Before I begin my story of Owen's arrival, I wanted to back up to the day before I went into labor. On Thursday, October 27, I came home from work and felt completely lousy. I couldn't quite pinpoint what was wrong, but I felt absolutely horrific and struggled to get through the work day. Little did I know that I would go into labor the next morning! When I got home, Hurley all of a sudden became extremely cuddly with me. For almost 6-7 months after I found out I was pregnant, Hurley refused to be near me. He became a total Daddy's dog and refused to even sit next to me. In fact, the month where Tommy was in DC for a conference, he actually slept by the bedroom door instead of in bed with me. It was really sad. You always hear about dogs being really in tune to their owners, and I now firmly believe in that. He must have known I wasn't feeling well and just wanted to give me a nice snuggle.
On Friday, October 28, I woke up at 6am to my alarm clock and felt a sharp cramp and bad back pain radiate through my body. I brushed it off and just figured it was another ache attributed to my long and tortuous pregnancy - haha! I hit snooze and oddly, when the alarm went off again, I felt the same sensation - a sharp cramp and back ache. I hit snooze 3 more times that morning and the SAME thing happened. In complete and total denial (after all, I was only 37 weeks and 2 days along in the pregnancy) - I thought it was kind of funny that Owen was kicking and putting me in pain in tune to my snooze button. I got ready and went to work, picking up a delicious Chick Fil A breafkast on my way into the office.
Once in the office, I started to still feel the cramps and they became a lot more intense. I still didn't think they were contractions because they were short - no more than 5-10 seconds long and I felt like contractions were supposed to be a lot longer. (On a side note: No one really tells you how it feels like, so I had no clue what I was experiencing. I remember asking the doctor how I would know if I was in labor and what it would feel like and he said I would know!) All morning long I felt I couldn't stand for very long because of the back pain and when these "cramps" were going on, the only way I felt comfortable was when I was standing up, leaned over and rubbing my lower back. I decided to call the nurse at my OB office and told her my symptoms and she basically told me I could go into labor in a few hours, days or weeks. She ended the call by telling me to contact them at the office if things were more consistent. I figured if the nurse wasn't concerned, I clearly wasn't in labor, but I should probably be more attentive to everything. At this point, I started to write down the times of my so-called "cramps" and realized they were about 15-17 minutes apart. I told my good friend and coworker Sarah that I thought I might be in labor and she decided to take me to lunch at Mez, one of my favorite places to eat by the office. We had a quick lunch and during that lunch, I had consistent contractions every 10-12 minutes. Little did I know this would be my last meal before delivery!! I started to get a little worried at this point and wondered if I was truly in labor.
Once I got back to the office, I went to the bathroom and was starting to question whether my water broke. I literally chalked it up as being sweat. I even went across the hall to my general practitioner and told them my symptoms and they laughed at me saying "Annie, it's 40 degrees outside, I think you are in labor and that your water is leaking." I have no idea why I couldn't wrap my mind around possibly having the baby this early on in the pregnancy, but I still wasn't believing it!! At 3:15, I had an extremely intense contraction while another coworker was standing by me. She took one look at me and said "Annie, you are in labor, you need to go home." She sat by my desk and tried to force me to leave. I rushed to get some last minute things done with the assumption I would actually have the baby over the weekend and waited for the next contraction. I wanted to make sure I didn't have one on my 8 minute drive home. A contraction came and I hobbled over to my car praying I wouldn't have one during the drive home.
I got home in one piece and told Tommy that I thought maybe my water was leaking and that I was definitely having contractions, but it seems like it still may be awhile. Tommy decided to pack the car while I showered. After I got out of the shower, my contractions went from being pretty far apart to 7 minutes apart. Tommy called my OB and told them what was going on and they said to call them when the contractions were 5 minutes apart and to leave for the hospital at that point. The contractions very quickly came down to being 5 minutes apart and as we were getting into the car, I told Tommy, "I'm still not sure these are real, let's wait to call the doctor." The contraction that came while we were sitting in the car was so intense, I had to jump out of the car and bend over to breathe through it. Tommy immediately said "we're ready to go, I'm calling the doctor." On the way to the hospital, we both watched the clock in the car and saw that my contractions were very much 5-6 minutes apart. We got to the hospital and went straight to triage. The nurse there checked me out and told me I was 3cm dilated and having contractions every 4 minutes. I looked up at her and said "does that mean we are staying?" She laughed and said "yes, you are in pain and in labor!" I couldn't believe it!!!
When we called my OB office, I found out my favorite OB, Dr. Zimmerman was the one on call. I started going to him through a recommendation and was hoping deep down that he would be the one that would deliver Owen. I knew that there were 3 other doctors that could possibly be the ones there the day it happened, but I was absolutely thrilled to find out he was the one. When they put us into our labor and delivery room, I waited patiently for him to be there so that he could put my epidural in. I wanted to hug him when I saw him!! I felt so lucky to have him there. By the time my epidural was in, I was 5cm dilated and the contractions were coming on strong. Thinking back, the pain was intense, but I had my eye on the prize and knew that it was all going to be worth it.
Once my epidural was in, I was in heaven. In the meantime, our family came to visit us - Danny, Jenn and Meg came by the hospital in hopes of being around when Owen was born. They were also making sure they didn't miss Game 7 of the Rangers game. I'm pretty sure the game was more amusing than my labor progress. I was pain free and bored, but confined to the bed because my legs were completely numb - so I spent a lot of time on my iPhone texting friends and playing games. Unfortunately, the Rangers lost and at the same time it seemed my progression in labor slowed too. We sent the family home because it didn't look like Owen was going to be an October 28th baby after all and we were probably going to have a long night ahead of us.
The nurse urged both Tommy and I to try to get some sleep around midnight because since it was our first baby, the pushing may take anywhere from 30 minutes to 3 hours. I tried really hard to sleep, but just couldn't close my eyes from all the excitement. Tommy on the other hand was out almost instantly and couldn't be woken up at ALL! Not even when the nurse was checking on me every 30 minutes! At some point in the middle of the night, I stopped progressing and spiked a fever. Dr. Zimmerman decided it was best for me to have a c-section because poor Owen's head was stuck and just couldn't seem to get out. At 5:45am on October 29th, they wheeled me back to the OR and before we knew it, Owen Thomas Gebhard was born at 6:19am weighing in at 6lbs, 12 oz. The c-section was a little scary - they had to give me extra drugs because for some reason I kept feeling them pinching my abdomen. The more drugs they gave me, the more I got the shakes and it just started to get uncomfortable. I was never in pain, but I was very much distressed about the whole thing. Once Tommy was allowed into the OR, I felt much more at ease and knew Owen was going to be there. I can't quite describe in words how it felt to hear Owen's cry for the first time. It was completely magical. When they lifted him over the drape, my first comment was "holy cow, he is huge, how did he fit inside my stomach?" And then I said "he looks Asian!!!"
Once they finished cleaning me up, they pushed me back to recovery and I got to hold Owen for the first time. He smelled so good and was so incredibly tiny. I was so out of it from the drugs and could barely keep my eyes open, but all I wanted to do was hold him tight. Since I spiked a fever, they had to give me and Owen antibiotics as a precautionary measure in case there was any kind of infection that was running through my system during labor. It made me really sad because they had to take him away. Luckily Tommy got to go and watch everything. At some point, they brought me to my hospital room where we waited for Owen to come back to us. The anesthesia drugs really made my mind foggy and I could not stay awake! But when they finally brought him back, I managed to snap out of it and look at our new baby son. I was able to nurse him and he latched on like a champ. It was such a special moment to share with him. I was worried in the back of my mind how much time had passed between his delivery and being able to feed him, but all of those worries passed as I stared down at him.
The rest of the day was extremely foggy for me, but I know family came by our room and loved on Owen all day. My Mom even changed her flight (she was originally supposed to fly in next weekend) so that she was there Saturday afternoon. One thing I want to document is how much I loved my delivery at Rex Hospital in Raleigh. The nursing staff could not have been more attentive and I was lucky to have the same nurses rotate for the first 48 hours post surgery. It made dealing with the difficulties of recovering from a major abdominal surgery much easier. They were always asking to make sure I was 100% comfortable and pain free and really made me feel better about being so groggy the first day. I felt guilty not being able to open my eyes for a long period of time, but the nursing staff was so supportive of my recovery.
On a funny note, I was totally unprepared for such an early arrival of our precious boy. In fact, I had scheduled a hospital tour with Rex on November 1st and a TON of meetings scheduled for the following week. It's funny thinking back how unprepared I was with the whole process, but at the same time I think it helped me stay stress free and not so anxious about his arrival. I would like to thank all my friends, coworkers and family for listening to me for almost 9 months whining and complaining about my pregnancy. I know I wasn't easy to deal with, but who can blame me? Pregnancy isn't fun! The outcome sure is though!! :)
Hurley snuggling with me the day before I went into labor.
Sweet puppy!
In triage, making phone calls to family and friends!
IV in...waiting for Dr. Zimmerman to give me my epidural!!
The family watching the Rangers game!
Probably texting someone here. :)
Ready for surgery!
Owen is here!
Because Owen was stuck - he had a little bit of a conehead at birth/
His "angel's kiss" that Tommy had as a baby can really be seen here!
Sweet baby!
All puffy and swollen, but still incredibly cute.
His first combover
All nice and clean!
Owen's weight
Daddy and Owen
My first snuggle in recovery
Poor baby with his IV.
Owen's bed at the hospital.
