The One With Three P's in a Pod

Everything was planned now and ready for me to go into a c-section on the 29th. I was resigned to that fact by this point in time. It was only going to be 7 days away, then 6, then 5.

I have to point out here, that for this ENTIRE pregnancy literally I had been saying how upset I would be if we were in the hospital over Christmas. I love Christmas, like a little kid, or like a fat kid loves cake (yes I said it rapper man). LOVE IT! It's hard not to when you have a pretty awesome family like mine and Christmas Eve dinners involve us acting out 12 Days Of Christmas complete with feathered goggles for the seven swans a swimming, and a giant parrot costume the victim must wear and prance around in for a partridge in a pear tree (who really even knows what a partridge looks like? Ours looks like a toucan). All the adults stay up late and play hearts and games and the kids run around, and food is good, and family is good, and the time is just great. Hence, why I would be completely depressed to miss it, and the idea of waiting around for an entire year for another one is not too appealing. Well . . . .

Saturday, Christmas Eve, the kids went downstairs and played and Eric and I stayed in bed sleeping* for much too long. When we finally rolled our way downstairs and got the kids breakfast it was getting close to 930 which was kind of nice. Then I figured I better start getting ready for our family party. The plan was to make sweet potatoes for both our family dinner that night and the family dinner on Sunday. I had also made pepperming bark that was chilling in the fridge the night before to break up and give in bags to my extended aunts and uncles. So went down and started breaking it up. Didn't take too long before I was doubled over in pain with a MASSIVE contraction.

AWESOME!!! Right?

I didn't know whether to be excited or not. Let's face it, I've had full days of contractions before that never amount to anything. Plus it's christmas Eve.

Well Eric immediately started timing the contractions. 5-6 minutes apart, right out of the gate. About 30 minuts into it I thought I better jump into the shower and get ready just in case. That way if the contractions continued at this rate I would be ready by the time we needed to head in.

With Preslie, I started having contractions about 8 in the morning. They were far apart at first and progressed throughout the day. When we finally went into the hospital a little before 6 that evening they were just barely getting to the point of being mostly uncomfortable and being about 5 minutes apart.

This time was different. Holy cow they were uncomfortable extremely painful from the beginning, leaving me doubled over in the shower yelling at Eric who would then write down the time. I get out and start to get my hair dried, make up done and Eric - being the awesoem person he is - jumps in the bath tub to "soak it out". I told him I was starting to have three contractions that were really close together and then it would be about 7 minutes between the triplets. I couldn't remember though if that meant actual labor or Braxton hicks so Eric started looking it up on his phone.

Strategically positioned (not really, we werent' paying attention when we put them up) there is a mirror on the wall in the bedroom that allows you to see our bed from the bath tub and vice versa.

Bring on a really painful contraction where I am whining and Eric says "my phone says to lay on your left side" so I hobble my way over trying to laugh through the pain and flop myself down on the bed. Eric immediately starts yelling "I said left side, LEFT SIDE! That's you're right!" The laughter at this point that consumed me almost took my mind off the contraction.

"This is my left side you idiot! You're looking in a mirror!!!"

Well needless to say in between contractions when I was joking and laughing I made fun of Eric and we talked about how that was like the perfect depiction of a Hollywood labor. To which his response was, just you wait in approximately three minutes I'll be laughing at you while your face turns red and you start hopping aroudn the bathroom.

Well it was true, I did. The contractions were getting way too close together and way too painful for me to ignore or assume were braxton hicks. So then I started kickign into hyper drive trying to get myself ready, get my bag finished packing, and get the kids ready to go to my parents. It seemed to take an eternity but we finally got into the car.

It's funny to me because I was in labor with Preslie for almost 12 hours before we went into the hospital and they delivered her. Eric still talks about how traumatizing that was.

I flat out told him that this time had to have been worse. Two and a half hours after contractions started and we were already heading into the hospital. I even ran back into the house when we were leaving to grab a towel and an extra pair of sweats because that's how convinced I was that my water would break before we even got there.

Dropped the kids off at my parents and we were on our way to the hospital.

The nurse checked - at a 5 you bought yourself a "ticket to stay".

Dr. Werdel wasn't at the hospital so it took a few minutes for him to get there, just enough time for them to blow two of my veins in each arm trying to get an IV in until finally the anesthesiologist put it in. All the doctors and nurses just kept saying "Are you guys this relaxed at all your deliveries?"

To which we responded yes. I won't go into specifics as it would make this post entirely too long to read, but if you can imagine Eric and I joking around the entire time at every question they asked us to the point that people were literally rolling with laughter - that's about how it was.

The c-section finally started, we had decided not to even try to guilt trip Dr West into coming in to deliver this one, and guess what, it was Christmas Eve so Dr. Werdel would be delivering another one of our kids. When we got back into the operating room he said "I remember you, you were this calm and hilarious at your last delivery too!" Funny stuff, funny stuff. Dr. Werdel is extremely fast - he had started cutting me open before they even brought Eric back in.

A few minutes of filling my insides ripped open while not feeling the actual pain - but then having a resident literally sit on my rib cage as they tried to pull Paxton out - they almost used the vacuum - and Mr. Paxton was here!

Now that everything is all said and done, I really did miss doing Christmas with my family. I sat in the hospital room most of Christmas day by myself as I felt it was more important for Eric to have our kids with the family at the parties that day. My family was awesome and that afternoon brought up presents for me to open and came and visited. In reality though - I don't think there could have been a better Christmas prsent than bringing this sweet little strawberry blonde boy into this world.

Paxton Dean Marshall

December 24th, 2011 2:48pm

7 Pounds 15 ounces 20 inches long

With Parker and Preslie and the addition of little Paxton, we now have three "p's" in a pod

I think a blog name change may be in order. . . .