Noah! And the last 2 weeks...

Noah is here! He hit his 2 week mark yesterday. It feels like it has been months already, but it also seems like I just birthed him yesterday. Let me give you a synopsis of the last 2 weeks:

Tuesday May 29- I couldn't sleep the night before because of contractions. They were really far apart (timewise) and just felt like PMS cramps, so I didn't really think anything of them.  I took the morning off of work to try to sleep, but went into work at noon since I mostly just felt like I was on my period.  I only worked til 4, then went home, still feeling crampy.  The contractions continued to get closer together and more intense as the night progressed; by about 7 or 8pm I felt like I might be having "real" contractions, but didn't want to go to the hospital too early only to be sent home.  I was tracking my contractions and they were about 5 minutes apart and pretty intense for at least an hour. Monte got worried, so he called the hospital to see if I should go in.  They told him to not bring me in til my contractions were <3 minutes apart and so intense that I couldn't walk or talk while having them. SO...we waited and waited and waited. And all the while I was having extremely painful contractions. Monte was trying to get me to call my mom to have her come down, but I was still convinced that I would be at home for a long time waiting for my contractions to be closer together and more intense.  Monte sneakily texted my mom and told her to call me. When my mom called me and I couldn't talk to her because of the pain she made me hand the phone to Monte, to whom she then said. "Take her to the hospital right now!" This was at about 10:30pm, I believe. Monte drove me to the hospital (the worst part of the whole night, probably), wheeled me to Labor and Delivery, and filled out all of the paperwork.  I was put into a room, the nurse checked me, and I was dilated to 7 cm! You guys. I barely made it in time to get an epidural. I am SO thankful my mom made Monte take me to the hospital when she did. Whew.

Wednesday May 30- To make a longish story shorter (because I know you're getting bored already), my doctor lives in Springville and she barely made it to the hospital in time to deliver Noah. I only had to push "three" times (3 sets of 3 pushes) before he popped out. Apparently I was made for pushing babies out. Who knew? Noah was born at 2:06 AM. He weighed 7 lbs 12 oz and was 20.5 inches long. Also, getting an epidural was the awesomest decision I have ever made. Loved it.

Thursday May 31- I was able to take Noah home around 12:30 PM. We would have been able to leave sooner but the nurses kept on wanting to do a bunch of stuff that they had been procrastinating. I did not like being in the hospital (besides the awesome food). I felt bad that Monte had to sleep on the most uncomfortable looking chair/bed thingy (the first night) and then my mom slept on it the second night. The nurses would not leave me alone for more than about an hour and that got really irritating when I was trying to get some much-needed sleep.

The next few days were filled with lots of visitors (Kim, Brooklyn, and Elise from work; the Mena's; Charlotte; the Palkki's; Quinn and Misty). I was super sleep deprived, but my mom was staying at my apartment and helping immensely. But then...

Tuesday June 5- I developed a severe toothache in one of my molars and was convinced I was going to have to get a root canal.

Wednesday June 6- the dentist x-rayed my achy tooth and told me it had already had a root canal, but that the canal had become infected. I was put on antibiotics and told that if they didn't begin to make the pain go away in 48 hours that I would have to see an endodontist to have the canal cleaned out and the infection surgically removed. Note: endodontists are extremely expensive. I'm sure you can imagine how horrified Monte and I were to think of me having to go to one, especially when we had just learned that we were going to have to pay $5,000+ for Noah's delivery and the hospital stay. Back on subject: I took Percocet for the tooth pain (I didn't really have any post-delivery pain, fortunately, besides my tailbone feeling broken for the first 2 days); the Percocet made me throw up for about 5 hours, which was then followed by "the runs". This was probably the worst day of my life.

Friday June 8- the pain had still not subsided (meanwhile, my mom is basically taking care of Noah single-handedly because I am in too much pain to do much). After much praying and talking to people who had gone through the same kind of tooth infection, I decided to have my whole tooth extracted.  Unfortunately, my infection was so huge that the septocaine shots did not work.  The pain I experienced after getting the tooth removed was definitely more than and contractions I experienced during labor. Maybe THIS was the worst day of my life...

ANYWAY, I am still alive. This post proves it.  I am extremely blessed to have a very well-behaved child who has only cried 3 times in his whole life (1) at birth; 2) first bath; 3) 1st doctor visit). He is really quite amazing. He grunts and makes funny noises all day, but I don't mind. When he cries it makes me almost cry.

My mom went back home today. I cried. Mostly because I am lonely and I don't know what to do with myself when Noah is sleeping (I'm not a good daytime sleeper, otherwise I would try to nap). I try to keep busy with cleaning, paying bills, reading, going for walks, etc., but it is still hard. I'll have to grow into this stay-at-home mom role, for sure.

Lots of pictures coming up! You will get sick of seeing Noah's face every time I blog, I'm sure. But I won't!