I have been thinking about Amelia’s birth and those first few days with her lately as I get closer to delivery with baby sister. I never really wrote down her birth story so I figured this would be the perfect place to write it down.

Towards the end of pregnancy every mom dreams about the day their little one will arrive. Once I hit the 37 week mark I was constantly thinking about labor and delivery just hoping I would go into labor at any moment.

In the evening on Saturday, August 25th I was 37.6 weeks pregnant, the day before at my doctors appointment my OB/GYN stripped my membranes in hopes that it would MAYBE jump start labor. He was doubtful my body was ready and that it would do anything but I was holding onto the small sliver of hope! I spent the entire afternoon Friday walking on the treadmill and doing anything to help induce labor. I worked a half shift at work that night and was just hoping that after my shift I could just stay there and have my baby! But nonetheless, nothing happened. Saturday we spent the day out on a date cause we knew our time as a family of two would shortly be over! When we got home that night as I was getting into bed I felt a gush of blood. It slightly worried me but I also knew it was normal towards the end of pregnancy. I decided to just go in and get checked to make sure everything was okay.

When we arrived to Labor and Delivery they did my vital signs and my blood pressure was elevated. I knew it was high because I was shaking due to my excitement and anxiousness about what the next few hours would hold. I tried to calm myself down and stay as relaxed as possible, but how could I?! I could possibly be having a baby very soon!! So they came back a while later and checked my blood pressure again (this time I was still very excited and shaking a little bit) and it was still high thanks to all those excitement jitters!! I was thinking to myself that I would most likely be staying because my blood pressures were reading high, I knew they wouldn’t send me home right away. My labor nurse, Shana, called the on call doctor and she chose to admit me and start inducing me because of my blood pressures, my bloody show and how often I had been contracting. THIS WAS IT!!! We couldn’t contain our excitement!

My cervix wasn’t softened yet so they did a Cytotec induction to help my cervix soften throughout the night. They typically do this induction method over the course of about 12ish hours then they would move onto other induction methods. So we started the induction at about midnight and went to bed for the night.

We spent the next morning walking laps around the hospital and tried to stay as patient as possible! I labored a lot in my back so Ethan would rub my back a lot to help me relax and feel some relief. Around 1pm on Sunday, August 26th my doctor came in to see me. We talked about the various options we had moving forward with the induction and ultimately decided on placing a cervical balloon or a Foley Bulb and starting Pitocin. At this point I was 1cm dilated and 80-90% effaced. I was so uncomfortable and tired. I had been contracting and in the early stages of labor for about 14 hours at this point. Once they inserted the balloon, I was SO uncomfortable. It was the weirdest feeling and I had to constantly get up to pee which made it a lot worse having the foley bulb in. At this point I decided to try some Fentanyl for some pain relief. It made me feel SO WEIRD. I almost felt like I was floating in the air. Then about 5-10 minutes later it made me super nauseous and I threw up. So no pain meds for Kayla. After a while I felt pretty frustrated and I decided to get an epidural so I could relax a little bit more. I AM SO GLAD I DID! Best decision ever. After I got my epidural, I was able to take a nap and get some much needed rest. My body was able to relax and it truly helped my body progress further into the later stages of labor.

Around 6:00 pm my nurse came to check on me and empty my bladder. To our surprise when she put the catheter in, the cervical balloon fell out! She checked me and I was 6 cm dilated and 100% effaced. YAY!! Finally some actual progress!! We were so excited! Around 7:30 my water broke.. Talk about the craziest feeling ever! By 8:30 I was dilated to 9 cm. I couldn’t believe how fast I was progressing. By 9:30 I was complete!!

Time to push this baby out! Around 10 pm my doctor arrived as we were doing some practice pushes. It took him a few minutes to get all suited up and ready. We started pushing probably around 10:05ish and by 10:15pm our precious baby was born. I was blessed and thankfully had no tears or stitches! My doctor was awesome and helped coach me through some of the pushes where he thought I would potentially tear. I am so grateful! For a couple of the pushes he told me to push half as hard as I was to help prevent any tearing.

No words can describe the feeling of when they place your baby on your chest after delivery. It was so surreal. My heart grew about 1000 sizes that night. I loved my labor and delivery and wouldn’t change a thing. The whole experience was so special to me. I can’t believe it has almost been a year and a half since she was born. Now she is walking, talking and has developed the biggest personality. We are so blessed to have her in our lives. I don’t know what we did to deserve her.

xoxo,

Kayla