Scout Evangeline

Today Scout Evangeline Koprowski is exactly two weeks old. I have sat down to type out her birth story countless times and have had to write it in short increments, so hopefully it reads cohesively and there aren't too many grammatical errors (if there are I am blaming it the lack of zzz's that are accumulating)! This has to be my longest post to date and it is FINALLY finished! I promise there are photos at the end of the long sea of text! 

In order to give an accurate portrayal of Scout's birthday debut I have to give the back story first...

All along I've said Scout's due date was March 5th. The doctors office calculates your due date based on an average cycle of 28 days, which put my due date at March 9th. However my cycles are 25 days which calculates out to March 5th and is therefore the due date I was going by. In retrospect I really was only setting up myself to be disappointed in the event she chose to cook longer than that! Which she did. 

I was trying to get in as many hours completed for my school preceptorship at the hospital before baby Scout arrived. My last scheduled day was Monday, March 3rd. On Sunday, March 2nd, I worked a shift from 6am to 2pm. Originally when I scheduled my last two shifts I wasn't even sure I would make it until then. In fact, I was pretty confident I wouldn't! My friends from school had thrown me a baby shower in January and then my friends from church threw me one at the end of February and I speculated that the February one would turn into a 'Scout Meet and Greet'  instead! On a side note, both of my baby showers were so much fun and I was blown away by the generosity and thoughtfulness of all my friends! This little girl got so much swag it was ridiculous! Adorable outfits, booties, hair bows, shoes, blankets, wraps, handmade beanies and homemade wall decor that completed her nursery. She was set. Everything was ready to go for her arrival. I can't even tell you how many times I cleaned the whole house or did a 'final' load of laundry for the 'last' time before her impending arrival. Then a week would go by and she still hadn't come and I would be cleaning the whole house once again or doing yet again another 'final' load of laundry. I did this countless times. Why I tortured myself thinking she was going to come early I still don't know. 

I gave every method for natural induction out there (EVERY one) a try to convince this baby to make an appearance. Bouncing on an exercise ball? Check. Membrane sweep? Check. Walking? Double check. I walked four miles after my first membrane sweep (yes, there were two). Castor oil? Check. This resulted in my first false alarm visit (yes, again, there were two!) to the hospital thinking I was in labor and then getting sent home. The first time was Sunday night, or really early Monday morning on March 3rd which was supposed to be my last day with my preceptor. I was having consistent contractions every 2-3 minutes so we called my mom, threw our hospital bags in the car, woke up Sawyer and headed over to my parents. We dropped off sleeping Sawyer in their guest bed and headed over to the hospital where we signed in and I happily chatted with the nurses on my way back to the triage room (this should have been my first clue that I was NOT in labor).  At this point I knew from my last appointment that I was 3 centimeters and 60% effaced so I thought for sure they would keep me even if my contractions weren't painful. After all, when I went into the hospital in 'labor' with Sawyer I was having fairly pain free contractions and they were 2 to 3 minutes apart then too. With him, I was only 1 centimeter dilated but they chose to break my water and basically induced me four days before his due date. We remember now that my doctor at that time kept saying Sawyer was going to be a ginormous baby which is why I had an induction scheduled on my due date.  When I went in with contractions four days beforehand they probably just decided to keep me and break my bag of waters to get this supposedly HUGE baby out me....mind you, Sawyer ended up only being an average 7 lb 12 ounce baby rather than the giant the doctor had predicted. Anyway, this time when I was hooked up to the monitor I was indeed having contractions 2.5 mins apart like I thought, but on a pain scale from 1-10 I rated them only at a 2. That should have been my second clue that I was not 'really' in labor. The nurse Jen (who was the same nurse I had when I went in with contractions at 34 weeks and had the shot of Terbutaline)  had me walk around the unit for an hour to see if I progressed any. So there we were, Matt and I, at three in the morning walking around the labor and delivery and postpartum unit where my preceptorship had been the day before, snacking on crackers and drinking juice from the floor pantry and hoping I would progress so they would keep me and we could have our baby on March 3rd. Finally, after an hour or so of pacing the hallway, I was checked again, had not made any progress at all and baby girl was still really high up. We were sent packing and told not to come back until my contractions felt different, more like menstrual cramps or a backache. Matt was instructed to not bring me in until I was in so much pain that I was no longer smiling. So we did the walk (or waddle) of shame back out to the parking lot through the emergency room entrance we had walked in three hours prior. The attendants at the front desk wished us better luck next time, which was really funny the next day, but at the time I was super bummed and felt pretty sheepish for mistaking I was in labor. I mean after all, I'd had a baby before so I felt like I should have known what labor pains felt like! Little did I know that this trip was only the first of two false alarm visits. 

Fast forward exactly week later to my due date of March 9th. It was Sunday and I told Matt a few days prior that if I was still pregnant that I was not under any condition going to go to church that day. My phone had been blowing up all week with questions from well meaning friends and family asking if baby was born yet, but on the day of my due date I was in no mood to be asked if Scout was ever going to come out. I was pretty certain at that point that she was not ever going to. To make matters worse, I found out that morning that a friend from church whose baby girl was due four weeks AFTER Scout, was having her baby that morning because her water broke. Cue the melodramatic tears. I was a bawling mess. It seems absolutely ridiculous now, but at the time it seemed so unfair that her baby was choosing to come early (which btw her baby thankfully had no health problems from her early arrival and was able to go home with them two days later) and mine was refusing to come out at all! At this point, in my mind I was already four days over due since I still believed my due date to have been the 5th. So all day Sunday I moped around the house. I had shut my phone off so that I wouldn't get any text messages and basically just threw myself a pity party. That night Matt took me out to dinner and frozen yogurt and I started to snap out of my sad 'poor me, wah, wah, wah' state of mind. That night I woke up at 3am with what felt like menstrual cramps, but worse. They weren't really time able, but they hurt more than the Braxton Hicks contractions I had been having all week. At nine the next morning when they still were coming regularly Matt and I decided we should head back to the hospital. After all, these felt different, just like they said they would and my pain was more than last time. We called my mom, headed over to my parents, dropped Sawyer off with my dad and went to the hospital. I swear the moment we walked into the triage room my contractions magically disappeared. Zip. Zilch. Gone. They hooked me up to the monitor, but I already knew they wouldn't see any because they were no longer happening! I was hopeful that they would discover I was 5 centimeters or something equally exciting like 90% effaced and decide to keep me. The nurse checked me and announced I was still 3 centimeters and 60, maybe 70% effaced and baby girl's head was still high.  Oh no....here come the water works! I was so disappointed that I couldn't stop crying. I kept wiping the tears away while the nurse talked to me, but they wouldn't stop flowing! That poor nurse. She probably was thinking "great, we've got a crier in here!". She had the on call doctor, Dr. Pittard, come in and talk to me about possibly setting up an induction. I already had a doctors appointment set up for the following day Tuesday March 11th so he encouraged me to ask that doctor to set up an induction and even looked at the calendar to see what days were available that week so I was prepared when talking to my doctor. He then offered to do a membrane sweep if I wanted one and I said absolutely, do whatever you need to do to convince this little girl to head towards the exit!

On the way home from that second trip to the hospital I called my mom to say we were coming back to pick up Sawyer and of course cried on the phone to her and then cried again once I walked in to my parents house. I felt so silly for going in again, but Matt kept reassuring me we had followed the 'rules' of when to head to the hospital both times. First time contractions were consistent and 2-3 mins apart, second time they felt different and were more painful. He jokingly said next time we would probably be delivering baby at home! (Little did we know that could have come true had we waited around at home the third time).  Matt headed back home to work and my mom invited Sawyer and I to lunch with my dad, mom, aunt Linda, Grandpa and Grandma for lunch to celebrate my Grandma's birthday which was that day. We ate lunch at Goodwood and while we were sitting in the booth I had three or so contractions, but this wasn't unusual because I had been having them for weeks! I had finally accepted the fact that I would be going to my doctors appointment the following day and setting up an induction for later on during the week.

That evening I went to bed around 11 and then was woken up right before midnight with a contraction that felt somewhat painful. I tried to sleep more, but once I realized they were happening pretty frequently I woke Matt up and let him know that I was actually having to breathe through these ones. I got up and rolled around on the exercise ball while watching TV in our room. As they progressively got worse I decided I would take a shower and make sure they remained consistent, but I was already 99% sure this was the real deal. I took about a 15 minute shower and had four contractions while in there. Once I got out of the shower it was almost 1:30 AM and I told Matt I should probably start thinking about calling my mom and having her come out to our house to stay the night with Sawyer. I just looked at my phone record from that morning and I had called my mom at 1:57 AM. My dad heard me on the phone and said he could tell by my voice it was the real thing this time :) Probably because I had a contraction right at the end of our conversation!

My mom rushed over and when she walked in the door I was in the living room trying to breathe through the contractions and Matt confirmed that this time was legit because I wasn't smiling, just like the nurse predicted :) We got in the car and headed to the hospital. Matt sped up Ten Mile road towards the freeway doing "California stops" at the four way intersections. We checked in to the Meridian St. Luke's Labor & Delivery floor at 2:45 AM and were taken to the triage room with the same red headed nurse Jen that I had seen on my first false alarm visit and the one who told Matt not to bring me back until I wasn't smiling. This time on a scale from 1-10 the pain I was having during contractions was a 9 and the only way I could breathe through them was by closing my eyes and visualizing I was riding a bike up a hill, the hill being the contraction, and then once the contraction peaked I visualized myself coasting down the back side of the hill until I was in a valley riding towards the next hill. In the triage room the 'valleys' in between contractions were around 3-4 minutes apart. The nurse needed to monitor the baby for 20 mins, but I was too uncomfortable to lay in the bed so I stood by the side of the bed and she tried to make the monitor stay in place as well as she could, but it kept slipping off. She had checked me right when I got there and I was only 4 centimeters, baby's head was still pretty high up and I was around 70% effaced. At that point I remember thinking if I am only 4 centimeters, which isn't even considered 'active' labor, I don't know how much longer I can last breathing through these contractions especially if this could go on for hours!! The twenty minutes were finally close to being up and I'm not even sure they were able to monitor the baby very much because the monitor kept slipping off my belly, so the nurse led us back to the delivery room.

I stopped in the bathroom on the way over and had a contraction in there and was nervous about being by myself (I think from watching too many shows in the past of "I didn't know I was pregnant" where the person gives birth sitting on the toilet!).  Then I remember stopping at the nurses station and leaning on the counter to be able to breathe through a contraction right outside the delivery room. Once we got into the room, Jen asked if I wanted to take a bath, but the thought of lying in a tub unable to stand and sway through my contractions sounded like pure torture! Which is ironic because I had originally envisioned doing most of my laboring in a warm tub of water. Instead, I asked if I could take a shower to which the nurse said she had never been asked before, but would let me as soon as she got my saline lock in. There was no way I was going to be able to lie down in the bed for her to put my saline lock in and I anticipated I was going to be a hard stick because with Sawyer it took the nurse 3 or 4 times to get my IV in. I sat in a chair in the room instead while the nurses tried to get the needle in a vein.  Matt had to tell me later what ensued over the next thirty minutes or so because I was zoned out the entire time with my eyes closed trying to breathe through each contraction. He got me a cold wet washcloth to put over my forehead and the back of my neck because I was burning up! On the way to the hospital I had asked him to put on some Sigur Ros to listen to while I labored so I distinctly remember he had that playing on his phone while I sat hunched over in the chair.  I was still trying to visualize climbing the contraction 'hills' on a bicycle, but the valleys in between were getting shorter and shorter so soon it was just contraction after contraction with maybe 1 or 2 minutes in between. I was trying my best to breathe through them and am quite positive I was a moaning mess. All the while the nurse Jen had tried to get a vein in my left arm, but missed so she had another nurse named Molly come in to try. They used a heating pad on one arm to try to get my veins to pop out, but Matt said they would find a vein, get ready to stick me, but then I would have a contraction so they would wait and during the contraction the vein they had found would completely disappear! The nurses were really good about waiting while I went through a contraction, but they were coming so fast that they didn't have much time to work with in trying to get the saline lock in! I remember moaning that I felt like I was going to pee and I really didn't want to pee all over their chair, but the nurse said it was probably just a sensation that my body was having since I had just stopped at the rest room before we had come into this room. Finally they got the saline lock in and went and turned the water on in the bathroom so I could get in the shower. At that point I told Matt that I NEEDED some medication. I still didn't want an epidural, but I couldn't imagine going through this many contractions without some kind of relief especially if this were going to continue on at this pace for who knew how many more hours. I should have realized this was my clue that I had been transitioning the whole time I was sitting in the chair! The nurse said she would order me some, but right then I told her I felt like I needed to push.  I remember hearing the nurse Molly tell someone "she is feeling pushy" so that person, I'm not even sure who because my eyes were closed for 99% of my labor, helped me from the chair over to the bed. I laid on my side and told them I was pushing. My whole body was pushing completely on its own accord. It was such a crazy feeling. I couldn't have stopped even if they had asked me to, it was like my body had completely taken over and was getting this baby out on it's own. I was pushing on my side and during the next contraction the nurse had me lay on my back to check me. I was about seven centimeters then so on my next contraction she broke my water. I heard them say something about "mec" and knew that meant there was some meconium in the water. Matt said I was laying there in pain and had said all melancholy "oh nooooo, not meconium", which makes me laugh now, but I really was worried about it because I knew they would probably have to suction her before she started screaming or she could breathe it into her lungs and end up in the NICU. The rest is just a blur, but it was probably only another five minutes of time.  I don't remember how many times I pushed, Matt said about 4 or 5, with the last two being coached by the doctor (Dr. Pittard who had seen me less than 24 hours prior) and by Matt (who was holding my leg) and both of them  telling me to "push! push! push!" and "breathe! breathe! breathe!" because apparently I was holding my breathe while pushing.  Then at 4:09 AM, exactly one hour and 24 minutes after we had checked in to the hospital, Scout Evangeline was born and the feeling of her coming out was the most glorious feeling in the whole world!!! My body went from extreme pain to extreme relief in a matter of seconds. I remember Matt immediately saying "you did it!" meaning I had been able to have the natural childbirth I had hoped for.  It was such a crazy, wonderful, painful, amazing experience and it went so much better than Matt or I could have imagined.

After Scout was born the NICU baby nurses suctioned her right away and then I heard her screaming her head off. I finally opened my eyes and it was like I had awoke from a crazy dream. Matt was over  with Scout while she was being weighed and the doctor was delivering my placenta. Then I heard that Scout was 9 lbs! Holy moly!! At the point, with the meconium and her weight I knew she was overcooked and then the sight of her ridiculously long fingernails later confirmed that suspicion. Shockingly, I didn't tear or need any stitches which was music to my ears to hear!! When they showed Scout to me I was in shock that she was ours. She had so much dark hair (Sawyer was practically bald with just wisps of blonde hair), her face was so huge and purply and her eyes looked like little slits. Later I found out her face was extremely swollen and bruised from her quick entrance into the world. She had been really high all during my labor and then when the nurse broke my water Scout did a drastic drop down and out in just a few minutes so she looked pretty beat up! When we posted her birth to Facebook later that day  Matt wrote that she made a fast and furious entrance into the world. That it was! I asked to hold Scout skin to skin and immediately nursed her and she latched on beautifully. The nurses were joking that this is how you deliver a baby, come in, pop em out in under an hour and a half, nurse them, and they could pretty much send me home now. Honestly, I felt so great I would have gone home had they let me! Once my legs stopped shaking and we were wheeled to the postpartum room around 6 that morning I tried to sleep, but couldn't,  I was on a crazy endorphin high! I seriously felt amazing!! I was up and walking around almost immediately and Matt said he was shocked to see me up walking so nonchalantly compared to Sawyer's birth when I could barely get in and out of the hospital bed. By 10 that morning (approx 6 hours after giving birth) I had set up Scout's first pediatrician appointment, my 6 week postpartum appointment, canceled my doctor's appointment that was supposed to be that day to talk about getting induced, and had sent an email to the newborn photographer to let her know Scout was born so we could set up her photo shoot in 7-10 days. I wish I could feel that energized normally!

So there you have it. Scout Evangeline is finally here and is now two weeks old. Once her facial swelling went down and her bruises went away we realized she looks just like Sawyer did as a baby!
As far as being anything like Sawyer was as a baby though they are drastically different! Sawyer barely slept (most likely due to acid reflux) and Scout sleeps ALL the time (like 20 hours a day, no joke). We have been incredibly spoiled by friends and family who have showered us with gifts and with home cooked meals. I went back to school this past week and have continued to feel great physically and overall am just so happy that our family is complete. It's a wonderful feeling!

Being suctioned right after being born.

 Angry about her quick entrance into the world.

 Look at all that hair!!

Daddy cutting her cord.

 What a chunker!

This is when I was thinking they must have swapped our baby for this one. She looks so beat up here!

But I still loved her, swollen face and all :)

 After the most intense two hours of my life!

Sawyer came to visit us that evening. Scout gave him a car and an airplane that she had picked out just for him.

He was more interested in the toys she gave him than in actual Scout herself, but that first week she eventually warmed up to her.

  I had to post this photo despite my crazy hair just because Sawyer's expression is priceless.

 Poor little munchkin's bruised face. They were a little worried about jaundice due to her bruises, but her bilirubin levels ended up being normal before we left.

 Grandma's sixth grandbaby, and her seventh Aviv (Ben and Chantal's new daughter) was just born this past Thursday making them only nine days apart. Jett and Sawyer are only 14 days apart.

 Still feeling the adrenaline rush after giving birth! The following day, being up for 36 hours straight, finally hit and I was exhausted!

 I had forgotten how small little baby feet are.

 I loved the way the nurses styled her hair and put a bow in it.

Checking her out up close.

Grandpa loving up baby Scout.

My mom took this photo of her and it was the one I texted and emailed to people letting them know she was FINALLY here!

Exactly a week from when she was born she had a photo shoot with Shutterhappy Photography and the results turned out perfect! Thankfully by then her face had gone down in size and her bruises had vanished! The adorable little owl hat my friend Mandy handmade for Scout and had given me at my baby shower. I knew then that she HAD to wear it in at least one of the photos!

This one she actually grabbed onto the braid on her own so the photographer just left her hand positioned that way. So cute.

She tried to claim this purple scarf as hers by marking her territory and peeing in it while she was being photographed.

The headband she is wearing my friend Anne made. I seriously have the most talented friends! I need them to teach me how to be crafty! After this photo was taken I went to move her and realized she had a little poo at the top of her crack that I had missed when changing her diaper before we went to the photographers house. Ooops!! Thankfully since you only see a little bit of cheek you can't tell in the photo :)

We love her to pieces.