Friday, January 28, 2011

Welcome to the world, Kayla Marie!

So I know I haven't written in a while, but I've been a little preoccupied with other, no offense, more important things!  Here is a little story about the birth of our little peanut from Mom's point of view.   Maybe I can get Dad to post from his point of view and you can read a pretty detailed version on my sister's blog here.

After blogging about how frustrated I was that Kayla was taking her time coming out of me, I went to bed on Friday night 1/21 at 11:45.  Fifteen minutes later, I woke up with a relatively painful contraction.  Not terrible, but I could tell it was definitely different from what I had been having.  About 8 minutes later, I had another one and decided if I had one more I was going to wake Justin up so we could time them.  And lo and behold, 7-8 minutes later, I had another one and my water started to break.  I ran to the bathroom to let it continue to drain into the toilet.  When it seemed to have stopped (it was definitely not done) I got Justin up and told him my water had broken.  We called the midwives and they told us to come on in to the hospital.

After getting my unfinished hospital bag together, waking my mom up, and calling Aunt Megan, we were off to the hospital.  We arrived around 1 am probably.  We went into the triage area where they hooked me up to monitor my contractions.  They were definitely getting worse and worse and closer together but still relatively tolerable.  By the time we actually got into a delivery room, they were like 2-3 minutes apart.  (The midwife checked my cervix in triage and I was 3 cm dilated and 90% effaced.)  She didn't give me pitocin because she knew I wanted to try to go naturally, however I was hooked up to an IV for fluids and hydration.

Once in the delivery room, I was sort of restricted to the bed for a while and no one really came into the room ever.  When a nurse came in, I asked if I could get up and move around so that I could change positions.  She allowed it so I got up and Justin and I walked to the bathroom.  At this point, I really have no idea what time it is and the contractions feel like they are about 1 minute apart and lasting a minute (which means I'm in a state of constant contraction pretty much!).  Not only that but I began to have VERY severe back labor.  Granted, I don't have anything to compare it to but I couldn't take it anymore.  I made the hard and scary (for me) decision to get an epidural because I was afraid I was going to put Kayla and/or myself in distress and I was afraid I wouldn't have the energy to push since I had gotten 15 minutes of sleep - and there was no way I was sleeping through this back labor.

Fast forward about 45 minutes: I'm in heaven.  I can sleep.  I can't feel any pain whatsoever.  I am much less bitchy.  All positives!  The nurse stayed with me for about 30-45 minutes after I had the epidural, because, turns out, my contractions were coming really fast and close together.  So she called the midwife to check me again - 8 cm.  They prepped the room for delivery.  Then...

Nothing.  Everything slowed down a lot after this.  And honestly, everything is a bit of a blur to me as I was in and out of sleep.  Eventually, I got to the point where I could feel when the contractions were happening but they weren't painful.  A woman had been admitted to the room across the hall at 10 cm and ready to push, so she was first in line.  Then it was my turn.  A new, and really funny and great midwife was there to deliver my little one.

Trying to keep this short and simple, delivery was totally different than I imagined.  Contractions were about 5-6 min apart.  So I would push, then we would sit and have small talk with my legs in the air for 5 minutes.  I pushed for about 3 contractions and the midwife said that the baby's heart rate was dropping and if it didn't rebound well after the pushing, she would have to call the OB to use the vacuum to help.  After 1-2 more contractions, and me tearing, she told me I had 5 contractions to get this baby out.  She sounded very serious so I was very worried about my baby (and me.)  And anyone that knows me knows that you don't challenge me, because I will win.  I pushed her out in 2-3 contractions.  Everyone was crying out of joy.  I was crying out of fear something was wrong.  All I heard was the nurse ask if anyone looked at the sex and my sister saying, "It's a girl!!" Amid tears, and then, "She's so cute!"

It's definitely been a rollercoaster since then, but I never thought I could love someone so much...

1 comment:

  1. And she is beautiful!!! Congratulations to mom and dad!!

    ReplyDelete