Keilah's Birth

This post is for all of you who enjoy reading about birth stories. If you don't enjoy that, then read no further because it's all full of mushy gushy baby stuff.

With all of my other kids, my labor began when my water broke.  So I was expecting that again this time around.  But just like this pregnancy was way different than the others, so was my labor. Wednesday afternoon I started feeling kind of yucky and had an upset stomach all afternoon.  I was having some contractions, but they were so irregular, I didn't pay much attention to them. But by late afternoon, I had started spotting and my contractions hadn't settled down - but they still weren't all that regular.  I started timing them around 5:00 just to see how far apart they were.  They were anywhere from 7-14 minutes apart and still not super intense.  As my spotting increased, I began to think that perhaps this was the real thing.  I made a light supper - chicken noodle soup and set about getting things somewhat tidied up that evening.  By bedtime for the kids, the contractions were still around 10 minutes apart on average and had only slightly picked up in intensity.  I called Aaron's mom and we decided to have the kids spend the night at her house so we could all avoid a middle of the night trek with kids just in case things progressed.

I spent a mostly sleepless night on the couch having contractions every 10 minutes or so - but they were still kind of sporadic.  Some of them didn't hurt at all, others were getting quite intense.  I did manage to take 2 cat naps for about 50 minutes each during the night.  I called the hospital to ask about when I should come in.  They told me to wait until the contractions were 3-5 minutes apart.  So I settled back in on the couch.  I would have some that were five minutes apart a few times, then go back to 10 minutes.  But they were getting a lot more intense.  By 6:00 that morning, I decided that I would like to go to the hospital anyway and get checked out because even though they weren't 3-5 minutes apart, it was getting hard to focus during the ones that were super intense, and those were lasting close to 2 minutes each.  So I woke up Aaron and by 7:00, we were on the road.  The nurse checked me out around 8:00 and gave me heartbreaking news, telling me I was only around 2 cm dilated. I felt quite devastated since I had spent the last 14 hours with contractions that apparently hadn't done anything for me.  I was afraid they would send me home.  But then half hour later, the doctor came in to double check me and gave me very happy news.  I wasn't 2 cm dilated.  I was actually at 6-7cm.  Apparently the first nurse was having issues finding my cervix or something.  Here I am feeling much happier with that news - I now knew I was going to have a baby that day!

Self picture of the two of us.

So we set about getting things moving along.  The doctor broke my water and that brought about some relief in the pain area for a small bit.  They also set into motion the epidural route (I love those things!) It seemed to take forever for the people to get there for my epidural - over an hour or so.  Contractions continued to be quite intense and hard when they came - though still quite irregular. Finally my epidural lady arrived. However, this turned out to be a trial. She kept hitting my spine with the needle (very painful - especially in the midst of a hard contraction) and when she finally got everything in place, the catheter for the medicine was kinked somewhere and she couldn't get the medicine in.  So she had to start all over again. By this time, I think I was beginning to transition in my labor as the contractions were super painful, coming faster and longer. It was so hard to sit still through them especially when she kept hitting bone (again). That was the hardest part for me. I began to lose it a bit emotionally and had tears dripping off my face as I struggled to stay strong emotionally, fearing that they would tell me that the epidural wouldn't happen and I'd have to go about it naturally. Finally, she got it to take and in about 15 minutes, the pain had lessened to a more tolerable level. About a half hour after that, the doctor came in to check and found that I was ready to start pushing.  So we began. The baby was turned wrong, so he worked on turning her manually (procedure made tolerable by my epidural!). She finally turned, but then a few pushes later, her heart rate suddenly dropped from 140 to the mid 70's.  Doctor was concerned that the cord was wrapped around her neck, so he told us we needed to get the baby out as fast as possible. He used the vacuum and had me push nonstop until she was born.  The cord was not around her neck, but she was having troubles coming out. I had hoped to not tear, but due to the necessity of needing to get her out as fast as possible, that wasn't a reality. I didn't care at that point - I just wanted to get her out and get her healthy. Thankfully, she soon came out and after some airway clearing she started to breathe on her own.  She was super purple at first, but pinked up fairly quickly once she got going in breathing. Here she is getting weighed - her head was extremely misshapen from the vacuum.

Cold and unhappy about the whole deal.

I asked Aaron's mom to get the girls out of school early so they could come and visit us. This is a once in a lifetime thing for them, so school could wait for another day.  They were so very excited to meet their new little sister. I don't think they stopped grinning once. She's about four hours old here.

Aaron told David he's going to start his picture portfolio of David holding Keilah, telling him that girls will find it adorable to see a young man holding an infant. He told David that he'll become a chick magnet.  :) David just rolls his eyes.

Our first family picture. Hard to believe there are six of us now!

We really enjoyed our hospital stay. They had an actual bed for spouses, for which Aaron was delighted to rest in instead of a fold out chair. The hospital also had amazing food. They even let spouses eat all meals there too and order off the menu.  I ate so much food. It was even better than a restaurant because I wasn't limited in quantity of what I got with my meals.  I could order as much as I desired.  This was my breakfast one day (along with a muffin that I scarfed down before I took a picture). It was amazing.  I miss my hospital food. 

But now we have awesome, generous friends who are providing meals for us for the next while.  Our freezer is also stocked full of meals from friends and family.  We are so blessed. Keilah is now happily adjusting to home life and we are getting used to having another little unit in our family.