'd been hearing for the last 8 1/2 months.

And now we're home!!! It's good to be home as a family!