Keeping Up with the Buckners: Addison's Birth Story

Today, our precious Addison Leigh turns 3 weeks old. I want to record her birth story here on the blog before I forget everything that happened! So, here goes..

My due date was Monday October 21. All along, I thought she would come on her own the week prior (somewhere within the October 15-18 range). I thought this because Hailey came on her own 2 days before her due date, and "they say" second babies come a little sooner. Welp, I was WRONG! Which made that week prior much longer because each night I went to bed I just expected to be woken up in the middle night with contractions or with my water breaking and when that didn't happen, the next day became longer and more miserable.

Needless to say, when Monday October 21 rolled around, I was DONE. My back hurt, my belly hurt, and I just felt big & uncomfortable. Plus, I was 40 full weeks so I knew that Baby Girl was ready to come out. I called the doctor and luckily she said she could put me on the induction schedule for that night! I was so excited. She said they would call me between 8pm and 8am whenever they had a bed and a nurse for me. So, that evening we took Hailey to my moms house and she went to sleep there. We went home and attempted to go to bed around 8:30 but couldn't fall asleep. When we finally fell asleep around 10pm, the phone rang 20 minutes later!

We arrived at Mercy Hospital around 11:30 PM on Monday October 21. We got checked in and settled into our HUGE labor & delivery room a little before midnight. Here is a pic of huge me in our huge room :)

Things went slowly in the beginning, doing the paperwork, starting the IV, getting checked, and then the nurse calling the doctor to see which approach they wanted to take to get my labor started. My sister and mom arrived around 1 AM, and the nurse started the Pitocin around 2 AM. At 4:15 AM, they decided to break my water to help things move along more quickly (plus, I was only dilated to 2.5 cm by that point). Well, that definitely helped! Just 10 minutes later, I started majorly feeling contractions (3 minutes apart). I endured them until 5:45 AM, but then I decided to get the epidural. My epidural experience with Hailey was awful, and luckily this one was much better. I was feeling warm & tingly by 6 AM - thank goodness! The time passed more quickly once I was numb, plus Hailey, my dad, my nephews, and Marge arrived in that time period as well so time was flying by. Here are some "waiting" pictures....

"Big Sis" bag I made for Hailey... filled with coloring books, crayons, snacks, her baby doll, etc.

She was very excited!

Collin is the best big cousin :)

Ready to be a big sister!

Last pic as a family of 3!!

Kisses for my big girl

My doctor came in for the first time around 9 AM and when she checked me, she said I was "complete"! Oh boy... that meant I was 10cm dilated and 100% effaced (cervix thinned out). In my mind, that meant it was time to push, but my nurse thought otherwise. She said I should "labor down" for a while (just let the baby move down on her own instead of wasting my energy pushing her down). So she left the room and said to let her know when I felt the "urge to push". But before that happened, I felt the epidural starting to wear off and I was feeling contractions again. That is just no fun at all so I called the nurse back in. She came in and increased my epidural medicine and then decided we should do a "practice push" just to work the baby down. Well, that is when the fireworks began. The ONE "practice push" was all I needed and the baby was right there. And since the new epidural meds didn't have time to kick in yet, I was feeling TONS of pressure. The nurse semi freaked out because the baby was basically coming out and there was no doctor in sight. Plus, my family all left the room when the nurse came in so I was freaking out that they were potentially going to miss the birth. But, within probably one minute, about 10 people came flying into the room, including my doctor (thank goodness!). I also had Rian fly down the hall and find my mom, sister, and his mom so they wouldn't miss anything. Inside the room, the doctor put on her "gear" and got the bed ready for delivery in what seemed like seconds. Soon enough, I pushed one time and baby was out! Such an emotional 5 minutes!!! 10:07 AM on Tuesday October 22, Addison Leigh Buckner was here. She weighed 7 pounds 10 ounces and was 21 inches long. Dark brown hair, dark blue eyes, mommy's long fingers and daddy's long skinny feet.

I was so happy that I got to do some immediate "skin to skin" time with her to bond with her right away. She even nursed like a pro for the first time at 10:40 AM. It's amazing to me how instinctual that is to them. Soon afterwards she got her first bath - she LOVED getting her hair washed - a true girl ;) Hailey met her baby sister for the first time and that was a really special moment, too. So crazy to have 2 kids!!

Over the next couple days our family came to the hospital to meet little Addie and we became re-accustomed to having a newborn. She is just sweet as can be and we absolutely love her to pieces. We brought her home on Thursday October 24 and our life as a family of 4 officially began!

Here are a few (okay, more like 50) of my favorite hospital photos (A huge thank you to Melissa for taking great pics for me!!!)