The Best is Yet to Come: Natalie's Birth Day

On June 12, 2013, our family of three became four, and just like when Caitlin arrived, our lives were changed forever. Although things have changed, I kind of can't even remember what life was like without Natalie. She just belongs with us, and it seems as if our family is complete now. Here's where I document Natalie's birth story. This is fair warning that if this kind of thing grosses you out, you should stop reading now. :)

When we were planning for Natalie's arrival, we weren't sure what our plan would be for Caitlin when I went into labor. We had many wonderful friends offer to help out by picking her up from school and/or staying with her as long as we needed. We ended up asking Ryan's mom (Grandmom) to come down and stay with us before my due date so we'd have someone here to help out with Caitlin if we needed it. Grandmom came down to stay with us starting on June 6th and waited patiently with us for me to go into labor. That day finally came on June 11th. Leading up to that day, I had a few random days where I sort of had regular-ish contractions, but nothing that sent me to the hospital. My due date wasn't until June 16th, but it was such a stupid emotional roller coaster. One day, I'd have contractions and get my hopes up that soon, things would be happening, and then the next day, everything would stop completely. Talk about frustrating. It also didn't help that I was just really miserable (physically) by that point. I also had mostly been working from home, which was nice, but decided that on Monday, June 10th, I'd go into the office to get some stuff done and make sure my desk was clean/straightened in case I went into labor. That turned out to be my last day in the office because I went into labor the next day!

Tuesday (June 11th) started out as the other recent days did, with some random contractions, but nothing too regular. As the day went on though, they definitely started to get more regular. I worked from home that day and made some progress on some of the things I had been working on so I felt pretty accomplished by the end of the day. It also made me feel better about where I stood with everything for work when I realized that I was truly in labor. Ryan got home with Caitlin around 530 or so, and I broke the news that I had been having contractions, and I thought they had been pretty regular. He suggested that I call my doctor to see what they wanted me to do. I called and got the answering service, so I left a message for the on call doctor (Dr. Zern). We waited around for about 10-15 minutes but didn't get a call back. I called the answering service again and gave them my cell phone this time because we had decided to just get in the car and head over to the hospital since it was about a 30-40 minute drive. I was so thankful we did this because we ended up never getting a call back because Dr. Z was in a C-section (We found this out because we ran into as we were going into the Labor and Delivery triage).

We got all settled in L&D triage around 645/7pm, and Dr. Z came in to check my progress. I was at 4cm and 50% effaced, but my contractions weren't exactly regular - they were coming every 1-2 minutes and sometimes were even farther apart. When they told me this, I started to get a little worried that they'd send me back home so I basically begged Dr. Z to let me stay. At that point, I would have given her all of the money in our bank accounts to bribe her to let me stay, ha! She was so sweet and told me that I was in early labor and that she wasn't sending me home. I loved that woman so much when those words came out of her mouth. So, from there, I was admitted, and we were in a room by about 8pm. We got my IV started (on the first try, thank goodness), and they monitored me and the baby for a little while, and then I got to start walking the halls to try to get things to move along. At this point, I sent Ryan to get some dinner because I knew he'd need his strength, and I proceeded to start walking the halls at 9pm and text back and forth with Becky to pass the time. I think I also texted a few other people to let them know what was going on, but at this point, it's all a big blur. After my 30 minute walk, I got to get back in bed and be monitored again for 15-30 minutes (again, I have no idea how long this actually was). Everything looked great for me and the baby so I was allowed to get up and walk again for another 30 minutes. I wrapped up this walk and went back to my room to be monitored again. It was a pretty busy night in L&D, so when I got back, I had a new nurse (Joyce), a triage nurse that got called in to help out. She was absolutely amazing. Almost as soon as I met her, I told her that I was ready for my epidural (yay!), so she put the call into anethesia and got the ball rolling on that. I got the epidural sometime around 1130p/midnight. It was a lot harder than I remember when I got mine with Caitlin, but Joyce was so great through the whole thing. She stood in front of me and helped me maintain the proper position and then rubbed my shoulders and back during the "hard" parts. As soon as I got the epidural, my BP quickly dropped to something like 74/46 and I started feeling awful - like I couldn't breathe and very dizzy. They pushed some drugs through my IV, and I started feeling much better.

Once everything was stabilized and we were sure that I wasn't feeling any contractions, Joyce put the catheter in, and Dr. Z came in to check for progress and I was at about 5cm. She also broke my water at this point. They monitored me for a while, and my contractions were still pretty irregular and not picking up like they wanted them to, so Dr. Z decided to start Pitocin. I was fine with that because I wanted to get everything going and meet Baby LeNoir! Once the Pitocin was started, Dr. Z wanted me to lay on my side to help get the baby moving. I started on my right side and fell asleep for about an hour. Joyce came in to wake me and help me turn over to my left side, and I started feeling pain on the left side. I guess because I had been laying on my right side, all the drugs from the epidural went there instead of to both sides. Before I could turn onto my left side, I spent some time sitting up to get the drugs flowing to both sides again. Meanwhile, Ryan was just sleeping away. It must be rough and really exhausting being there as moral support. :) Once I was able to turn onto my left side, I slept for maybe 30 minutes and started feeling pressure. Joyce had told me that when I started feeling pressure to ring the nurse bell, so that's what I did. She came in around 245am-ish and checked me and called Dr. Z in to check as well. Joyce told Ryan that he needed to wake up ("Dad, wake up!!") because we were ready! Dr. Z came in and checked me - I was at 10cm at 3:02am. I pushed through 3 contractions for less than 10 minutes, and out she came! Natalie was born at 3:15am. Dr. Z let Ryan tell me the sex, and I immediately started crying. When he asked me what the name was, I was so choked up that I could barely get it out. Pretty amazing. They put her on my chest and Ryan cut the cord (of his own free will this time). With Caitlin, my doctor (not Dr. Z) gave him no choice - he was cutting the cord, like it or not. I vaguely remember hearing Dr. Z tell Ryan that the cord was going to gush because it was a "big one" so he needed to cut it in a certain place so he didn't get all messy, ha!

Anyway... back to Natalie. She came out with a full head of dark hair, was basically covered in vernix (the waxy stuff) and her head was perfectly round. She scored an 8 on the 1st minute Apgar and a 9 on the 5th minute Apgar (awesome!). The nurses and Dr. Z kept saying how cute she was, and one even made a comment of "are you storing nuts in those cheeks?" because her cheeks were/are so chubby. Dr. Z delivered my placenta, which was not nearly as painful as it was with Caitlin, but maybe that was just because my epidural was still really working at this point, and did one stitch for a small tear (wow-so much better than with Caitlin). They also pushed more Pitocin and pushed on my stomach to make sure my uterus was contracting, and there were no issues with that either. Again, I remember this being much more painful with Caitlin. Thank goodness for good drugs! They took Natalie from me and weighed her - she was 8lbs, 6.6oz and 20.75 inches long. In addition to my shock that she was a girl (because EVERYONE except for Caitlin told me they thought I was having a boy), I was completely shocked when they told me her weight. I just couldn't get over it since Caitlin was 6lbs, 1.8oz when she was born. Once they did all the tests and got her a little cleaned up, they gave her back, and she nursed around 4am. What an amazing night! Welcome to the world, Natalie Claire!! We can't wait to see what fun and exciting things you have in store for us! And now, the fun part - some pictures from Natalie's Birth Day. As an aside, these are all iPhone pictures because in my rush to get out of the house, I left the memory card for my big camera in my computer, and we didn't realize it until it was time to start taking pictures. And, that my friends is proof that the 2nd child syndrome has already started. :)