Birth Story

Adelyn is now over a month old and I am just getting around to posting her birth story. It is crazy to me to think of how badly a month ago I would have loved to know her birthday and how everything was going to play out. I know I need to go ahead and write the details out or I will start forgetting.

October 26th 6:58am.

I woke up at 6 am expecting a call from the labor and delivery nurse for us to come to the hospital so that they could start our induction. I didn't sleep to well that night because I was having some contractions and of course there was all of the excitement and anxiousness. I woke up at 6am and took a shower (let Daniel sleep a little longer). They told us to be expecting a call from 6-9 am. I was downstairs eating cereal and making sure we had our group email set up on the computer and my phone rang!!! It was the nurse asking how soon we could be at the hospital! I told her we could leave in about 20 minutes! I ran upstairs to wake Daniel up. I leaned over him and gave him a kiss and told him it was time for him to get up to go meet his daughter! He was excited and was able to get ready pretty quickly. I checked my list a couple more times and we headed off to the hospital by 7:30. I was shaking and praying and smiling on the way...holding Daniel's hand really tightly.

We checked in to labor and delivery...we walked up the 2nd floor and we were greeted by a friend of mine from high school who is a l&d nurse. She gave us a hug and said congrats! She told us she had a great l&d nurse picked out for us..her name was Lauren. :) She came about 5 minutes later to get us all set up. She brought us to our delivery room and had me get all set up in my hospital gown and explain the procedures to us. It was really surreal to be checking in to be induced. I got all set up and she started my IV around 8:30am. I can't say enough good things about our nurse. I loved her. She was really up beat and encouraging. She explained everything to us in great detail and didn't mind if we asked a million questions. At this point Daniel and I were the only ones there. We had talked to both of our parents by this point to give an update and my parents were going to be heading over soon to hang out and just be there if we needed anything.

10:30am

We had been in the room for a couple of hours at this point. Just talking, praying, hanging out...watching Rachel Ray on TV. I was trying to distract myself so that my nerves didn't get me.

I started feeling pain around this time that day. They had my IV in of Pitocin and PCN (I was Strep B positive). The pitocin started to kick in and I remember my first hard contraction very clearly. Mom and Dad were in the room and I started having a contraction and looked at Daniel like "oh my goodnesssss". I guess Mom saw the scared look on my face and said "ok, Lauren, maybe it's time to start breathing through them." So at that point they left the room and Daniel sat on the side of the bed and started helping me breath through them. At this point the contractions were strong but in between them there was absolutely no pain and I could talk and laugh. It wasn't too long after I started having regular contractions...maybe 20 minutes that Dr. Stephens came in and said she was going to check me and break my water. I think I was still at 3 cm when she broke my water. Ummm that was painful. But once she broke my water... the real pain began. It was the same type of pain just more intense. Daniel was still helping me breath through them and we decided it was time to try getting up out of the bed to see if I could get more comfortable (and we wanted gravity on our side). So I stood beside the bed. I couldn't go far because I had the IV in and had to have continuous fetal monitoring since I was on Pitocin. Standing up felt pretty good for a while. By this time I think it was around lunch. Daniel pulled out our notebook that we had prepared with some Bible verses to read to me or for me to read. This comforted me a lot, but it was still to the point that during a contraction all I could do was squeeze his hand really hard and close my eyes. We decided after about 30 minutes to try sitting on the birthing ball. This felt good for a little while... but then everything stepped it up a notch. I was sitting on the ball, Daniel was behind me rubbing my back. The contractions started to not completely go away in between. So I was not getting a little break every now and then. On top of that I started feeling light headed and nauseas. If you know me, you know that I am terrified of throwing up. Once I started feeling like that, I thought... Ok if I am going to be dealing with contractions and feeling like this, I think it's time to get the epidural. I kept talking it out with Daniel and then I decided I wanted to get it. As soon as I had this thought, I looked at Daniel and said... "Is it ok if I get it?". He looked at me very sweetly and said, "Lauren, I don't know why you are asking me, I have told you all along you could get it if you needed it." Once the decision was made the nurse said it would take about 15 minutes before the Dr. would come in to administer the epidural. They had to give me a lot of fluids before this could happen, so that my blood pressure didn't go down. The next 15 to 20 minutes were very intense.

2:30 pm

The anesthesiologist came in and the nurse already had me sitting on the side of the bed waiting for him to set up. They had Daniel sit down across the room. That was really hard not having him there to hold on to. The nurse stood in front of me while he put in the epidural. The difficult thing was staying completely still during a contraction while they were doing that. 15 minutes later I was already starting to feel relief. During this time through the afternoon. Adelyn was having a difficult time with labor. I believe around this time I was only 4 cm dilated. Adelyn's heartbeat kept going down during contractions and the doctors and nurses weren't happy with her dropping heart rate...so they kept moving me into different positions every ten minutes or so for the rest of the day! You can imagine how funny this would be when I am completely numb from the waist down and they are moving me from side to side. :)I had to try to keep hope at this point... I was really worried about her and kept staring at the monitor. I was ready and willing to have a c-section right away if she wasn't handling labor well. They kept a good eye on her and by dinner time I was 6 cm. The only problem was that I stayed at 6cm the majority of the night. All I can really remember was the nurse would check me, then an hour later the Dr. would check me and this went on over and over for the rest of the night. By this time my family had filled the waiting room downstairs. :) Our moms and my sister kept coming in periodically to check on us. (I was really starting to get discouraged at this point and it didn't help that my epidural was wearing off on one side and they kept having to add more meds to it to get it to work properly.) At this point Daniel was still by my side encouraging me constantly. Little did I know my uncle (in the waiting room) decided to get everyone together to pray for us. So they started praying. 45 minutes later... around 9:45 the Dr. came in again and looked at the monitor and said, "Baby isn't happy, and when baby isn't happy we aren't happy." My mom, Daniel and me looked at each other like, "oh no". We were about to get the C-Section conversation. The Dr. said, "well, let me check you one more time". I was 9 1/2CM! I looked at him and said, " you are joking". He said "I don't joke when I am at work." :) He told us I would be pushing very soon and left the room. The Lord answered their prayers very quickly! We were so excited and ready to go. The nurse started getting the room ready for delivery... Daniel and I just kept looking at each other smiling. They called the nurses from the special care nursery to come to the room to be ready for Adelyn because there was a little meconium in the water.

Around 10:00 pm

I started pushing with just Daniel and the nurse in the room. They had me take in a deep breath and push for 10 LONG seconds, then take a quick breath and do this 2 more times during one contraction. I remember thinking my head was going to explode. After every push I would open my eyes and kind of shake my head, cause my vision was kind of blurry. :) They kept telling me I was doing really well. I looked at Daniel and told him I wanted to do well, but I couldn't really feel how to push (cause of the epidural). After about 30 minutes of pushing my epidural started to wear off some and I could feel where to push and really started making progress. Daniel was getting really excited and was coaching me so well. The nurse called the Dr. in and I continued pushing. At one point he said, after a couple more pushes, she will be here! We didn't know, but during this time some people in our family, mom (maybe, Kellie, and Daniel's mom Kim) were coming up to the floor and asking if she was born yet, and the nurses wouldn't really answer them. :) I think Kim heard a baby crying when she came up...and we think she heard Adelyn:) After 1hr and 30 minutes of pushing she was born! Our precious little Adelyn Elizabeth came into this world. The Dr. immediately set her up on my chest. She was crying so hard (which I loved hearing). She was bloody and goowy and I just kept looking at her saying, "It's ok, baby, it's ok." Finally I reached my hand to touch her little arm. I'll never forget that first touch. They quickly took her from me and cleaned her out really well. The nurse across the room kept saying, "wow, she is beautiful". I could hear them sucking the liquid out of her. Daniel was over there watching over her. I remembered to ask him to grab the video camera. The Dr. was sewing my up. eeek. After they cleaned me up and had Adelyn all set. They swaddled her and let Daniel bring her over to me. We just stared at her for a while and then the nurse told us it was ok for family to come in if we were ready. Daniel was leaving the room to go get the fam and looked back at me like, "oh man, here we go". He hates being the center of attention and here he was about to get to announce to a waiting room FULL of family that had been waiting literally all day. He looked a little overwhelmed. He came off of the elevator downstairs and said, "Who wants to come see a crying baby?!". They said they were waiting on edge to see him come off the elevator!! The grandparents and my great grandmother came up first to see her. I remember to everyone that came in the room, I just kept saying, "Isn't she so beautiful?" Everyone that was still waiting at the hospital came up to our room to meet her. She was born at 11:44pm on October 26th. I felt so humbled that everyone waited at the hospital until almost midnight! It was a great celebration. It was time for them to take Adelyn to the nursery to get cleaned up and to get her meds. Daniel was able to follow her to the nursery and was able to sit with the nurse and watch everything they did. I loved knowing that he was with her. While they were in the nursery the nurse got me ready to move to our other room. Mom, Dad and Kel were waiting for us in our room. We were in there visiting for a few minutes and then Daniel came in the door pushing Adelyn in her cart with a big proud smile on his face. I will never forget that picture in my head. I was so happy they were back in the room. That night we didn't go to sleep until around 3am. We did send her to the newborn nursery from 6-9am so that we could get a few hours of sleep. We were exhausted and I was HUNGRY. :)

The next couple of days were kind of a blur of doctors constantly coming in to check me and Adelyn. During the next night we sent her to the nursery again so that we could get some rest. I hated sending her away but I knew they would take good care of her and we desperately needed sleep. We had many great visitors at the hospital... we loved showing off our little girl. We were able to go home on Wednesday! We were very excited to get home. Mom came to the hospital that afternoon and brought us food and helped us get everything together and helped us get settled at home.

October 26th 2009 was the best day of mine and Daniel's life so far. The Lord has blessed us beyond what we deserve. I will write soon about the joys and challenges of bringing a newborn home....but I think this is enough of a book already.

We were greeted at home with pink ribbons and balloons :) Thanks to Kim and Kellie.