Where was I? Oh yes, arriving at Kaiser Morse Hospital around 5 pm on Thursday October 12th. We were so excited and nervous, and I remember I couldn't stop talking- it was all happening, we were finally going to meet our precious daughter!! So, I get my sweet gown on, with the belly band thingy, monitors on my tummy, my IV and away they started with pitocin. We knew this would be a LONG night and weren't expecting much action right away. The first nurse of the night was an older lady, I can't recall her name but she was so sweet and calming- and she brought me dinner! And even though I had eaten nachos not too long before that I figured I might as well eat this dinner too since I wasn't sure when I would be able to eat again.
On our way to the hospital, I, of course, made the phone calls to the parents and shortly after we got started they were filing into our big room. (Oh I didn't mention that sweet detail, some how we got lucky with 1 of the 2 HUGE L&D rooms they have at the hospital, so everyone was able to fit comfortably). And I will never forget my Dad started tearing up as soon as he saw me and my mom jabs him and says "Don't start now Michael, this is going to be a long night" haha I just love that! Nick's dad also teared up... I guess the moms knew not to waste their tears quite yet.
So this is how we spent the first night, just hanging out waiting for something to happen. The nurse upped the pitocin every so often through out the night and I was feeling all those lovely contractions. They weren't super painful but uncomfortable enough that at some point late night/early morning I got some pain meds in my IV that instantly put me to sleep as I'm asking "Am I supposed to feel this way... like I'm drunk or something..." (Que snoring here.) While I'm snoozing away poor Nick was up all night and couldn't sleep since he had drank a couple monster energy drinks. I slept for a couple hours but soon the contractions were keeping me up again. I was doing fine until every single time they checked my cervix I was still only 2 cm!! I had been 2 cm since about 38 weeks. All I could think was "At this rate I'll have Hannah by the time I'm 50 weeks!!"
Shift change for the nurses came and went and we got our new nurse for the day, Gaylon. I was so sad to be losing our original nurse but soon learned I loved Gaylon too, she was so sweet and helped us with anything we needed. Ok, so I'm still 2 cm and nothing is progressing, so around noon the midwife came in and broke my water, which by the way is such a weird feeling, ya know, like you're constantly peeing yourself?! So lovely. Once my water was broken the contractions were so much worse! They were super strong and since there was no more cushion there I felt it all! I think I lasted about 2 hours before I was begging for the epidural, and THAT was a Godsend, oh I loved the epidural and couldn't imagine doing labor without it. The only problem with the epidural was that my legs felt like they weighed about 100lbs each and since I couldn't feel them I needed help moving my legs whenever I wanted to move positions and Nick agreed they were like tree trunks! ha
I finally started to make some progress around 5 pm, so 24 hours into labor I opened up to maybe 3cm! Too say the least I was pretty discouraged and was hinting at "so, nurse, when do I get a c-section??" Thank goodness I didn't actually go for that, but let me tell you I sure would have signed on the dotted line had they given me the option! While all my non-progress was going on, Nick's friend Randy and his wife had shown up to the same hospital early Friday morning to also be induced and each time Nick would come back to our room after checking on them he would be afraid to tell me that she was progressing so nicely and had her baby 4 hours before I even started pushing to get Hannah out! But I'm not bitter about that...
Ok, progress... it was happening slowly. For me this is when the details start to get fuzzy and I ask Nick for clarification. He says around 7pm I was 5cm, then I think I was checked again around 11:30pm and was only 6-7cm. But then about 30 minutes later around midnight I was feeling "the" pressure, I kept saying I felt like I needed to poop, and even though the nurse (now it was Kelly) had just checked me since I was having the feeling she checked again and sure enough I was 10cm and ready to push! Woooo Except by that point I got super tired and could have fallen asleep, which of course I wasn't able to actually do- 1. cause it was time to get this kid out and 2. I was afraid if I relaxed and fell asleep the baby would just kind of slip out with out my knowledge... if only it were that easy.
I started pushing around 12 midnight. I only wanted Nick in the room with me, but my mom asked and convinced me to let her stand behind the little curtain that was in front of the door, just so she could hear everything that was happening, while the rest of the parents were right outside our room. Now pushing is A LOT more difficult than I ever thought it would be, they say bear down like you have to poop. Well considering I had to poop my whole labor and was never able to, I was sure ready to "bear" down with all my might. (And no, to my knowledge and even after asking Nick a couple weeks after labor, I DID NOT poop on the table! Woo! I was seriously worried about that...) Anyways, so I pushed, and pushed, and pushed some more and it felt like nothing was even happening. And to top it off, in between every SINGLE contraction I was puking my guts out, even though I had no food left in me 31 hours later to puke up, so that was a lot of fun! I think I would've rather pooped all over that dang table if it meant I could've gotten out of puking. Finally after 1 1/2 hours of pushing, at 1:23am the nurse and doctor (whom I had met mere minutes earlier as she slipped in the room at some point during all my pushing and took center stage between my legs to catch our darling daughter) told me to stop pushing after her head was out and the rest of her body was eased out by the doc! No more pushing! I had done it!!
The doc placed Hannah right on my tummy and Nick cut the cord. Our sweet little girl was here! Even though she was so little (only weighing 6lbs 13oz and 21 inches long) she felt so heavy and warm on my chest. And I started to get a little worried because she was still blue and not crying yet, but she just looked right at me and looked so peaceful. I snuggled her for a minute or so and then they brought her to the warming table where Nick stood with here. She let out one little cry and then was happy and peaceful again. Seriously I was shocked, she didn't cry! And she continued to stay such a happy, content baby. (Oh and at some point after she was finally out my mom ripped the curtain to the side and rushed into the room, oh yes with me spread eagle getting all my junk cleaned up!) But I wouldn't have had it any other way, I love that she was able to be there the entire time and see her first grandbaby seconds after being born.
Speaking of getting my "junk all cleaned up", I only had to have 2 small stitches which wasn't bad. While I was getting worked on they were cleaning Han up too, and I had to sit back and watch from the bed. It felt like hours, when it was really only 20 minutes or so, and then the nurse was able to bring our baby girl back to me to snuggle with and Nick was finally able to hold her too. Even though it was such a LONG process, I feel so lucky in the labor and delivery that I had. I loved all the nurses (the doc seemed pretty nice too, although we didn't really talk too much!), there were no complications (Hannah did have the cord around her neck loosely which was why her heart rate dropped a little during my labor, but nothing to be too concerned about), and our girl came out so content you would never have thought she just went through a marathon labor too!
We feel so blessed to have our sweet girl with us here and cannot believe it has been 4 1/2 years!! She is growing up to be such an amazing little person and we often wonder how we got so lucky to be blessed with our daughter, Hannah Grace.
(For some reason I sucked at taking pictures those first few days after Hannah was born so this post is not pic loaded like it should be! I think I was in awe of our sweet girl and just didn't think to grab the camera...)
