Our sweet little girl was born just 8 days before her due date, but I had been feeling ready for her arrival for sometime before that! I was at 3cm for a couple weeks, and had my membranes stripped on the 21st when I was now at 4cm(not the funnest experience). After that I had been feeling contractions on and off for a few days, but they just never got any stronger or closer together, so it was slightly frustrating but I knew it couldn't be too far off. Went for a few walks here and there, but mostly just tired me out!
Finally on Monday night around 11 or so I noticed the contractions were getting a little stronger, and I really hadn't been able to sleep much anyways so I waited a little bit longer and at midnight I decided I would start timing them. Well, I only recorded one, because about 12:15 my water broke while I was laying in bed. It was for sure a weird feeling, first a pop, and I swear it was like a popping sound even, and then a bunch of fluid. I woke Jared up and started for the bathroom, where I spent the next 5 minutes just constantly leaking....if you are grossed out by this, you may as well stop reading now :)
While I was chilling in the bathroom, Jared and my Mom grabbed the go bags and got ready to leave. I finally came out of the bathroom and started having much much stronger contractions...i was ready to go! We got Kaleb in the car and headed to my sisters to drop him off. On our way to the hospital I had contractions about 5 mins apart and they were really starting to hurt. Once we got there and up to OB Triage, they decided they needed to assess me to make sure that my water really had broken.....really,? I think it's humanly impossible to pee that much, and I was totally in labor anyways, by now my contractions were 2-3 minutes apart, hurting like a mother, I mean they were bad enough that while the lady was asking me a million questions I couldn't answer during a contraction because they hurt so bad. I don't even know how long we were there answering dumb questions, even tho we pre-registered, but finally we got to a room!
By now I was in serious serious pain, like pain i've never felt before, my entire body would shake kinda pain, and there was no position or any combination of breathing that made it easier to get through. It was all in my lower back too, I mean i could feel like pain of the contraction in my abdomen area, but my back hurt so bad that's all i could think of. I couldn't get my epidural until i had one bag of the IV through my system first, so I just stared at that dang bag hoping my evil glares would speed up the process!! At this point I felt like I was being a wimp, because we really hadn't been at the hospital very long, maybe a couple hours at the most. When the IV went through, the anesthesiologist was in my room, getting me ready to go...I had more than one contraction while he was working his magic and hearing the words 'hold as still as you can' during the worst pain of your life was pretty comical, but i did my best....I think i probably squeezed that poor nurses shoulders a little too tight during them. It took a little while for the medicine to kick in and when it did I could still feel significant amounts of pain, so I guess he upped my dosage.
Oh yah, and after the epidural the nurse checked my cervix and I was 9cm dilated!!! Seriously?! I progressed super fast, so no wonder I was in a hellish amount of pain...who knew? Lol, but seriously i felt much better about not being wimpy after she told me that. Here's where things slowed down considerably....it took a little while to get to 10cm and when I did, little miss Tenley was positioned a little crooked behind my pelvic bone. The doctor said that her head was hitting the 'corner' of my pelvis, which turns out to be slightly crooked on one side anyways. He thinks thats why my babies have such a hard time coming down further, that combined with their bigger than normal sized noggins. He said my pelvic bones have plenty of room for them, it's just a matter of getting them 'around the bend'. So yah, he tells me we need to have the epidural wear off so that i will feel the contractions more, which will help my body labor down. HOLY PRESSURE batman, that was awful! Every contraction felt like the baby was gonna shoot out, but they tell me that I can't push yet because the pressure i'm feeling is her head trying to push around that bone, which she hadn't quite accomplished yet. This was super agonizing, waiting, and waiting, and waiting.....
My poor doctor knew about my last experience with labor, so i think he was afraid to even use the word vacuum in front of me :) He did finally bring it up and assured me that she was pretty low, he just wanted to use it to see if he could guide her head around the bone, and he promised no crazy pulling :) He kept his word, and after a few good pushes, she was OUT! The nurses took her right away, she had a bunch of gunk in her lungs so she took a little while to cry, but man does she have a set of lungs!! The doctor kept giving the nurses a hard time for taking so long, but finally i got to hold her and it was the best feeling ever!
I just remember being so physically exhausted when i had Kaleb and I was so out of it by the time I had him that I don't really remember much of our first cuddle session. I remember he was beautiful and it was so peaceful laying with him, but that's about it :) This time around I was still way tired but much more alert, and looking at that sweet baby girl on my chest was a little bit of heaven. I also think that the fact that she was my second child and I knew exactly what we were in for made me more emotional. I mean I have this wonderful son who I love more than the world, and now I'm holding a sweet baby girl who will have the same effect on us as parents. It's a pretty cool feeling people.
We are just so in love with this little girl and she is the perfect addition to our growing family.
