March 11, 2016

Baby Kate!

Baby Kate
 

3-5-16
8:00 pm
7 lbs 11 oz
20.5 in 

Here is how it all went down with baby Kate! First of all, this pregnancy was really hard on my body this time around. I had terrible pain, from the beginning, so getting her out early was something I was really hoping for! I was trying so hard to not get my hopes up of an early delivery, but an early delivery is something I have wanted for every pregnancy!

When I was 38 weeks pregnant, my doctor stripped my membranes. I had heard that this was a terrible thing to do, I heard it hurt like a mother from some people, and from other people I heard it was just uncomfortable, but not THAT bad. So I had my doctor do it at 38 weeks because I was showing progress, 3 cm and about 50% effaced. Definitely not the most pleasant experience, but not too terrible. So that day/night I walked my little big booty off! That night, Monday, I started having hard contractions every 3 minutes! I thought it totally worked and it was time! I even packed a bag and was thinking about calling Dawn to tell her to come over. I decided to wait a little until the contractions either got harder or closer together. By 5 am they had stopped. completely. I was so mad! I went walking for an hour the next morning, then went to the gym to walk more and nothing happened. Nothing. No contractions. No nothing. I had heard that if stripping your membranes doesn't work in the first 24-48 hours, it's not going to work at all. So I was super disappointed. After getting my membranes stripped, I had started to have a bloody/mucusie discharge that I assumed was totally normal considering what my doctor had just done to my insides. By Thursday, that had turned more watery. I called my doctor and he said it was normal after getting my membranes stripped. So all day Thursday and all day Friday I just had to deal with it. Friday night, it was a lot more than what I had been dealing with the last two days. So I called the doctor again Saturday morning, and he said if I didn't have a gush of water, or if it wasn't dripping down my leg, it most likely wasn't my water that had broken, But if I wanted to, I could go to the hospital to have them check it.  (A girl in my ward was 41 weeks pregnant and had been scheduled to be induced, but was turned away because they were too full) Since I knew the hospital was so full, and I would most likely be turned away, I asked my doctor if I would be ok to wait until my appointment on Monday to have him check it.  He said I should be fine to wait. So I took the kids to their first t-ball practice, did two sets of lashes, and went about my day like normal. When Nate got home from work, I told him what the doctor had said and we decided that it would be worth it to spend a few hundred dollars for a hospital visit, to have the peace of mind of knowing our baby girl wasn't going to die inside from lack of fluid!

So we drop the kids off at Dawns house around 2:30 and head to the hospital. Both Nate and I are trying to help each other not get our hopes up having the baby that day, but I couldn't help but wish it was something worth keeping us so I could just have the baby! So we get in, they check me, I was at 5 cm and still about 50% effaced, but she could still feel my water in tact. So they do a swab test to check to see if it was my water that had broken. The nurse came back and said she didn't see any amniotic fluid on the swab, but she brought a more expensive test to try again. After about 20 minutes, she comes back and told us it was my water!!!! I could NOT believe what I had just heard! My water had been leaking!!!! They called it a high leak, so they wouldn't be able to feel it when they checked me. We got back to the labor and delivery room around 4:30 pm and they got me all hooked up to everything. Around 5 I asked if I could get the epidural already, even though I wasn't really having any bad contractions yet. By 5:30 the epidural was in, and I was feeling great! Around 6:30 I told the nurse something was coming out of me... I was either peeing or my water had fully broken. She checked me and said my water was still in tact, but once she took her hand out, it all came out! My water had fully broken! Then around 7:15- 7:30 pm, I started to feel every contraction.... only in the spots you DON'T want to feel it.... my belly was totally numb... but not the other part you don't want to feel when you're having a baby... It. was. terrible. I started getting the shakes, my teeth were chattering, and I could not control it. They sat me up, tried to get the epidural to fall to that spot, but it wasn't working fast enough! I started to feel the urge to push, and I was terrified of pushing another baby out and being able to feel everything! I was seriously panicking. Finally, I couldn't hold back the urge to push, and I think I had numbed up a little, but I still felt a lot of what was going on. I pushed about 4 times, and baby Kate was here!!!! I couldn't help but cry! She was finally here! She was finally out! The end of the most uncomfortable and painful pregnancy, was here! My sweet, perfect, beautiful baby girl was here!

Kate has been the best baby! She is so easy and Kennedy, Mason and Eliza adore her! They are so sweet to her. I love seeing the look in their eyes when they look at her. They are all so gentle and want to cuddle her every chance they get!

 Now for the mini photo montage of the day!