My birth story--The most stressful day ever...

Tuesday, October 16 started out as any normal day.

Hubby and I went to school, it was a decent day at work and then we had a doctor’s appointment. Since I was a little over 38 weeks pregnant, we are frequent visitors there.

Typically we have to wait to see the doctor for at least a half an hour. That day was no exception.

The doctor started to measure my fundal height and she was concerned because I had not shown any growth—my belly was measuring at 35 weeks and I was 38 weeks pregnant. She was concerned, and wanted me to come back the next day for an ultrasound. (A week before, she had measured me and mentioned that she did seem to think that Baby Campbell was going to be small, but she was not worried.)

As she was looking at scheduling the ultrasound, she decided that she could get us in that night—and she would just do the ultrasound in the office.

I was getting pretty worried at this point.

We went in the ultrasound room and the doctor started looking at the baby. Kedzie was hardly moving. The doctor could not get an accurate measurement on her head and after an hour of stressing me out, she decided I needed to go to labor and delivery.

I asked her if I could go home and get my stuff. She said, “no, you are going to the hospital. You are having a baby tonight.” Her nurse even walked me over. (Her office is connected to the hospital.) I was freaking out and in shock: shaking, my blood pressure was through the roof. Everything had been going so well all pregnancy. How could something be wrong with my baby?

I was only dialated to a one. I had been a one for weeks. The doctor was deciding if she wanted to start me on Pitocin or Cervadil. I was contracting (probably due to the stress) about every 3 minutes. Due to the contractions, the doctor decided to put me on Pitocin. I continued to have contractions every 2-3 minutes during the night.  Needless to say, I did not sleep at all.

The next morning I was still only dialated to a one. I was completely exhausted. The doctor kept upping the Pitocin every 40 minutes. My contractions were still consistent. After 11 hours of contractions, the nurse suggested that I really should think about an epidural. (Of course, by this point, I wasn’t sure why I hadn’t been offered one before. I didn’t think to ask, but I was in some serious pain….contractions, back labor, etc.)

I got the epidural. Let me just say, that nurse was really my savior, and the epidural. She made sure I was on my side positioned properly to try to get the baby down. Because of the epidural I couldn’t feel anything and was able to get about 2 hours of sleep.

Finally, by 4pm I was feeling some pressure and I was dialated to an 8. It was working! She called my doctor and let her know I was ready to start pushing.

Then after approximately two hours of pushing, (I will leave out the rest of the gory details—but if you talk to my hubby he can fill you in on some of his highs and lows), Kedzie Emmalyn Campbell was born at 5:53pm on October 17^th. She was 18 inches long and 6 pounds 15 ounces. She is completely and totally healthy and beautiful—she is a bit tiny, but precious.

We are totally in love.

On our way home from the hospital. Call me, maybe?