Katelynn's Birth Story

Here we go. I want to get this written down just for me and if you want to read this you can otherwise you can skip this. I hope to get pics up today too. (PS this took me three days to get posted)

During the day on Thursday nesting was really coming to a close. I had taken the car in to be detailed and then the dogs had also been groomed. I did a quick clean of the bathrooms and started vacuuming the bedrooms but decided to finish that on Friday. Katelynn’s room was in order and I had Ben move the pack and play into our bedroom. I had packed my bag earlier in the week and had made a list of companies that needed to be contacted after she was born. I had come to the point where if she came I guess I would be ready. I didn’t think it would be that night.
On Thursday night at 11:45pm I woke up in a huge rush to get to the bathroom. I got there the quickest I had in a month and went more than I had in a month and so everything seemed strange about it. I kept on thinking about Amy whose water broke with her first at work and how she thought she had lost control of her bladder. I knew that I hadn’t lost control of my bladder but I knew something else had to be going on. Being two weeks early I wasn’t expecting any of this. After deciding that it was my water I called to Ben who was in a dead sleep. I called him three or four times before he heard me. He was in as much shock as I was. My water breaking was not just a trickle, I was gushing and leaking and I was feeling disgusting. Since she was still pretty high she wasn’t stopping the flow of fluid.
Ben was really worried that it wasn’t my water and that if it wasn’t and we went in to the hospital they would turn us away. After a few minutes of leaking everywhere Ben was convinced and we got admitted to the hospital at about 2am. While driving to the hospital the song by the Fuggees came on “Ready or not here I come” we both thought that that was very fitting of the situation. I went in with a positive “towel test.” I was sitting on a towel so as not to soak everything I sat on. When I was checked I was at 1 cm and 70% effaced. So we had a long way to go. The nurse called the MD and he said that I could have some pitocin. Until then I still hadn’t felt any contractions. The pit was started probably around 3am and so we just waited around until 7:30 and they checked again and I was a 2-3 and the contractions were getting more and more regular. This was when I sent out the text message and surprised everyone. By 9 I was ready for the epidural and was at 4cm. The anesthesiologist got there at about 9:30 and Katelynn was in a little distress so they place an internal heart rate monitor and I was at 5cm. The contractions were coming one after another and I was in so much pain that I was given a bolus of Fentanyl before the epidural started. It took a while to get the epidural stuff prepped and me relaxed for it. Ben stepped out for about 15 min while the needle was out and I was laying back down at about 10:30 and I was at 10cm.
The epidural worked and there was no pain in my belly but I felt everything in my right leg but my left leg was dead numb. I was happy enough since I couldn’t feel the main pain. My MD was out of town so the on call MD came in right before his 11 o’clock c-section. We did a couple of pushes then and it was decided that I would labor down until after his surgery. From 10:30 until 12 it was so nice. I was relaxed and Katelynn was doing well on the monitor. The MD came in at 12 and checked out the pushes again and we were ready to have a baby. I did about 4 sets of 3 pushes and she was born at 12:12pm.
Everything went really well at the hospital and we were able to go home the next day. Ben stayed the night, which I was very glad about since I probably would have been an emotional wreck if he had to have left.

Here we are two and a half weeks later and things are still going well. We have had many ups and MANY downs along the way and are still adjusting to having her around but we absolutely love her and can’t wait to watch her grow and develop.