I would say the story should really start as of April 23rd.
We had our week 39 doctor appointment and my doctor (Dr Fallah) recommended
“stripping my membranes” at this appointment. If you don’t know what that is
look it up but I was terrified about that recommendation – mainly because I was
uneducated of what that meant. I asked family and friends about it and whether
they had that done and then agreed that it may help spur on labor earlier…which
I was fine with J So Wednesday, April 23th I had that done. Dr.
Fallah thought for sure I would have Natalie either Thursday or Friday of that
week.
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| Last baby bump. The morning of April 25th |
On Thursday I had some minor contractions throughout the day
but nothing crazy. I decided to let work know that, that would be my last day
and that I was going to start maternity leave a day early. I just wasn’t sure
if the contractions would progress and I wanted to make sure I wasn’t in limbo
on any projects. Well Thursday came and went and no baby.
Friday morning around 2:15am I started having contractions
again. I just kept looking at the clock every time one would happen and all of
a sudden it was like they were happening every 6 minutes or so. They weren’t
that painful so I still wasn’t sure if this was the start of labor or just more
Braxton Hicks contractions. After about an hour, I turned my bedside lamp on
and woke up Ryan. “Ry you should get up and we should start timing these
contractions.” The response I got from Ryan? “Ugh – I just finally got into
some sound sleep”…or something to that affect. I made sure he knew I wasn’t
joking around so then he got out of bed and the next 4 hours we watched two
movies (Just like Heaven with Reese Witherspoon and Spanglish with Adam
Sandler) and just enjoyed our morning around the house. I sat on a exercise
ball and breathed through the contractions as they came and intensified. I
still thought they were completely manageable though as I breathed through
them. Each ranged from 5-8minutes apart or so and lasted approximately 40seconds
each. I still never really got to the 5-1-1 that they tell you about in labor
class (5 minutes apart, lasting 1 minute, for 1 hour).
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| Before we left the house |
At 7:30 we agreed it was time to call the doctor’s office
and see what our next steps were. We called and they said to come in. So we got
ourselves ready and took our time making sure the house was in order and the
cats were taken care of it. We were very calm and relaxed which was great – I
wasn’t sure I was going to be.
We got to Evergreen Hospital and checked in at the doctors
office. Unfortunately Dr. Fallah had off that day so I was seen by another
doctor. I wasn’t that impressed with this particular doctor but that’s ok. She
checked me out and I was 3 centimeters dilated and 90% effaced. She wasn’t sure
if Dr. Fallah would have admitted me at 3 centimeters but I told her we should
wait and that Ryan and I would walk around the hospital a bit and wait it out.
We hung out and had breakfast all while having contractions
in the hallways of the hospital. I tried to be discrete as people were walking
by J. After 1.5hours we went back to the doctor
office and was checked out again. It was a “go” this time – I had reached the 4
centimeter mark that I had read in all the books as the key number to hit.
We walked over to the maternity center and got checked in – by
this time it was 11am. The cool part about this is the nurse we were assigned
to, Sara, started her shift at 11 and she worked a 12hr shift – so it was
pretty likely that she would be there the entire labor and delivery of Natalie.
I loved how that worked out!! By the way, she was a fantastic nurse!!
Our room was 2121 – which was a huge room and I guess
considered a favorite because it had a huge long hallway and really you could
fit a large viewing audience if that is something of interest to you – that was
not something I wanted!!
I had let Sara know that I was interested in getting an
epidural but not until I was at 6 centimeters. Mainly for two reasons – 1) the
contractions still were very manageable to me. I was breathing through them and
honestly they weren’t that bad (or I have a high tolerance of pain). And 2) I didn’t want the epidural to wear off
too soon and leave me feeling everything during the actually delivery. Well it
turns out that I wasn’t able to wait until I dilated to 6 cm. There were two
other women who had recently come in (one having twins and one that possibly
would have a c section because she had a previous c section) so that meant the
two anesthesiologists on staff would be ‘busy’ when I might need my epidural.
So after being checked one last time and being at 5cm I was feeling better
about getting it done right then.
The anesthesiologist came by and started their work. First
epidural did not take. I prayed through the entire procedure as he was doing it
because I was very nervous about this. I’m not a needles person and wanted to
make sure it went smoothly. It’s awesome to pray to God and trust in His plan.
Once the epidural was completed, I could
still feel everything. So the anesthesiologist had to come back, untape
everything he did and start over. I swear the untaping of all the stuff on my
back was the worst part of the day so far – NO JOKE! I could handle the
contractions but pulling the tape off my skin was horrible. The second epidural
only really affected by left side so they pumped more drugs in me and
eventually I was completely numb from the waist down. Like literally numb! I
could not feel any sensations, no pressure, no touch! It was rather strange at
first and they had a really hard time turning me from left to right so Ryan had
to step in and help the nurses since I couldn’t help at all no matter how much
I tried.
I got a little concerned about not being able to feel
anything and possibly not being about push effectively for when the time came
that I asked them to turn down my epidural. I was completely fine feeling
pain…and I kept telling them that so that they would know I was ok with that. I
just wanted to make sure I didn’t cause any unnecessary complications for
delivery.
In between the first and second epidural, I did feel a POP
and gush of water – YAY my water broke. I actually leaned up in bed and
exclaimed “I think my water just broke” so that was an exciting moment for
sure. That meant things were moving right alone for Natalie.
After the epidurals, etc we were in waiting limbo. My mom
was there and Ryan and I tried to all sleep or relax during this time to save
up energy for delivery. It was nice and relaxing.
The epidural did start to wear off in one small place on my
body – right near my left hip. It was so weird. I could feel the intense
contractions coming through just my hip area and had to really breathe through
them as if I had no medication. So in a way I feel like I had a small idea of
what completely natural child birth would have felt like. What was great about
this is that this one area of pain helped me realized when I was having
contractions so I was able to use that to assist in delivery for when to push.
And that time was coming quickly.
The nurse checked me out around 5:30 and was like “whoa – ok
I better call the dr. You are ready to have this baby.” We actually did some
practice pushes as well because she wanted to see how easy Natalie was going to
start coming out. Once she saw that her head started to
come rather quickly we stopped “practicing” and waited for the Dr Caldwell to
arrive. As we waited I kept saying how
hungry I was so Sara called in my dinner order so that it would be ready by the
time I had this baby J.
We weren’t sure how fast that would be but she must have known it was going to
be pretty quick because I had dinner waiting for me by 6:30. HAHA!
Once Dr. Caldwell got there, delivery was pretty much like
clockwork. Ryan and my mom were on either side of me holding each leg – the doctor
didn’t want to use the stirrups or even break down the bed to prepare for
delivery. My mom and Ryan would say ok ready PUSH – then they would count to 10
and I push as hard as I could for this 10 seconds. We did this about 7-8 times
or so and this latest about 20 minutes. Then all of a sudden I felt like my beach
ball stomach deflated and I looked up at Ryan and he had tears in his eyes –
Natalie had just made her first appearance in this world at 6:09pm (April 25,
2014). I was all smiles and out of breathe but when they placed Natalie on my
chest it was beautiful. I just held her and watched as they took her
temperature and cut the cord. She was beautiful to me. Ryan got a lot of this
on video which is a priceless memory to take away from this day. I’m so glad he
captured it!
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| Getting her footprints done |
It was a very long day for us but it was beautiful. I
wouldn’t have changed anything or experienced it any different. It’s our
day…our birth story and Natalie was perfect. She came out 6lb 12oz, 19 inches
long. She had beautiful brown hair and a tiny body. We loved her right away and
just knew she was perfect.
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