She's Here!!!

Our sweet baby girl is here and here is how it happened...

Friday, July 9, 2010: At 39 Weeks 5 Days I had yet to feel a single contraction. It was my last day of work and I constantly asked myself why did I make this my last day? I should have stopped working much earlier. But it was the afternoon and I knew I had almost made it. Then at about 2:30 someone came in our office so I got up to go tell Lee, when I walked back to my desk my underwear felt wet. I turned around and went straight to the bathroom. Sure enough my underwear was very wet and I knew the only explanation... my water broke! It wasn't a ton of fluid like you see in movies but it was still enough for me to know I needed to go to the hospital. I walked back to my desk and saw Stephanie who had just gotten back from a late lunch. I told her "I think my water just broke." She said "What! Does anyone know?" I said "No it just happened. Sooooo I'm gonna go." I walked over to my desk and started to shut all of my stuff down. Lee was standing next to me talking to the guys that had just come in. I don't know what they were talking about but I heard Lee say "This lady here will get you taken care of." I worried for a sec and thought "oh no what do I do?" Then I realized it's dumb to think I needed to still take care of them and I said "I'm sorry Lee I'm leaving." And Stephanie came up to him and said "Yeah I'll help them with whatever they need, she has to go." Lee figured it out and said "Is this it?" I said "It is." And as I walked out the door Lee in Lee-fashion said "Take care of that boy." (He's insisted, even tough I knew it was girl, that I was having a boy).

I got out to my car (Stephanie had offered to drive me but I told her I'd be fine.) I knew I had to make 2 phone calls one to my mom who was at my house and one to Jake who was out on his Fed Ex route. I called Jake and I felt so bad because I know how badly he didn't want to be out on his route when I went into labor. He has a hard time getting a signal out where he drives. Luckily he had one bar on his phone when I called. He answered and I said "I'm sorry to do this to you." He told me later that he thought I was just about to ask for a favor. But I said "I think my water just broke." He said "Are you serious? Okay, I'm gonna call my boss." While he did that I called my mom. When she answered I said "This is it, this the call." She said "You're off work early?" I couldn't believe she didn't know what I meant. So I told her my water broke and I was headed to the hospital. She freaked out and was trying to figure out what all she needed to gather. She got off the phone to get everything together. Then Jake called me back and said he was on his way. Though as it turns out he had to turn back around and go meet another driver to give him his freight. I got back on the phone with my mom and I told her where I was, I said I was going to wait for her in the parking lot when I got there because I didn't want to be alone walking in with my water leaking everywhere. When she got there and we walked in together I didn't leak very much thank goodness.

I got to the triage counter and I said "I felt a gush so here I am." The took me back to do testing to be sure I was in labor. They told me I was at 2 cm. Jake kept checking in saying where he was and he was wanting to know what was going on. The weighed me and I had officially gained 30lbs in pregnancy. They finally determined I had in fact broken my water so they had me change into a gown and we walked across the hall to a labor and delivery room. Just then Jake got there. He had made it there in just under an hour from my initial phone call. They got me all hooked up to monitors, got in my IV and then they decided to start my Pitocin to get the contractions going. I couldn't feel the contractions which was awesome. After awhile they decided they wanted to put in an internal monitor to measure the strength of my contractions to see how effective the pitocin was being. So because they were doing that they went ahead and gave me my epidural, even though I was only 2cm dilated. Our anesthesiologist was actually our doctors husband! He was such a funny guy, we fell in love with him. jake says he looks like Zach Morris and I have to kind of agree. He gave me the option of having him give me the epidural or a student. I guess because the student had come in and talked to me first I was already comfortable with her so I said it was okay for her to do it. And it made me feel good to give her the experience and she did a great job.

After a few hours I was finally at a 4. They were increasing my pitocin and they checked me again, I was at a 6. They put an oxygen mask on me and had me turn on my side to try and get things moving. I started to get nauseous but wasn't in any pain. Then just a couple minutes later they said they wanted to check me again because sometimes you can dilate really quickly all of the sudden. They checked me and I was at a 7! The nurse turned to Jake and told him to call his parents because they wanted a call when I was at a 7 so they could make it back up to the hospital. She was still checking me and within less than 2 minutes she said I was "at a 7, wait no 9, no at a 10, call the doctor!" About 10 or 15 minutes later Dr. Wotherspoon showed up and it was game time. They turned me back onto my back and got me prepped and it was time to push. First of all let me stop to say I still hadn't been in any pain. My contractions felt like a minor ache in my back. I had to check the monitor to confirm what I was feeling was a contraction. I feel very fortunate. With Jake by my side helping the doctor and nurses count to ten while I pushed it was time to give all I got. Funny thing was that the epidural worked so well that I couldn't really tell if I was pushing. I asked if I was making progress and they offered to get me a mirror so I could see the progress I was making. In pregnancy I thought there was no way I wanted a mirror but in the moment I couldn't see any reason not to. So I got to see the progress I was making with each push. Then after about 5 pushes she was out! At 1:49am Saturday morning July 10, 2010. I immediately burst into tears. It was such an emotional experience. the first thing I thought when I first saw her was how beautiful she was. Jake cut the cord and followed the nurses over to watch them clean her off and weigh her and do all her checks. I looked over to my mom who was next to me and I said "She is so beautiful!" I couldn't get over it. She was the prettiest thing I had ever seen! Jake came back to check on me and asked if it was okay that he was over by her I said of course and told him to go back to her. I then delivered the placenta and got my tears stitched and that was it! Jake said while he was over with her he said her name and she turned towards him and reached her hand out. He said that was all it took, he was forever in love. They brought her back to me and I held her and jake and I just stared in amazment at her. It was the best most amazing and indescribable feeling of my life!