Introducing Meredith Lee

Well it finally happened!!!  We were induced early Saturday morning, July 19th and before lunchtime she was here!!

Meredith Lee, middle name after my grandma Shirley Lee, was born at 10:49 A.M.  She weighed 7 lbs 5 ounces and was 20.5 inches long.  

It was a very fast labor and I actually had to wait an hour for my doctor to come before I could push.  I was feeling terrible with contractions and as soon as I got my epidural I felt incredible pressure.  The nurse checked and sure enough I was 10 centimeters and she was ready to come out.  The nurse actually said, "if you feel like a bowling ball is trying to come out....call me right away and do no push unless I am in the room!"  Comforting ha.  Not sure what took the doctor so long but it was hard to keep her in there!

Going back to the night before, I was very sad because we obviously tried to be induced the day before but it didn't happen.  I was sad I didn't have a baby but even more upset that I had a "plan" and it didn't work out.  Whit was already at my parents house and I missed her so much, if I would have known I wouldn't have been induced that day we could have had her at home with us one more day. Of course she didn't care and neither did my parents but I just felt like our whole world was about to change and I didn't like it.........

So we finally get to bed and are trying to rest and I start thinking about a name for our baby.  We have had a terrible time with this for some reason.  All 9 months we went back and forth between several names and could never ever agree.  Well I take that back, at around 8 months we decided that her name would be Meredith.  I called Jenny and told her she could finish our mural and paint the initials because we knew her name.  ONLY to wake up the next morning crying thinking....oh no that is not her name I am not ready to say that.  We then cut Meredith off of the list because we didn't like it anymore! Haha:)  So it was between Natalie and Julia.....

So our alarm goes off at 3:00 a.m. and I sit up and say, "Her name is Meredith."  I don't know what happened but I just knew right then that it was her name.  Funny how things change or come to you like that and luckily Ryan agreed.

We get to the hospital and everything happens quickly, I am checking in and get my IV and everything started.  I wanted to get my epidural right away  but the nurse said to wait and kind of made me feel guilty for wanting one because she "had four natural births and survived".  I shouldn't have listened to her and got one right away because it was a packed house again (they turned away all other inductions after me that morning) and it took the epidural guy FOREVER to get into my room.  About an hour before he got in there I was at 6 cm and those contractions were not fun at all.  And the epidural took a long time to kick in so I bet by the time it really helped me, I was already 10 cm because not long after I started feeling "good" was when I started to feel her coming out.  So I am not sure how anyone does that naturally, holy  moly that is something I never want to experience again!!!

My doctor finally arrives an hour later and I push all of three times and we have our beautiful  baby girl!  It was perfect!!!  

My Mom and Kelley arrive about 45 minutes after that and got to meet her and then they left to go have lunch with Whitney and Papaw before bringing her in to meet her sister:).  BUT while they were in my room my doctor came back in and looked a little flustered.  She said, "uhhh I see you have friends here, I will come back...."  Weird.

So after they leave she comes in almost immediately and says, "do you take pain medication?"

I of course said, no and looked at Ryan because I was confused.  She asked again if I was sure that I hadn't taken any prescription pain meds before birth and I again told her no.  She finally says, in a rude way mind you (can you tell I don't like her at all....of course I get the only doctor out of six that I do not like), "well you failed your drug test.  You tested positive for opiates."

WHAT????  Ummm wait WHAT?????  I had no idea what she was talking about.  We started talking about it because I obviously do not do drugs and the nurse asked if I had any caffeine or poppy seeds???  POPPY SEEDS!!!!  I felt sick all day the day before and only wanted bread.  So Ry got me two everything bagels and I ate one for breakfast and one for dinner.  UGH!

So poppy seeds are what is used in China to actually make opiates and if you eat them you are not taking the drug BUT you test positive for opiates if screened.  Now of course I found all this out in spurts throughtout my stay and was made to feel pretty yucky by some people.  They had to take all of Meredith's diapers to test her urine and poop to make sure she was not positive and I was not allowed to leave without having passed the longer test with my blood and urine and Meredith had to pass too :(

After a long talk with the social worker, negative tests for Meredith and myself, I was allowed to leave.   But not before my doctor comes back in and get this tells me she didn't believe me but did a lot of research and it is happening so often that they were holding an emergency meeting with all OB doctors that deliver at B North to discuss it.  I was apparently not the only one that weekend that had poppy seeds and tested positive because of it.  Whew definitely not something we wanted to deal with when we had our second child but its behind us now!

Whitney came to visit that first day after I got to my room and melted my heart.  I missed that little girl so so much!  She looked at me so weird when she came in because of my hospital gown and didn't want to kiss Meredith because she was dirty.... haha:)  But she loved her big sister presents and I enjoyed my cuddle time with my biggest girl!  

All in all it was a wonderful experience and we were so excited to get home to be a family of four!