Trigger warning: Graphic Photo
From not perfect, to perfect, my pregnancy with our daughter was such a roller coaster. A wide range of emotions, but it was not going to spoil our excitement at the thought of having our special little one in our arms.
As her due date got closer and everything got better, we started preparing for her arrival. On June 25, 2010, we scheduled pregnancy pictures with my mom and my husband’s step-mom. Unfortunately, my husband’s mom lives out of state and wasn’t able to be there.
We went to a park near my step-mother-in-law’s house. It was the same park my husband had proposed to me at in fact. Everything would be perfect! We walked around, took pictures, played on the playground and overall had an amazing day.
After talking pictures and playing at the park, my husband and I headed home to relax. We played (and still do!) World of Warcraft and he had a raid that night with some friends of ours. We were anxious for our little girl to arrive as my cousin gave birth to her baby girl a week prior! As the night went on, my husband ordered pizza from Domino’s for us as I had heard pizza could bring on labor.
Right before the pizza was set to arrive, I told my husband I was really craving an ice cream and a root beer. It quickly ran off to the convenience store by our house. While he was gone, I stood up to use the bathroom and felt want seemed like a trickle of water. It kind of felt like I peed myself a little, but not at the same time. Pizza hadn’t arrived yet, and my husband was at the store so I put on a pad and went to lay in my bed. It was about 10 P.M. A friend of mine had told me that to confirm your water had broke, to do just that and then stand up very quickly. If your water broke, you should feel a slight gush of water. When my husband got home, I told him I thought my water may have broke and that I was going to lay down for about 30 minutes. I ate my ice cream and drank some of my root beer.
When I stood up, there was a definite gush of water, so I told my husband it was time to go! We did wait for the pizza to arrive, but didn’t even eat any of it. I wasn’t having any contractions yet, so my husband thought maybe it could be a false alarm. We headed down to the Kaiser Hospital close to us and headed into Labor and Delivery.
When I told the nurse I thought my water had broke, she seemed really irritated at me. She asked if I was having contractions, which I confirmed I was not. She made me wait in the lobby for about 15-20 minutes before taking me back to a small room with just a gurney.
She had me lay down and she used a little piece of paper to check the fluids that I was leaking. After confirming that yes, it was my waters, my husband called everyone of importance to let them know that she was going to be coming. They had me lay on this small gurney and hooked me up to the machine to monitor contractions. Nothing.
She told me that because I wasn’t having any contractions and that because my water had broke, they would need to induce. I was not even 2cm dilated.
They also had to hook me up with antibiotics because I had tested positive for Strep B. That was painful. The nurse had a hard time finding a vein and ended up getting someone with experience in infants to come and place it. They ended up putting it in the side of my wrist.
I spent all night on that small gurney. It was so uncomfortable. They had me try to rotate sides and going to the bathroom was a chore because I had to walk all the way down the hall through the nurses station. My mom had arrived and she kept inquiring when I would be able to get out of that tiny room, with only a gurney. Seems it was a busy night for babies and they had no room for me anywhere!
I think they finally moved me about 9 or so in the morning. It was amazing to finally have a real bed. There was still no progress on her actually coming however. The contractions were getting worse, but still no change in dilation. She was being very stubborn.
While all this was happening, I was also determined not to have an epidural. My mom didn’t have one with her kids, and I was trying to do the same. I lasted 16 hours. I was throwing up and in a ton of pain. I still wasn’t dilating and they informed me that I was out of water. Every single contraction was pinching my babies cord and it was causing her heartbeat to become irregular. They told me they were going to put more water back inside me to help combat that and that after 24 hours, they would have to take me back for a c-section if she still wasn’t progressing. My mom then begged me to please get the epidural. This was going on longer then any of us thought, so I finally agreed.
Honestly, I think that’s what finally did it. My body could finally relax. It was now 1 PM on Saturday, June 26th.
Over the next 5 hours, the nurses would come and go. They would check me and disappear. It was long, it was boring. They kept reminding me that if I hit 24 hours, they would have to do a c-section, which obviously after going through all these hours of pain, I didn’t want to do.
Finally, at 6 PM, the nurse comes in and we get the news we had been waiting for. I am fully dilated and we can finally push! The nurse would tell me when to push as the epidural made it so I couldn’t feel the contractions at all. It was awful. There was no progress and I was getting exhausted. At one point, the epidural was starting to wear off and I realized she wasn’t timing it correct, it went more smooth after that.
After 59 minutes of pushing, our little girl finally made her grand entrance.
Our little Kylee was born at 6:59 PM weighing in a 6 pounds, .08 ounces. She was 19 inches long and just the most perfect little one we would have asked for.
Of course, it wasn’t done yet. While, they took her away to get her cleaned up and measured, they told me I need to push the placenta out. Oh joy! While we were working on that, the two grandma’s in the room were going crazy over wanting to hold their new granddaughter. My husband was still by my side and we were informed that the placenta had broken off and was stuck inside. They were calling a doctor in to try to remove it. If that wasn’t possible, they would have to send me in for a c-section. What?! No way! I did not just do it naturally just to have to go through a c-section anyway! My poor husband was so concerned over me, he wouldn’t even go see his daughter.
It took some time, but the doctor was able to get everything out. The room looked like a murder scene from all the blood. It was a bit ridiculous. Finally, after 21 hours, we had our baby girl. They did take her away briefly to x-ray her brain due to the original complications, but everything was perfect. She was perfect and we were so incredibly happy.
