BABY GIRL IS HERE!
Arden Gray Clark was born January 31st, 2017 at 5:59 p.m.
She was 8 lbs 6 oz and 20 inches long!
Before I forget all the details, I decided to sit down and type out sweet baby girl's "birth story". When I was pregnant, I would read these ALL the time, even strangers' stories! Honestly I read them just so I could educate myself on what it would be like. Being a first-timer is hard! You have NO idea what to expect, so you teach yourself however you can.
SO, just in case there are any interested soon-to-be mamas out there, I hope this is helpful.
First, let's talk about baby girl's name. For years I've loved the name Arden. I think it's so pretty and slightly unique, but definitely a large leap from "weird" — which is exactly what I wanted. I'd also never met anyone with the name Arden. (As soon as Drew and I landed on Arden for this baby girl, it seems like I met about 100 Ardens. Kind of like when you get a new car, and then all of a sudden you notice other people driving them everywhere. Even the sweet NICU nurse who "caught" her was named Arden. Which we loved! And I'm pretty sure it made nurse Arden's whole week.) ANYWAY, Drew wasn't sure about Arden at first (I think he was still banking on a boy), but when we found out she was a girl at 19 weeks, he agreed she was Arden, and we didn't change it one single time since.
Gray is a play off of my Poppy's name, Grady. Poppy means more to me than I can say, and he has my whole life. I've looked up to him as long as I can remember. He taught me how to climb a tree, and he read me more books than I could ever count. He hung me a swing from the dreamiest tree on his land when I was tiny, just because I asked him to. Some of my very best childhood memories have him as the leading role, and now that he's become a huge part of both mine and Drew's lives, Gray just fit.
Now onto the story.
My due date of January 26th came and went, which was tough—because I looked forward to the 26th for nine months. When it passed, it was kind of surreal. I was SO uncomfortable and felt huge. I was SO swollen. My face, my ankles, my legs—everything.
Bump selfies - you're welcome.
My doctor was pretty great—he doesn't like to go more than a week overdue. So at my last baby appointment the Tuesday before my Thursday due date, we scheduled an induction for the 31st just in case. By the way, my name on my insurance card still says "Crelia". Literally EVERYTHING else is Clark, but I forgot to change that one thing. So my name all the way through this process was Crelia. Which is why you see it on my appointment notification. Haha. Drew was really happy about that. (oops.)
My last day of work was the Friday before my Tuesday induction. I was pretty physically miserable and really checked out. I wanted to meet my baby! Drew sent me the sweetest flowers at work. He knew I was on the struggle bus. They made my whole day.
Saturday before the induction I tried EVERYTHING to go into labor. I bounced on that dang yoga ball for hours and I drank my weight in hot raspberry leaf tea. I got a pedicure and I ate spicy foods. Drew and I walked and walked everywhere. NOTHING worked. My advice to any expecting ladies out there is not to wear yourself out with all of those wives tales. Just relax. Try to enjoy the last days of being pregnant. I know how annoying that advice is, because by the end you're SICK of getting up 6 times a night because an 8 pound baby is sitting on your bladder, and having heartburn that never lets up is absolutely miserable. So if you want to tell me to get the heck out, I understand.
But I was putting so much pressure on myself to hurry up and have the baby that I made myself grumpy and sad a lot of times. I don't want that for you. So TRY your hardest not to think about it. Just do your best to push it to the back of your mind and distract yourself with fun things like dinner out and pedicures. Because once baby shows up, you're tethered to the house.
Sunday came and still, no baby. So I baked Drew's favorite homemade chocolate cake with chocolate buttercream icing HOPING that would do the trick. Nope. But we did have yummy cake!
Monday I went on a mad cleaning spree. I washed bath mats and dusted shelves. I vacuumed and mopped and bleached the bathrooms top to bottom. I washed all the linens in the house and organized the baby's room. It was INSANE. But it felt pretty good knowing we'd come home from the hospital to a clean house.
That night Drew and I made sure everything was packed up and ready to go. I took a Benadryl because I was a nervous wreck and I knew sleep wasn't going to happen on its own. It didn't work. We set an alarm for 5:00 a.m., and I'm pretty sure I still woke up every hour on the hour.
We woke up at 5, I ate a quick bowl of cereal, threw on some clothes and we headed to the hospital!
5:45 a.m. - LAST bump pic
We got to the hospital and they got us all checked in. It was pretty tame. Just "sign here, confirm this, okay sign here again." It definitely didn't feel like the classic "I'm in labor! Get me a wheelchair!" type of thing you see on the Hallmark channel.
Then they took me to my room and threw a gown at me! It all seemed to happen reaaaaallllly fast after that.
TRICKED YA. One last bump pic.
Laying in that bed before I really started feeling anything, I had a lot of time to look around at the room and think about all the scary and exciting things that were about to happen. I kept staring at the baby warmer in the corner and thinking "Oh man...there's a baby on the way...it's really happening."
They started my pitocin at 7 a.m. I was surprised by how much I didn't hate the pitocin. It got things moving quickly without me having to sit and suffer for 24 hours like some first time moms. The doctor came in at 8 a.m. to break my water. That's when we found out baby girl had meconium in her amniotic fluid—basically she had her first #2 in the womb, which is an infection risk. It's not uncommon in overdue babies, which is part of the reason our doctor doesn't like to go overdue. Thank goodness we didn't let baby girl sit in there too long, or it could've been scary. At this point, we just had to pray it wasn't too serious and that she hadn't ingested any of it.
The first few hours were pretty tame. I was in a decent amount of pain, but I was able to breathe through it. I was more surprised by how uncomfortable things like where they inserted my IV (my wrist) and the hospital bed were. I know that sounds silly, but it was those sorts of things that made me the most annoyed for a while.
At about 9:30 things got a little rough. They gave me IV medication that made me loopy, but it made me feel much better. The contractions came on so fast, one after the other without breaks, that they made me more exhausted than anything. The pain I could do, but the fact there wasn't much rest in between was the harder part.
People started getting to the hospital around 8. Slowly but surely everyone started trickling in.
At about 10, they amped up that pitocin and I flipped a switch very fast. We had to clear the room because I actually started feeling overwhelmed with the pain very quickly. Drew was a great coach. He would watch my monitor religiously and tell me every time the contractions were on the downhill slope, just so I could deal.
My nurse, Loraine, was amazing. She had my back the whole time. I would've sat there miserable for at least two more hours just to prove something dumb, but she didn't let me. She very quickly said "If your pain is higher than a 7, then it's time to start you on fluids and prep you for your epidural." She opened the door for me and offered me an out, and I was so grateful. I'm too hard headed to admit that I was already in so much pain, but she knew. And thank GOODNESS because it takes about 45 minutes to receive all of your fluids and get prepped and ready. 45 minutes later, I was actually crying. I was terrified to sit up, not because of the fear of getting an epidural, but because of the contractions. Thankfully, nurse Loraine came to the rescue again, and gave me a little more of the IV meds right when it was time to sit up. It saved me. I stopped crying immediately, and the Epidural hurt a "0" on a "10" pain scale. Seriously. It was fabulous.
My epidural kicked in pretty fast. I loved it, but I also HATED not having use of my legs. It actually gave me some anxiety and I had to distract myself from it. Overall, I would definitelyyyy do the epidural again, but sheesh. I'm glad I didn't have to have it turned on any longer than I did.
After that, I ate a lot of ice chips, a few popsicles and just relaxed. The epidural made me so sleepy, I can't explain it. I would drift in and out of a very shallow sleep where I was still listening to everyone talk, but I was just loopy. Heck, maybe it was that IV medication, I can't be sure. But it was weird.
I was surprised by how much I didn't want food. I hadn't eaten a single thing since 5 a.m. and I couldn't have cared less that Drew was having lunch or people were snacking. I wanted NOTHING except ice. Drew kept my ice cup full all day long.
I was progressing pretty quickly, thank goodness. By about 4:45, I was fully dilated and ready to go.
My WHOLE pregnancy my belly measured small. We thought she was a tiny little thing! But literally 5 minutes before we started pushing, my doctor came in and felt my belly and said "Oh, she's at least 8 pounds!" Drew and I were shocked. My nurse was so funny. She saw the scared look on my face and said "That's a guess!! Just a guess!"
I pushed for an hour. It hurt. Epidurals can only do so much. Finally, at 5:59 p.m., little Arden was born. They immediately had to take her to the warmer to assess her because of the meconium. She also had her cord wrapped around her neck, but thankfully it didn't cause any major issues. Drew walked over to check her out and he said "Babe, she has red hair!" I couldn't believe it. We were both SO surprised!
Sadly, she couldn't keep her oxygen levels up, so they almost had to take her away to look at her further. JUST as the nurse practitioner came to take her away, baby girl was able to get her oxygen up and keep it up. And I finally got to see her. That was the longest twenty minutes ever. I knew she'd be okay, but there's something very flustering about having no control and just sitting helpless in a bed.
We finally made it out of the L&D wing and into our mother/baby room. I was exhausted, Drew was exhausted—BUT surprise! We had a sweet baby girl who didn't want to sleep. I don't think we've slept since. ;)
Y'all I was so swollen. I'd been pumped full of IV fluids for 30 hours. It was crazy. Please see below photos of my ankles. The first photo was taken the day we got home. The second was taken just three days later. Hahahahahaaaaa
We had to stay two nights at the hospital, and our blinds didn't open—so I've never been so happy to pack up and go see some sunlight.
When we finally got to check out was around the same time that I finally felt like I could walk unassisted. They still didn't let me carry this baby out. I was so emotional throughout the whole going home experience that when one of our bouquets fell over in the car, I bawled. Drew had to pull over. It was a whole thing.
The day we brought her home!
Arden and her Poppy
One of our first "up all night" nights called for a no makeup selfie. Also shoutout to the flamingo swaddle. We have about 2 million blankets, but obviously this is our favorite.
Three days worth of diapers...
Drew putting together the stroller...
Sweet Drew assembling my breast pump....lol best dad award.
Baby girl's little umbilical stump fell off after just one week. Bath time!
She clearly has attitude.
When you're a fatty and you know it.
So. Much. Spit up. I would like to direct your attention to her foot, which is swimming in a tiny pool of it. Smiling through the pain.
First Nose Frida experience.
Baby wearing.
That's about it! This sweet girl did so well for her newborn photos last week, so as soon as we get those back, I'll share. Until then, surely all of these baby selfies will tide you over. ;)
So far sweet Arden doesn't sleep much. She also hates to nap. She has a killer set of lungs, which she demonstrates for us every time we change her diaper. She loves to be held and she LOVES to eat. She's kind of a little pig, actually.
I'll write again soon to tell you all of the fun and not-so-fun things I expected and also didn't expect about momming. (Momming is a verb on my blog.)
If you got all the way down here...WOW. You're a trooper. Sorry, we're just OBSESSED with her! I hope it was helpful or at least entertaining. Need more baby Arden? Catch us on snapchat. :)
you're killin the mom game!! she's perfect & I am scared to have babes now but it'll be okay! love you, sis! XO, megan b.
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