Posting for Relief (Lainey's Story)

Ok so I have a ton of things to get off my mind.
First, I have a baby. Lainey Rae Thompson was born on my birthday, November 11, 2019, at 1:27 pm. She was 6 lbs 12 oz and 18 inches long. She was also a month early. Honestly, she is so beautiful and I love her so much.
My water broke at 12:15 am on the 11th and we went to the hospital. I didn't wake up in a puddle, I woke up feeling like I had to pee and went to the bathroom but the stuff was leaking all over me and I knew that it wasn't pee. I woke Masen up and said "So I don't want to freak you out or anything but I think my water just broke." So we, very peacefully, packed up a bag for me and went to the hospital. They put me in a room and took some tests to make sure that I was ruptured and sure enough, I was. So then they were like you're not going home, you're gonna have a baby.
It was the first time in my life that I stayed up almost all night. I was dilated to a 3 when we first got there. I was contracting every 2.5 minutes but I couldn't feel it for whatever reason. I think they were just little contractions. And then the day continued to progress. The contractions got worse, more and more painful. So I asked for an epidural and I'm really glad I did. They got it put in my back and my legs went numb, but unfortunately, I could still feel all the contractions. So after a little bit the guy came back in and took it out and put it up higher on my back. Then everything went numb and it felt sooooo good. I'm so glad I got an epidural. It also didn't slow my progression at all and then I was able to go to sleep for an hour and a half before everything went crazy. By 7 am I was dilated to a 6. By 10 am I was dilated to a 10 and ready to go. They didn't want me to go yet though because they thought her head was turned the wrong way. I started pushing around 10:30 and kept pushing for 3 hours. It wasn't super painful, just uncomfortable. It turned out that she was sideways and the doctor had to shove her whole hand up my vagina twice to try to turn her around. It worked the second time and I finally got her out. I don't think I've ever been as exhausted as I was. I was SO tired. Pushing a baby out for that long is so exhausting. But then she was out and they took her over to the cleaning area. She had an alien shaped head which was really silly looking, but she was doing really well. I'm so glad that she came early. She was really big for 35 weeks and she would have been HUGE if she had been in there the whole time.
They got my placenta out and then commenced with stitching me up cuz I tore a little bit. That was painful. I could feel it a bit cuz the epidural was wearing off. So awful.
Before they took her to the NICU, I got to hold her. My sweet little Lainey. She snuggled right up and continued crying but she has the cutest little cry and I didn't even care. Masen got to hold her too. He cried when he first saw her and he was SUPER helpful while I was in labor. He held my leg so that I was in a good position to push her out. It was very nice of him.
Since she was born, she's been in the NICU the whole time. We go and visit her and she's getting better. They were worried about her blood sugar at first but then they got an IV in her and that got a better. And then they were worried about other things like her white blood cell count which was high which meant that she could have an infection. She doesn't and that's gone down which is nice. I've been pumping milk for her and been getting better and better at it. Lainey's main issue is learning how to eat which she's not very good at yet. She's still learning.
My biggest issue right now is that she's not here with me at home. It's so sad. Also Mary and Patti have been really annoying to me today. Patti just seems to pessimistic and it's driving me crazy. Mary is trying to be encouraging and also telling me what to do. My hormones are making them seem SO annoying to me. I just need to calm down... Like really. It's all gonna be okay. I know it is.
Here's my baby.