I apologize in advance as this post is going to be a little
bit long. I wanted to write all of this
down before it becomes a distant memory, and I forget the details of my little
girl’s birth day.
Not many people knew this, but I had gestational diabetes
during my pregnancy. I remember when the
doctor called to tell me that I had it how upset and mad I was. I felt like yet again I was drawing the short
straw and having to deal with another issue.
Why couldn’t pregnancy be easy? I
had already gone through so much to get pregnant, so couldn’t I catch a
break. The main thing I was worried
about was how this was going to affect my baby.
Not only did I have to check my blood sugar four times a day, but I
ended up being put on medication twice a day.
Because of the medication and the stress it was putting on my placenta,
the doctor was going to induce me before my due date. I was scheduled to be induced on May 8th
unless I went into labor beforehand.
I had started making some progress a week or so in advance,
but nothing was moving quickly. I went
to the doctor on Tuesday, May 7th to check my progress and see if I
needed to go to the hospital that night to start medication to help thin out my
cervix. Because I had made more
progress, they sent us home and told us to be at the hospital at 6 am the next
morning. The hubs and I spent the day
hanging out together, eating what I hadn’t been able to eat throughout
pregnancy and getting ready to leave bright and early the next morning. I was getting very nervous and anxious about
the extra medication/device they talked about using to thin out my cervix. I was also getting so excited knowing there
was light at the end of the tunnel and that I would get to meet our little girl
very soon. I went to bed that night
knowing I wouldn’t be sleeping that much.
Around 1:30 am, I thought the baby had kicked the crap out
of me, because I literally was thrown out of bed. Being pregnant, you don’t do anything quickly
so when the “kick” happened I was shocked at how fast I got up. HA! I thought maybe I just needed to pee, so I
went to the bathroom and then got back into bed. About 5 minutes later, it happened
again! I jumped out of bed only to find
a nice flow of fluid running down my leg.
I thought “really, I just peed” and then realized that I couldn’t stop
it. I immediately woke the hubs up and
told him I think my water had broken. My
contractions and spotting started almost instantly. The contractions that I thought I had been
having weeks prior were NOTHING compared to what I was feeling now. I told my husband it was time to call the
doctor and find out what we should do.
Being a first time mom, I had no idea how long things were going to take. As we waited almost 2 hours for the doctor to
call back, all I kept thinking was “am I going to have this baby at home
because these people can’t call us back?!”
Finally around 3:30 am the doctor called and told us to go ahead and
head to the hospital.
The ride to the hospital was the longest ride of my
life. I was so uncomfortable and the
contractions seemed to be getting worse.
Finally we got to the hospital, checked in and got settled in our
room. Why do they ask all of their
questions and do everything when you are in the middle of a contraction?? I just wanted to ask if they could please
wait and do what they needed to do in the 4-5 minutes between
contractions. The doctor came in around
8 am to check my progress. I still was
only about 2 cm dilated, so they started the Pitocin to try to speed things up
a bit. Once I got my epidural, the pain
was much more bearable. For all of you
out there that do this thing natural – God bless you! Other than not being able to get up and walk
around and having to lay on my side, the epidural was great!
The grandparents arrived late morning. I was a little skeptical about them being in
the room as I didn’t want everyone to be staring at me for hours. I could tell the grandmothers were very
excited and my dad was nervous and didn’t like seeing his baby girl in
pain. It was nice having them in the
room to at least keep the hubs entertained while we waited. Around noon the doctor came back and checked
me again. I had only progressed to 4 cm,
so I knew I was going to be there all day!
This baby was taking her sweet time and was in no rush to come out and
play with us. The doctor told me she
would be back after 5 pm to check me again.
Apparently someone else went into labor, so she never left and checked
me again around 3 pm. I had progressed
to 6 cm, so at least we were starting to make more progress.
About an hour later, I started feeling strong pain in my
abdominal/uterine area. The extra pain medication
that I had control over in my IV didn’t seem to be working. It was as if the epidural was starting to
wear off. Around 4:15 pm I paged the
nurse to tell her about the pain and that I was feeling a lot of pressure down
south. She asked if I wanted her to check
me again so I agreed thinking that I should only be around 7 cm based on how I
had been dilating all day. She checked
and looked up at me letting me know it was time to push. I was like “are you serious?!” I remember looking at my husband scared to
death with tears rolling down my cheeks and thinking I can’t do this – my body
isn’t prepared to do this! I also knew
that my doctor was at her office and was afraid that she wasn’t going to make
it in time. I mean – does my nurse know
how to deliver a baby?! What if the
doctor doesn’t make it in time? Little
did I know that it would take a while pushing anyway, so we had plenty of
time.
*On a side note – I really believe God puts people in our
lives for a reason. The nurse that I had
most of the day was a fellow IVF-er. She
had 6 year old twins that she had via IVF using the same doctor in Asheville
that helped us. It was a relief knowing
that she knew exactly what it was like to want a child so bad and struggle to
get pregnant. All day I knew she would
be going off duty at 7 pm and most likely I wouldn’t have the baby before
then. Knowing that I was about to have
our miracle baby before she left was a comforting feeling.
Because I progressed so quickly at the end, the strength of the epidural was starting to wear off. They came back to give me a quick dose in hopes that would help, but sadly it didn't. I had so much pain in my abdominal area during delivery, but it did help to be able to feel what was going on as I was pushing. I started pushing around 4:30 pm and my doctor arrived about
5:15 pm. I was so glad when she walked
in the door knowing that she would be there for the delivery. The time actually went by fairly
quickly. I just remember watching the
clock and hearing my husband, the nurse and doctor talk the whole time. The moment that my little girl was born (6:01
pm) and put on my chest was hands down the BEST moment of my life. All of my fears, sadness and frustration
trying to conceive her vanished in an instant!
The sweetest sound was hearing her cry for the first time. I have never loved someone so much in my
entire life. Kearington is the most
beautiful thing I have ever laid my eyes on.
Watching my husband hold her for the first time was amazing. I never thought I could love him more than I
already do, but seeing him with her makes me love him more and more every day. Our lives are forever changed because of her.
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| My sweet nurse, Beth |
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| First family picture - Party of 3! |
