Birth Story

Disclaimer: I wanted to have this all down to someday tell Kaitlin, so that's why it's so long and detailed. Please feel free to skim.

Let's see, where to begin? Friday, August 24 I called the doctor because I had some "issues" that I will not go into here, and he told me to go ahead and come up to the hospital so we could monitor the baby and make sure said issues weren't affecting Kaitlin. I called Scott at work at about 10 am and told him and he got home at about 10:10, even though work is 30 min from our house. Weird. He rushes into the house and starts packing everything up, not really speaking a word to me though. As we're going to the hospital, he is driving like a madman, weaving in and out of traffic with a determined, stoic look on his face. Finally I turned to him and said "Look, this isn't "it" and if it was, this is EXACTLY the opposite of how I need you to be behaving." He apologized and just said he was really nervous, but that he would try to calm down, and he did.

We arrived at the hospital and got all checked into a room, I got strapped to all the monitors and we waited around listening to her heartbeat and watching me have very small contractions for about 2 hours. Dr. Ruk came in and said everything looked great and that we were free to go, but he did mention that he thought he'd be seeing us again this weekend as I was having those small contractions.

Since it was now past 1pm, I was starving, and I figured it was close to the end, I deemed it alright for me to eat lunch meat again so I asked Scott to stop at Jersey Mike's subs to pick us up some lunch. I had been looking forward to ripping down a club sandwich from there for 9 months and I thought Friday was the day, but alas the A/C people called and said they were at our house to replace our unit so we had to go. (Note to self - never be due at the end of August in Texas with a temperamental A/C). At this point I had been standing in line for about 20 min though, talking to several people in front of me who were amused by the extremely pregnant lady in her dress. One was an Ag and one was an 7 month prego lady. The Ag had asked me when I was due and when I told him last Sun he said "Yes, I was getting the vibe that I may have to deliver a baby in the sub shop." I didn't tell him that I was actually having contractions at that moment!

Anywho, Scott and I head to the house and hang out. At about 4pm I decided to try and take a nap, but at that point the contractions were strong enough that I couldn't really sleep through them, so I was just laying in the bed trying to relax. It was here that I started to get worried though, because the pain I was feeling was originating in my low back, which I knew was not a good sign. I had been feeling for a couple weeks that she wasn't facing the right way and this was proof of that. Quick lesson for those that don't know, the optimal position is to have the baby head down, which she was, but facing your back so when contractions happen she's bent in such a way that it pushes down on your cervix rather than your tail-bone. When she faces out towards your stomach, her head is basically a ramming tool directly into your low back. More on that later. Around 7pm we started a game of scrabble to try and keep my mind off of it, and then we took a walk. Throughout this I'm timing my contractions and around 10pm I notice that they've been 5 min apart, about 1 min apiece for about an hour, so I told Scott that we should probably start heading that way. I took a shower and Scott made sure we had all the last minute stuff and we hopped in the truck.

We got all checked in again at the hospital and got our nurse, Brandi, who told us at about 11pm that I was only 3 cm dilated. Yikes, not what I wanted to hear after what I felt had been quite a while of terrible back pain. At this point I was still wanting to go natural though, so I got up and walked around a bit, went to the bathroom and just tried to breathe through it. She checked me again around midnight and I still hadn't progressed any more so at that point I told Scott that I didn't think I could do it, that I wanted to have an epidural. He was completely supportive and so we told the nurse who got the paperwork started. It's amazing how quickly I signed all those papers once I decided to with the drugs! The anesthesiologist came in and got down to business and at about 1:30am I was a happy lady! It really was a blessing because I was now able to sleep for what turned out to be a long road ahead.

Cut to 6:30 am, 30 min before our nurse Brandi was about to get off. She checks me and says I'm at a 9 and that while she wouldn't be there to see our baby be born, it would probably be very soon that I would be pushing. Woohoo, celebration in the delivery room! This was short lived however, because around 7:30 the doctor on call, Dr. Ryder, came in and checked and said I was only a 7.5, maybe an 8! And Brandi of course is long gone at this point, so I can't tell her where she can put her 9 cm assessment! My water still hadn't broken at this point, so she pointed out that we could still do that and perhaps start a pitocin drip to try and speed things up. They gave me about an hour after they broke my water before they checked again, and I was still at an 8, so they started the pitocin. Another hour or two goes by and I'm still an 8, maybe an 8.5. Additionally, with the pitocin I'm starting to feel the contractions and they're STILL in my back! Ugh! That means the little lady hasn't turned around like she was supposed to. It was at this point that I fell in love with my new nurse, Suann. She was just the most patient, wonderful nurse who had many tricks up her sleeve to help us get Kaitlin out of there. Suann also asked us if we knew how big the baby was. We told her that we had no idea, but were guessing she would be somewhere around 7.5 lbs. She replied back that she had seen "skinny people like me" hide some pretty big babies before. Scott and I just laughed it off! She had me changing my position every 30 min to try and get her to turn, and she was upping my pitocin all along trying increase my contractions to get me over the 8cm hump. Finally, at around noon she said I was 9 with a small lip, so I would be able to push soon!

Around 12:40 she follows through on her word and we start to push. What a strange, strange situation that is, let me tell you. At the beginning it was just me, Scott down holding my left leg and Suann holding my right leg. With every contraction I was instructed to take a deep breath, hold it and push for a count of 10, exhale, and do that again 2 more times (total of 3 ten counts during each contraction). At this point my epidural had worn off enough that I felt each contraction starting in my back, so I would say "here it comes" and they would have me wait a bit until it built up and then we would do our thing. Scott was the BEST coach anyone could ask for though, always counting down for me and encouraging me the whole time. After about 40 min of pushing, Kaitlin was crowning so Dr. Ryder joined in the party. At this point there were also about 4 other nurses that kept coming and going in the room...must have been a slow day in Labor and Delivery! Oh, side note, Kaitlin finally turned about 20 min into the pushing, and then turned AGAIN 20 min after that. Interesting that she couldn't do that during the previous 20 hours of labor, but who am I judge? Finally, at 1:40 here comes all 9 lbs, 1 oz and 21 inches of Kaitlin Rose, onto my belly! It was the most wonderful, amazing, miraculous thing I have ever experienced in my life. Scott and I were laughing, crying, the nurses were exclaiming "Look at all that hair!", Dr. Ryder was saying "What a HUGE baby!" It was good times all around. Scott cut the cord and then ran out to tell the family that she was here. They took her to the other side of the room and cleaned her up while they attended to me.

I'll post some follow-up stories on the rest of the stay in the hospital and our first trip home as a family, a little later.