Kaylee's Birth Story

Tuesday, September 24th
I had a routine doctors appointment in which I was really really hoping my doctor would tell me that I was ready to be admitted and have this baby!  Didn't exactly happen, but she did say that she was surprised to see me and she thought I would have delivered by now.  At 2pm I was 4cm dilated and 80% effaced, so I knew she had to be coming soon.

About 15 minutes after my appointment, I started getting very mild contractions, so I stayed on base and just walked around for about two hours to see if they kept up.  It was getting close to rush hour so there was no way I was going to drive home and Mike was working late so I didn't want to be home alone either.  After goofing around for about 3 hours I headed up to Mike's office to tell him I thought I may be beginning labor.  Contractions were consistent, but would vary from anywhere 3-18 minutes apart, so I didn't think I was too close to delivery.  I have heard of women laboring for 2-3 days with contractions.  After chatting a bit, I decided to go have dinner and ate a huge dinner (good thing since I wasn't going to eat again for 12 hours!)

I was still feeling pretty well at this point and never really lost my appetite until the very end.  While I was walking back to Mike's office, the contractions started to pick up a bit and it got to the point where I had to mentally walk myself through them.  Then I would sit down and they would go back to being 12 minutes apart, so I had no idea what to think.  Labor and delivery said to call them when contractions were 3-5 minutes apart and mine were all over the board.  The only thing I had going was that they had been consistent for the last 4 hours.

At 8pm, we were getting ready to leave. I thought "Well, maybe I should just stop by L&D since we are already here and just see what they say."  Walked in, told them my symptoms and they said they wanted to check me out. After about 40 minutes on a monitor (that said my contractions were actually 3 minutes apart) and exam, they said "Call your husband, you're staying with us!"  At that point I was 5 cm and still 80% effaced, but pretty good progress so far.  The doctor was really cute and said "Wow, you are just cool as a cucumber for a 5.  Some women are screaming by this point!"  That made me feel good and maybe I do have a high tolerance for pain.... but I still have no desire to ever have a baby without an epidural.

I called Mike, told him to come over and so it began.  My hospital bag was still at home so he had to quickly run home and grab it and come back to the hospital.

I requested my epidural and got situated in the delivery room not knowing how long it would take for this all to pan out. (Note: If you are getting an epidural, make sure to request and get it as soon as you can so it has plenty of time to kick in before you deliver.  I was debating when to order mine and it was a good thing I did it early because it didn't fully kick in till about 20 minutes before I delivered).
Epidural was easy and didn't hurt too much, catheter also wasn't too bad.  I was anticipating both to be much worse.

About 10 minutes later, the doctor came in and broke my water to get things going.  And that's when I started to feel it.  Epidural was not completely working yet and man did those contractions kick in. The nurse was helping me turn to get the medicine to hit all parts of my body, so it took a couple about an hour of being uncomfortable to finally feel relaxed.  Just as I was about to take a nap, the doctor came in, checked me, and said "Whoa, she is ready to go. Get the team."  "Your baby has one nice head of hair!"  I guess I was more ready that I thought!

In about 5 minutes the room was filled with doctors, nurses, helpers, ect ready for delivery.  It was amazing how quick they all moved and got the room ready.  My doctor said to start pushing on contractions and the delivery nurse helped me through each one and after 3 rounds of pushing and about 10 minutes, and on September 25th at 2:46am Kaylee was here! (And no, I was not screaming like they do in the movies, you just push).  I still had them clean her off and Mike actually got to hold her while they were repairing me. The second I held her and started talking to her, she immediately responded to voice that she had been hearing for the last 9 months.  It is truly remarkable how they instantly recognize you and my voice just calmed her.  And it's also pretty cool that I grew a baby... I still can't get over that.

That's it.  Plain and simple, right?  Maybe it wasn't that easy, but labor and childbirth was so much easier than I could have ever expected.  I think I had myself so worked up and scared about it that my expectations for the experience were really low.  I would do it again.  Totally worth it :)