Birth Story

I am two and a half months behind but I am finally getting around to getting Kaitlyn's birth story up. I woke up the morning of the 30th and thought I might be having contractions while getting ready for work. I wasn't for sure that is what is was but it kept happening on and off through out the day. That night we were all gathered as a family to celebrate mine and Richard's birthdays. Well the contractions had continued and I thought my water might be leaking but I wasn't sure. Richard has forgot that he was supposed to give a tour of the jail to the scouts so he left and would come back to celebrating. Mean while the leaking continued and after making a few phone calls to Jake's mom and labor and delivery we decided it was better to go up to the hospital. Since Richard was still gone Kay took me and Richard was going to meet us up there if I was admitted.

                                 
Well I got there and they put me in a room to see if it was amniotic fluid. It was and I was dilated to a 3. They admitted me so I called Richard and told him he better hurry since I went so fast after my water broke with Abigail.

                                             

The nurse came in and asked me if I wanted her to page the anesthesiologist because he wasn't there. Richard finally arrived and not to much later the anesthesiologist did too.



                                          

They asked me what I wanted to do about an epidural. We decided that with how fast I went with Abigail, that a full dose of intrathecal should work just fine, and if not then we could do an epidural. So I got the intrathecal and then waited.  The funny thing is that it turned out that Dr. Shelly, the Dr. that delivered Abigail, happened to be on call again. The nurse came in a little while later and asked if it would be okay if they started me on Pitocin so that we would be guaranteed to delivery with in the 3.5 - 4 hour window.

Well the 4 hour mark was approaching and I was starting to feel the contractions a little more and was only dilated to a 6 so they decided to do an epidural. It was a very weird feeling. I also ended up getting a fever with some chills and threw up. But I didn't throw up after like I did with Abigail. It was also weird to have a bunch of spare time.



She was defiantly taking her sweet time, unlike her sister. She also kept having dips in her heart rate so they decided to put me on some oxygen. They also had me alternate sides to try and move things along. I finally got to almost a 10 with just a little bit of an anterior lip so they decided to have me start pushing because her heart rate was staying above the like they like it at.

I had pushed a couple of times when the Dr. came in. She decided that Kaitlyn was still to far up and that it would be better to turn the Pit back on and wait another hour or so to see if she would come down more. So we waited some more. When it came time to push again, it turned out that she was face up so they had to help get her turned. They were also worried about her size and so the prepared to have to help get her shoulders out.

I can't remember the exact amount of time that I pushed for, but it seemed like awhile. They only had to help me a little with her shoulder though. At 2:39 am on September 30th I finally got her out and didn't even have to use the vacuum.

Richard cut the cord and then they took her off to be cleaned and weighed.

I was a little sad that they didn't put her right on my chest like the did with Abigail but I found out later that her cord was really short and probably wouldn't have reached . I still tore, but not as bad which is surprising since she ended up weighing more that Abigail. When the announced she was 7 pounds 15 oz Dr. Shelley said she was surprised we got her out. I had a new experience this time which was that I had to wait in labor and delivery until the epidural wore off in order to go to recovery. So our first visitors were Brandon and his girlfriend Jill. It took us a little while to decide that she looked like a Kaitlyn Fern because she was swollen, but we are completely in love. We are also so grateful for Danica and being willing to take pictures for us through the whole 7 hour (long for me) process.