Eva's Birth Story

Here is the VERY long birth story. Sorry for all of the details, but I wanted to be able to remember everything. :)

 February 21 Tuesday morning contractions 3:30-6:30am. 

February 22 Wednesday 10:30-6:30 contractions some were 10 minutes apart. Daniel helped me breath through these, tried to sleep in between them, called doctor at 4am ( Dr. Inge) he said to wait until they are 6-7 minutes apart. He said that we could come to our doctors appointment when the office opened at 8am to get checked if we wanted. 

Daniel had 2 really important meetings that morning. Called mom at 7am and the contractions had stopped of course but Barry and Kaye came to help me to the doctor for our regular visit. Adelyn came as well. I was 3cm and thinning.  I went back to the room thinking Adelyn would have more fun sitting with Barry and Kaye in the waiting room, but when I came out she asked if we were gong to hear the baby's heartbeat and I told her I just had. She started to cry and was upset that she didn't get to hear it. I was heart broken. It was sweet that she enjoyed it so much and I didn't even think that she would care. She had been with me to all of the previous visits and looked forward to the appointments. This was also the day of my sweet Granny Smith's funeral and I was so interested to see what was going to happen. I did not want to miss her funeral but more than that I didn't want Mom and Dad to miss it! It was a crazy morning. 

I had a couple of contractions on the way home from the doctor. I didn't have any regular contractions until around 10:30am. They started getting more intense but really far apart. Daniel got home around 11:30am and the contractions started getting really strong (10-15 min apart). Kaye was timing them. Adelyn was watching Enchanted movie and we made her lunch. 

 Daniel was home and we were trying to decide whether I could make it to the funeral. I decided I wanted to try. I had already taken a shower and fixed my hair right after the doctors appointment just in case. So I threw on a dress and we called our friend Anna. She had offered to come get Adelyn to watch her for a little bit. Adelyn was excited to go play with Everett. 

We drove to the funeral, I only had one strong contraction on the way. We arrived at the funeral with ten minutes to spare. We found the family and sat with them. I had about 5 strong contractions during the funeral. I had to hold Daniel's hand and had to breath through them. Every time I would get really emotional I would have a really strong contraction. We left the funeral and decided not to go to the graveside because my pain was getting stronger.  We called to check on Adelyn and she was napping with plans of going the park once her and Everett woke up. Thanks to the Bishops for keeping her. 

Daniel and I had a few minutes of special alone time at home. We tried to nap a little and just hung out. He went to pick Adelyn up around dinner time. Then mom and dad came over to our house after the graveside and dinner at church with the family to wait out the contractions and to help with Adelyn.  I was up and down off of the sofa. Mom kept suggesting that I keep moving around the house if I wanted them to get closer together. So I did some dishes, some laundry and the just paced in the living room. Of course our bags had been fully packed for about a day now because of my earlier contractions. Adelyn surprisingly seemed kind of oblivious to the fact that I was in pain and breathing weird:). 

The contractions were steadily at 10 min apart and sometimes 6-8 min. We hopped in the car around 9 right after we put Adelyn to bed. Headed to Rex, called doctor (Dr. Wind). She said she didn't think I was in true labor, she wouldn't admit me, probably braxton hicks, probably no more than 4.5 dilated. My bubble was burst. We turned around (against mom's suggestion) and came back home. 

We waited 1 more hour, had bloody discharge, contractions were more intense but no closer together. I was having a hard time breathing through them. Once a few of them were 6-8 minutes apart we went ahead and left because the pain started to wrap around my back and butt. This was around 11pm.

We didn't call the doctor this time, and parked close by in regular parking and walked. I had just started to have the shakes and my legs were getting weak as we walked, so I was hoping we were close. We walked in and the security guy sent us straight up to the check in waiting area. The sweetest L&D nurse came right to meet us when we sat down. Her name was Amber. I remembered her from when Lois was born (Kel had the same nurse). She was so kind, gentle, comforting and confident. She brought us back to triage, and started asking questions. I had a strong contraction right then and she said, let me check you really quick and we can ask these questions later. She checked and I was at 7 cm!!!! Daniel and I looked at each other and smiled. She started asking another girl to get an IV ready. I asked if that meant they were admitting us, she said " oh yes, your not going anywhere. You will probably have this baby by 2 or 3 am." Daniel and I, again kept smiling. We were so happy that this was it! She moved me into a room right away, another girl came in to do my IV and draw blood. I had to have blood drawn before I got the epidural. Daniel stopped for a second and called/text my parents and his parents to let them know that this was it. Mom and Dad were at our house. We had put Adelyn down for the night and they were sleeping on and off downstairs. They decided to take Adelyn over to Kellie and Micah's house to sleep in Zoe's bed because Zoe was staying the night with Max and Kaye. Micah would watch out for Adelyn and Kellie would come to the hospital with Mom and Dad. 

They wheeled me into the labor and delivery room. I remember it was really warm in there and I asked them if they could turn on the air. The nurse immediately came in and drew my blood and started my IV. The L&D nurse was on my right hooking up the monitors to my belly and Daniel was on my left helping me through the contractions. Kaye and Barry were the first to arrive for support. They came in the room with us and got to see me experience some of my most intense contractions before I received the epidural. The L&D nurse said that my blood work was taking a little longer to come back than normal and she kept checking on the status. It seemed like an eternity to me but I wasn't quite desperate yet. Finally they got the go ahead for the epidural around  (more on that later) and the anesthesiologist came in right at the end of one of my contractions. They were still 8-10 minutes apart so he was able to give me the epidural during a contraction. I told Daniel that I didn't know if I liked that better or not because I was able to feel everything that he was doing. The epidural started working after only 5 minutes. It was amazing. I felt like I could finally rest a little. We kinda got settled in the room. Daniel started some music at that time I think and Mom, Dad and Kellie visited us in the room. Now for the scary part: 30 min after the epidural it was just Daniel and Me in the room and I started feeling nauseous, my vision started turning black, my hearing started getting funky like i was plugging my ears. So I asked Daniel to hit the button for the nurse. She came right in and knew exactly what was going on. She grabbed a medicine from in the room and put it right into my IV. It immediately made my vision come back and my hearing clear up. I felt totally better. She said that my blood pressure dropped and that it was a side effect of the epidural. I was able to sleep for a little while and then it happened one more time. The anesthesiologist came in to check on me because they had to give me the medication again and turn me on my side. He said that if it happened again that they would have to cut my epidural in half. All I could think was, NO, Lord please don't let that happen!:) I remember I asked Mom to come up at one point and she was sitting beside me while my blood pressure was all crazy. She was holding my hand and I remember her looking down at her phone texting Dad (or someone) to pray. 

After that fiasco we were able to rest from about 4am-6am. The nurse turned the lights off. I remember I was able to sleep well but slightly woke up every time the blood pressure cuff would check my blood pressure. They had to monitor it every 15 minutes to make sure things were still going okay. Daniel was asleep in the "super comfy" fold out chair next to me. She came in during that time and turned up my pitocin some more and said that they would check me again at 6am. From 5:30am - 6 I couldn't sleep anymore because I was getting excited. I was starting to feel slight pressure and knew that it would not be long. I was texting Kellie (who was sitting down stairs) because I was bored and didn't want to wake Daniel up. She came in at 6am to check me and I was fully dilated and ready to push. She got a few things set up in the room and turned on the all the lights. She had me do a couple practice pushes and she said, "okay I am going to call the doctor now". She paged the doctor and then had me do a couple more pushes. She then instructed me to stop and paged the doctor again. She had me put my legs down because Eva was about to  be born without the doctor in the room. I did NOT like waiting like that. I could feel the pressure so strong (but no pain thank goodness). I felt like my hips couldn't take any more pressure. She then called the doctor for a 3rd time!!!

 As soon as Dr. Wind walked in they had me push a couple times and she was born at 6:31am! As soon as her head was out she had a strong cry. Daniel cut the umbilical cord. They put her right on my chest. She was so sweet and so beautiful. She looked a lot like sweet Adelyn as a newborn but with more dark hair. I could not believe we were doing this for a second time. You wonder where the love and feelings will come from for this second sweet little girl. How will she be different? How much does she weigh? Is she okay? She sounded strong to us but since she was 10 days early we wanted to hear them say that she was doing fine. They took her away after a little while to clean and weigh her. They announced that she weighed 5lbs and 13 ounces. The doctor said that she was small but sassy. :) 

They cleaned me up while they did all of her testing. We then sent down word for Mom and Dad to come up. Tim and Kim had not arrived yet. I pretty sure that Kellie and Jessica came up at this time as well. So happy that Jessica was able to be present for Eva's birth (she was in Argentina when Adelyn was born). We had some more family come visit us in the room for a few minutes and then they said it was time to transition us to our regular room. I felt really good at this time, just really hungry! 

Big sister gets to meet Eva Grace post to follow...