When I woke up that morning on the 4th, I should’ve known that I was probably going to have her soon because I just wasn’t feeling like me. I was so exhausted and normally when I wake up in the mornings I am up but that morning I woke up at 8 and went right back to bed at 9 and slept until 11 something. There are some other symptoms that I won’t discuss (TMI) and I was hurting a little also. But Dr. Grafa had just seen me that Monday and he just knew he would see me again that next Monday for my appointment, little did he know! Keith and I had to be at our baseball hitting practice before the game that night around 6ish. During that practice I sat in the car with my mom and Lily, a friend of ours. Lily is also a nurse J We were all talking and then I got really quiet because I had a horrible contraction. Lily called WNJ to see who the doctor on call was since it was the weekend. FYI for those who don’t know if you go into labor on the weekend and your doctor isn’t on call, more than likely he will NOT deliver your baby!! Anyways, Dr. Sandmann was on call so I was totally ok if I were to go into labor that night! We went to our baseball game and I didn’t have any more contractions. But I can tell you that I don’t remember a single thing from that game. I didn’t pay one bit of attention to it and that is SO not like me! On the way to the car after the game we had to stop walking because I was hurting again and then the second we pulled out onto the highway I had another contraction. We got home and I hadn’t had anymore contractions so we just thought it was like any other day or night. That night around 11 I started hurting pretty bad again so we started timing the contractions. They weren’t really consistent at all; they would come every 13 minutes or every 10 minutes so we weren’t really for sure on what to do. I called my mom and she told us to just go ahead and go to the hospital because the worse they could do is send me home and say it was only a false alarm. Well we ended up sitting at the house for an hour and a half before deciding to go to the hospital!
We got to the hospital around 1 that morning of the 5th and walked into the ER and I said “I think I am in labor!” Lol I am such a dummy but hey I have never had a baby before! They wheel me up to the labor and delivery floor and hook me up to the monitors. I was definitely having contractions but they still weren’t consistent. The nurse called Sandmann and he told her to send me home because I was only a 1 ½ cm. dilated but she told him that she was going to keep me for a couple of hours and check me again around 3:30 am. Well when she did I was at a 3 so Sandmann told her to admit me and right when the nurse started to put my IV in, my water broke! Weirdest feeling ever! Almost like a balloon popped inside of me but my reaction was “I think I just peed on myself, and I am still peeing!” The nurses asked me if it was pee or my water breaking! Lol me being a dummy again! It was my water breaking and there was meconium in it which meant that before Hadlee was all the way out the doctor would have to suction her mouth and nose before she took her first breath. The nurse said it was time to get my epidural and everyone that knows me well knows that I do NOT do pain so I was a nervous wreck! The nurse was great and explained everything to me. The epidural did not hurt one single bit and it wasn’t because I was hurting so bad from contractions, it just didn’t hurt! I was very surprised!
Now comes the fun part of my labor! The nurse checked me again a little after my epidural and I was already at a 6. Then it seemed like I just quit progressing so Sandmann told them to start some Pitocin just to kind of speed things up a little. Well then it was time for shift change so I had new nurses. One of them was a student and nothing against student nurses because both my mother-in-law and sister-in-law are in nursing school but I just did not want a student in there with me. I actually ended up liking her better than the RN. She was phenomenal!! I absolutely loved her. I started feeling my contractions again and my whole right side never went numb and my left side was only tingly and I knew something was up so I told the nurse and she just didn’t seem to care all that much and did nothing about it. I told them again a little later because I started being able to feel my catheter also and finally they found out that the battery to the epidural machine had died..AWESOME! If only they would have listened to me! Well that was fixed and things seemed to get better and then low and behold I started feeling contractions and my right side of my body again so I told them….and once again nothing. Well by this time my mom and Keith were not happy campers and my mom said a few choice words to the nurse because Keith went and told her I was hurting again and her exact words were “when we figure something out we will come let you know.” REALLY?! I wasn’t even getting through one contraction before I started having another!
OK so finally after my mother went and chewed the nurse out she comes back in and figures out that NOT only had my epidural come out but so did my catheter somehow. And by this time I was dilated to a 10 AND Dr. Sandmann had come in and told me I would have to wait an hour before I could start pushing because he had an emergency C-section to go do and he was the ONLY doctor there!!! Complete panic had set in at this point. I started crying and I wasn’t crying from the pain I was crying because I was completely terrified. I had just been told my epidural wasn’t in and I was dilated to a 10 so they would have to put a new one in and Keith and my mom would have to leave again, and I couldn’t start pushing for another hour because of the emergency C-section, and I was terrified about giving birth because like I said I DON’T do pain!! Once again I took the epidural like a champ and it didn’t even hurt but this time my contractions were so bad that I didn’t even notice the epidural being put in! And once that epidural was done and started working I was instantly numb from the waist down and didn’t feel a single thing. The weirdest feeling I have ever felt! I felt like I needed to move my leg but it just wouldn’t move and I couldn’t make it move! So strange!
FINALLY time to push! And let me tell you…labor is hard! You have to take a deep breath and blow it out and then take another deep breath and hold it while you push as hard as you can and the nurse counts to 10. And when I say counts to 10, more like counting to 30 because they take FOREVER to get to 10!!! It’s hard holding your breath for that long and pushing and then the nurse telling you ok another contraction lets go again! What?! I just held my breath for 10 seconds and you want me to do it again! I am not sure how long I pushed but at 11:34 that morning I gave birth to my precious Hadlee <3 The best moment of my life hearing her cry for the first time and getting her put on my chest! As soon as she came out the first thing I said was “she is a girl right!” Lol and then the next thing was “OMG how big is she?!” I couldn’t believe she was 8 lbs!!
Like I said, no matter how much stuff I went through to get
her here, I would do it again in a heartbeat! She is the best thing that has
ever happened to me! I am very proud of myself for how well I handled
everything that day and I am proud of Keith for not passing out ;) and for
being such an amazing father! I knew he would be great but he has definitely exceeded
my expectations. This little girl has us both wrapped around her finger and I
think the whole family for that matter!
I had a great support system in that room with me that day and I am very thankful for that! Oh and another FYI for my friends that are about to become
first time mothers, after you have your babies and feel like walking DO IT!! AS
MUCH AS YOU CAN!!!! If not you will be kicking yourself when you get to go home
from the hospital! <3 Kristen
