12 years ago
We had decided to do an induction Sunday morning if Kinslee hadn't joined us before then. Saturday (11/11,) I went to bed, but couldn't sleep well at all. I finally fell asleep around 11:30, but woke up to Connor yelling for Mom and Dad at 2am. BJ heard him a little before me and went in to help with a stuffy nose (not sure why he didn't just come into our room for help.)
I had a hard time falling back asleep so I got up to use the bathroom. Ashlynn came in just after that and BJ helped her get back to bed. She was back in our room within 20 minutes, so BJ decided he was going to sleep on her floor. I had some crackers and finally settled back down and was just falling back to sleep at 530am when BJ came back to the bed and woke me up when he hit the cracker bag. I couldn't fall back asleep after that.
At 6:15, I called the hospital and they told us to come in between 7:15 and 7:30. BJ's dad arrived a little before 7. We ate some oatmeal and banana and headed out.
We arrived at the hospital at 7:25 and checked in. Our tech, Celeste, showed us to our room and got us settled in. Our nurse Kaitlyn came in at 7:40 and went through the basic check in process. They checked me and I was 2cm and was 70% effaced. The IV process started around 8:05 and by 8:25 I'd been poked by 2 nurses in 4 different places without result. The nurse supervisor showed up at 8:50 and told me to think of flowing and big veins and she finally got my IV in. The pitocin (4ml) and fluids were hooked up and running at 9:05.
The pitocin started some mild contractions every 3 minutes, but wasn't doing too much, so at 10:15, the nurse increased the pitocin to 6ml's. At 10:26, I had to pee (BJ was documenting everything early on!) The nurse checked me at 11:05 and I was 3cm and 70% effaced. At 11:11, we increased the pitocin to 8. At this point I was sitting on an exercise ball while watching Shark Tank with BJ on the Ipad; it was a good distraction.
I started feeling nauseous, so the nurse brought me a couple jello cups at 12:17pm. At this point my contractions were about 2.5 minutes apart. The nurse was a little concerned about the contraction pattern, so she wanted to keep an eye on them over the next little while. My back was hurting some during these contractions as well so we turned off Shark Tank and I was sitting on the edge of the bed. At 1:10, the nurse wanted me to try a different position during the contractions called Sims position. I layed on my left side and put a peanut ball between my legs. At this point the pain was not too bad, but I was listening to Adele on Pandora with headphones and squeezing a stress ball while taking slow deep breaths to help keep me relaxed.
Around 2, the nurse checked me again and I was 3+ cm and still 70% effaced. We increased the pitocin to 12 and then I asked to be hooked up to the portable monitor. The nurse couldn't get it to work and they kept leaving and coming back trying different things to the machine. I was frustrated I hadn't progressed much and was getting antsy to just have the baby. I was sitting on the edge of the bed and kept saying to BJ, "This is so stupid!" We were facing the bathroom and we heard someone talking through the walls, so he sang quietly, "Hello from the other side." It kept me laughing, but I told him he needed to sing it loud.
Once we finally got the portable hooked up, we started walking around. A couple of ladies were also wandering around the hall waiting for someone they knew to give labor and passed us at one point while I was bent over in pain from a contraction and just stopped and turned their heads and stared at me. We tried to avoid them after that: Have you never seen a woman in labor!? We also saw the anesthesiologist walk into his office with some food. BJ joked that he was going to go wave at his window and ask for some food.I was grateful for BJ's humor to help me get through the contractions and the waiting game. I felt soo much better after walking around. We then ran into Dr. Hansen on our walk and she gave me the option to continue to walk around or to have her break my water. I was hesitant at first because I knew once they broke the water the pain was going to get a lot worse, but I was also ready to see my sweet baby girl.
At 3:24, the doctor checked me and I was 4cm, 80% effaced and baby was a -2 and very well applied. The doctor then broke my water and as I anticipated things started getting a lot more painful.
By 4:30, the pain in my back was really bad during the contractions. BJ had tried putting pressure on it with his palms while I sat on the bed, but that wasn't helping very much. I tried putting pressure on it as well, but couldn't ever get in a good position. So I tried getting on my hands and knees on the bed to see if that would help. It did help some, but wasn't enough relief. I finally stood up, put the medicine ball on the bed and leaned over that while BJ put his palms on my lower back. As I breathed through contractions, I would rock back just slightly so his palms would slide up my back an inch or so. This was the worst pain I've ever had during labor.
Around 5:15, Dr. Hansen and nurse Kaitlyn came in the room and started setting up for the delivery while BJ and I worked through the contractions. I started feeling pressure at 5:25. Dr. Hansen checked me while I was standing, which was really crazy. I was 7cm, 0 station, and paper thin. The contractions were coming every 2 minutes and my back was in the worst pain I've ever felt. I kept saying, "I can't do this," but everyone in the room kept encouraging me. I sat down on the edge of the bed around 5:30 and BJ got behind me as we worked through that last few contractions.I kept waiting for "transition" to start because I knew it wouldn't be too long after that hit, but it felt like it took forever for that to happen. I knew the doctor was in the room, but i was facing the other way and mostly had my eyes closed. I hate being loud or causing attention on me, but the back pain was so severe so the only thing that helped was moaning in a low voice.
It was just before my second to last contraction and Dr. Hansen was at the edge of the bed. I said, "I'm never doing this again!" and she laughed and responded "I love you!" (I didn't think it was funny!) I pushed the head out during my last contraction and Dr. Hansen said I needed to get my legs up on the bed and lift up just a little so she could get a better angle at the baby. I lifted up, gave one last push and Kinslee arrived at 5:39.
They had asked us beforehand if we wanted to do "skin to skin" and "delayed cord clamping". We didn't get those options with Ashlynn since she was rushed off to the NICU, so we decided to try for it this time. It was a little different experience than I imagined. They set baby right on my gown as they had me move over in the bed so Dr. Hansen could stitch me up (I got a 2nd degree tear) as well as deliver the placenta. As I was holding our new bundle of joy I looked over and saw tears in BJ's eyes and he mouthed to me "I love you". It was the sweetest moment. My IV then started beeping because my hand was bent holding Kinslee. They told me to keep that hand straight because they had Oxytocin running and it was important. They then took my left hand and got a blood pressure. It was very difficult to hold the baby and have both arms being used. After about 10 minutes the baby started trying to eat, so they encouraged me to feed her if I could. They then helped me pull my gown down and I started nursing the baby, but then had the IV in my right arm keep beeping and the blood pressure continually being checked on my left arm. It was very difficult. They finally paused the IV for a little bit so I could feed her, but then told me I had to put my arm straight. By this time it was around 30-40 minutes of skin to skin and they apparently usually do an hour. I then asked BJ if he wanted to hold Kinslee and asked the nurse if I could get up and use the bathroom and get a new gown on. She seemed a little surprised, but I was a mess and really wanted to get cleaned up a little so I could enjoy those moments holding the baby.
I got up to the bathroom and got cleaned up. Just after the hour mark at 6:50 ish they came in and weighed Kinslee and gave her the eye drops and Vitamin K and Hep B Shot. She weighed 6 lbs 15 ounces + so they rounded up to 7 lbs even. she was 20 inches long. Oh I should mention...at this point we did not know what we were going to name the baby.
BJ face timed the kids before we moved up to the Post Partum floor so the kids could meet their new baby sister. This is me talking to the kiddos.
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