I'll start off this birth story with saying that I had a really good pregnancy for the most part! I obviously didn't do weekly or even monthly updates but overall I felt pretty good. In the early part of my pregnancy I did get shingles which was really painful and the medicine made me very sick, but it passed and I survived! There was one concern with Kate while in utero, one of her ultrasounds showed that her left kidney was dilated and so they monitored that pretty closely but it ended up being fine. Throughout the pregnancy I gain 30 pounds, which is what I gained with the others. In mid-December while I was at a self serve wash, I slipped on ice and landed flat on my back. Luckily the baby and I were fine but it did warrant an ultrasound and a visit to Labor and Delivery to make sure. We got the clear and we headed to St. George for Christmas, it was a wonderful time. At my next appointment the Doctor said that from the last ultrasound it appeared that baby Kate wasn't measuring as big as expected so she wanted to set an induction date for Saturday January 6th at 39 weeks.
With the induction scheduled we were able to plan on family coming up to help watch the kids and for my mom to be there for the delivery. I had an appointment set for Thursday the 4th and Doctor Tappin stripped my membranes hoping to get things started. At that appointment I was dilated to a 3 and 60% effaced as well as at a station -2 (which means her head was low and engaged). After the appointment I had a few contractions but nothing regular. That night they started coming more frequently but then stopped all together. My family got up to Slc on Friday afternoon and it was a relief to have them up here knowing I could now go into labor and have someone there to watch the kids. Matt and I ran some errands that afternoon and then headed to city creek to see if we could walk around enough to get things started. After walking for a hour or so we were both over it and decided to go home and get some sleep. I was secretly hoping that I would have gone into labor on my own but as I laid in bed Friday night thinking about the upcoming experience I decided to just really be in the moment and let go of any expectations about how I wanted this to play out and just enjoy. I had instructions to call at 6 am and they would let me know when a good time to come in would be. I of course slept terribly that night with so much excitement and anticipation keeping me wide awake. When I called at 6 (5:50 to be exact because I couldn't wait a second longer!) they told us to be at the hospital by 7:15!
It was go time. We packed the last of our things, grabbed some cereal and were out the door! My Dad, Mom and Heidi stayed with the kids with my mom planning on joining us later in the day. Now I really want to make this more thrilling but being induced, for me, takes a tiny bit of drama from the situation. It is still wonderful and perfect but just different! By 8:25 my IV was in and they had started the pitocin. She also did a check so we would know where we were starting from and I hadn't progressed any from my last OB appointment. One thing I did learn from being induced with Whitney was that this can be a long process so I had prepared my self for that. Our nurses' name was Jessyka and she was the best! By far my favorite nurse, a good mix of nice, funny and super helpful. I was the only patient in L&D for majority of the day, so I got a lot of attention. They increased by pitocin by 2 every 30 minutes and by noon I was starting to feel some very strong and uncomfortable contractions. While we were waiting for things to pick up Matthew and I started watching a show called Fallen about the police officers who have lost their lives in the line of duty. Decided to stop watching that because it was too sad! I don't know why I thought I had to be confined to my bed but Dr. Tappin came in and checked on me and said I could get up and walk around or sit on a exercise ball so I decided to do that! As the contractions started to get more intense it did feel good to be able to move around and bounce on the ball! I thought for like two seconds that maybe I might try going with out an epidural this time but once they started coming on strong I quickly put that thought to rest! (Not without lots of teasing from Matthew!) I was checked at 12:05 and was a 4, 80%, and -1 so there hadn't been very much progress but Doctor Tappin decided to break my water and I got the epidural at that point.
Getting the epidural went fine, not very pleasant but the second it kicked in the relief was heavenly. I called my mom and told her she should start heading over just in case things pick up and also because it had started to rain/snow so I wanted to make sure she had plenty of time to drive over safely. At 1:18 They checked me again and I was 5.5, 90 and a 0 so the babies head was right there. However, because her head was so low so because she was stressed they turned off the pitocin to give her a break. They also put me on oxygen at that point. After having the baby off of pitocin my body started to contract on its own but the contractions were too far apart so within 15 minutes or so they started the pitocin back on at a 2. My mom made it over at about 2:00 and luckily didn't get lost or have a hard time driving in the snow! At 2:30 the baby was again starting to show signs of stress, I started to get a little worried when Jessyka said, "well maybe she is stressed because its go time?!" I thought surely that could not be it since just an hour ago I was only 5.5 but she decided to do a check just in case. She burst out in laughter, "YUP, she is ready to go!" She gave Dr. Tappin a call and the room started to bustle with people, equipment, and excitement. Dr. Tappin's office is close to the hospital so it didn't take her long to get there. Before she got gowned up she said, "let's do a little practice push to see where we are." I gave one little push and she said, "Woah! Okay hold on a bit!" She quickly got ready and I had my mom snap a picture of the clock before we started pushing. It was 2:53 when she took the picture and I pushed through two contractions and out she came!! She was born at 2:56, just three minutes later!
It was so surreal how quick everything happened. I think I could have 100 more kids and it would still be the most magical and heavenly experience that I could dream of. They placed Kate on my chest and seeing her for the first time but feeling like I have always known her is just the most amazing thing. There really is no other experience to compare with giving birth. The first thing I noticed was how tiny she was! I knew she was definitely my smallest child and I would have guess she was in the 6 pound range so I was so surprised when they said she was 7.7 lbs and 20 inches.
The thing I loved about this hospital was that I got to hold her for a whole hour before they took her to do any of the measurements. It was such a special time to snuggle her, check for all the fingers and toes (lol), and breath in the new baby smell! After only holding her for about 30 minutes she started rooting around so I figured I would try and feed her and sure enough latched right on and nursed on both side for 20 minutes each. (Sorry if that was too much information but I thought it was pretty awesome!)
We instantly fell in love with this sweet little girl and are so blessed to have her in our family. After two hours they moved us to postpartum and the rooms were very homey feeling. I was starving so they let me order dinner and it was probably being so hungry and euphoric but it was the best salmon I've ever had. I am not going to lie it was SO nice not to have a baby in the middle of the night. They poked and prodded (aka pushed on my stomach and checked my vitals) all afternoon but by night time they left me alone so that was really nice. Matt decided to head home to sleep since the arrangements there weren't ideal. I am not sure how much sleep I got because I just kept staring and snuggling my girl, thinking "how in the world did I get so lucky?". She is amazing, she is an angel, and she is mine!! I am so glad she is finally here!
WE LOVE YOU KATE ANN JAMISON!
No comments:
Post a Comment