It was once again, so crazy that all 3 of our babies have caused me to go into labor the exact same way! We started packing up things, my suitcase was pretty much already packed but we threw in toiletries and things for Tyler. We started timing and recording the contractions at 11:15 and I still have the note in my phone that recorded them. They came every 4-6 minutes and lasted 35-45 seconds. They were pretty intense but I was able to get around and move in the few minutes between them. Emily got to our house really fast, like probably at 11:25 or sooner and then we left for the hospital from there! We called my mom on the drive over and then tried to navigate the random roads into downtown Hartford. Luckily, as always, there is no traffic in the middle of the night so it was pretty easy to get there!
We got to hospital at 11:50 and sadly they don't do the "valet parking" after hours so Tyler had to drop me off and then go park. They let him park in the small lot right next to the hospital rather than the huge parking garage across the street so he didn't take too long, but I vividly remember sitting in the wheelchair waiting in the inner lobby between the two sliding doors as he found a spot. And I had a contraction while sitting there of course. We got escorted up an elevator since it was after hours all the doors were locked and then checked in around 12:05.
Contractions still coming every five minutes but not terribly painful. At this point I just assumed the labor would progress as it had with Jackson and Abbie, and she would be born around 6 am or so... And my first order of business was in trying to get an epidural ordered ASAP. I got to my room and they got me checked and on IVs and ultrasound with resident, said she 5-6 and 90 effaced. AKA just where I thought I'd be. The next 20 minutes or so waiting for the epidural was tough. I really felt like I needed to go to the bathroom the whole time. I knew I'd need to go now because I'd be unable to walk with the epidural. I did go the bathroom somehow, but it didn't really help with anything. I had back pain, pushing pain, and contraction pain all coming at once and I was wondering why am I doing this to myself again haha! Around 12:40 we finally got the anesthesiologist and it was getting really bad, much worse than I was feeling when I'd had by epidurals in the past. Finally he got it all set up and administered it. It was SOO hard to sit still through all the pain, like the hardest thing of the whole day was sitting still in order to get that drug. I ended up singing A Child's Prayer out loud to help as they tried to have me sit still to get in. It really calmed me even though I was crying and crazy and they thought I was pretty weird ha. The epidural was in and even before the doctor left, the nurse checked progress, and I was already a 10!
Baby girl was coming, I'm still not sure how the heck I changed from a 5/6 to a 10 in less than an hour but it sure explains what I was feeling! The nurse immediately called in for the doctor and the delivery team! No time for epidural to kick in unfortunately.I remember asking for my money back, as a joke, but they thought I was serious. The first doctor in the room was a resident, then Dr Tracy Levine came in and they asked Rachel to stop pushing as they got robes on. After one push they got a handle on her head and noticed that her cord was loosely around her neck and told me to stop pushing so they could get her free of it. Through the pain, I started screaming loudly and the doctors told me to focus my energy on pushing and not screaming and focus on little half pushes. With those little pushes, and focus she came out at 1:04 am healthy and perfect! So about an hour after we checked in she was here! They put her on me directly as they wiped her off and then took her over to get weighed and measured. I was shaking a lot as I started receiving the epidural medicine, which was now obviously useless. Amazingly during the aftermath of that quick delivery there was very little tearing. We found out that we had a little 7 pound 9 ounce beauty girl and we knew pretty soon that her name was Kaylee Lorraine Jennings!
My body was so messed up after receiving the epidural but then having it taken out that it made me shiver and shake for about an hour after she was born. Who would have known the thing that helped so much normally, would cause the most pain of this whole labor. And it's kind of not official but I like to say that I had Kaylee naturally, no drugs that were effective at least ;) Tyler held her most of that hour because I wasn't able to be still yet, but when I was ready to hold her again I started to nurse her and she did well right away. Then they moved us over into the recovery area of the hospital and we tried to get a little sleep as they took her into the nursery for her first bath. What a crazy couple hours it was but we're so glad we had our little beauty girl arrive so safely!
No comments:
Post a Comment