Birth Story

Alright, it's time I finally posted this.

WARNING: If you are my dad or my brother, you might want to skip this post. This also applies to others who just don't want to hear the details. It's not too gross, but I know there are certain words involved that my dad or brother just don't want to hear. :) Also, if you have had a really long labor (I'm sorry Erin!) or lots of complications with your labor/pregnancy, I'm very sorry. You might not want to read this because you might get depressed. Apparently my babies are ready to walk out as soon as they hear the words, "Here comes the pitocin". :)


Okay, here it is....no turning back now!!


We woke up at 5 so we could leave the house by 615 or so. The plan was that Brandon and I would get there at 7 and then my mom would get Allison up, fed and take her to a friend's house. Well, at 545, the hospital called and said that since my induction was elective, they ran out of beds and so we'd have to wait until 8 and call back. We called at 8 and were told to call back at 830. I called at 830 and the lady I needed to talk to was in a meeting. She called at 845 or so and said, "Come on in!!" YAY!!!!! So we drove Allison to her friend's house and said goodbye.


Got into my hospital bed at 945. The pitocin was started at 1045. By 1 or so, I was feeling pretty yucky, so the anesthesiologist came and gave me my epidural (God Bless Anesthesiologists!). This hospital made mom and Brandon leave the room so apparently they went and got lunch and ate it as fast as they could. The epidural was a lot different this time. I actually could feel some and move my legs. I could feel contractions as they were coming on but it wasn't painful.


The doctor came and broke my water at 219. This time was special because Allison was born at 219!


At about 3, they had to give me a second dose of medicine in my epidural. I was getting kind of crabby! The contractions were getting pretty painful!


At 340, they had to put me on oxygen. Apparently I wasn't breathing well so the baby's oxygen level was dropping. This didn't last too long though (I tried!) because I started getting claustrophobic.


At about 4, I got REALLY crabby. The nurse decided to see how far along I was. I will NEVER forget the look on her face. She said, "Wow. There's nothing there. That's a head!" Apparently, I was ready to push! She said she was going to have me do a couple of practice pushes to see how I did. Then she'd call the doctor. I pushed just a couple of times and she went to call the doctor. The doctor said to "labor down" and wait. So we waited. At this point, I could feel the pressure of the baby's head and the contractions were getting BAD. Thankfully, I have a wonderful husband. We never did the classes or anything and here he was, helping me breathe through every contraction. (He told me later that he was just doing what he used to do when he wrestled in high school and was spotting someone who was weightlifting...whatever works!) The nurse called the doctor again and said, "You need to get here NOW." At 428, my doctor came running down the hallway. I pushed a couple of times and then at 434, there she was!


Some kind of funny (but gross) things happened during delivery. When the baby's legs came out, so did about a gallon of amniotic fluid. Instead of going straight down on the doctor (who was all gowned up) and into the pail underneath set up to catch it, it went about 45 degrees and landed all over Brandon's leg and shoe! Also, Brandon and mom got a biology lesson after I delivered the placenta. (The doc asked if I wanted to see it....um, no thanks!).

Overall, it was a very quick labor. Jordan's umbilical cord was wrapped loosely around her neck once (just like Allison's) but it never seemed to be an issue. Also, my right side got most of the epidural because I could only lay tilted to the right. They tried laying me tilted to the left (to avoid having one side get the epidural more) but every time they tried, Jordan's heart rate dropped BIG time. So right side it was. This led to me being a little wobbly when they tried to move me to my wheelchair and to my recovery room (and I could only feel contractions on my left side) but other than that, it was not a big deal.

Oh, and because there were SO many babies born, I ended up in the "overflow" wing for recovery/the rest of my hospital stay. The Labor and Delivery post-partum rooms are single rooms. The overflow rooms are for the female surgery patients, so they are double rooms. They also don't have a nice fold out chair like the L&D rooms do. Mom stayed the first night but the nurses came in twice to tell me that they were giving me a roommate so it was not a restful night for any of us. (The roommate never appeared). On my discharge date, they came in and said they were going to give me a roommate but I may already be gone by the time she got there. Unfortunately, this was not the case. We overlapped for a couple of hours (seemed like longer). Thankfully she was not my roommate the entire time. She had had a c-section at 4 am (this was around noon). There were at least 13 people on her half of the room at one point. And they were not quiet. Plus, they were in the way when I tried to go to the bathroom. Plus, they were just a little weird. It was their second baby too and they also had a toddler (18 months). The toddler was there for a couple of hours. (When Allison came, we only had her stay for maybe 45 minutes to an hour....it's boring for a toddler at the hospital!) Plus the dad kept trying to brag about his kid to us. Brandon and I were thinking the whole time, "Yep. Our toddler does that too. That's called 'being a toddler.'" Overall though, it was okay. The nurses were all really great and I was VERY lucky to not have had a roommate. (Most of the other rooms were full). I can't complain too much!!!

Sorry it took so long to get this posted. And I'm sorry for all of the moms who now want to kill me since my baby basically delivered herself with no complications. I warned you not to read!!! ;)