My Birth Story

I'm going to go ahead and attempt to write my birth story while it's still fresh on my mind...

I was scheduled to be induced on Wednesday, July 13, 2011 at 6:30 a.m. at Clear Lake Regional Hospital. Our alarms were set and ready to go off bright and early to be at the hospital by 6:30 am. However, they called at around 4 am to tell me that they weren't sure if they were going to have room for me and instructed me to call back at 7:30 am to see if they had a bed. I've had friends that have gotten their inductions bumped days because of this sort of thing so I was discouraged that I might not be going in on Wednesday like we had previously thought. Needless to say, I didn't get much quality sleep after that phone call. But, to my surprise, they called me back at 6:30am and told me to come on in! Josh and I got ready, packed the car, and were on our way.

We got to the hospital around 7:20 am and were set up in a nice big corner room with a comfy temperpedic bed (although that was not the type of bed that was supposed to be in there...oh well, I got lucky!).  Paper work was completed and iv's were put into place while we waited for Dr. Klein to come in.  Dr. Klein came in around 8:30, checked my cervix (which was dilated to 3cm), and broke my water.  The nurses then started the pitocin, and it was time to simply wait on contractions.

It took until around 10am for me to start to really feel the contractions, but by 11:30 I was already ready for my epidural (that pitocin is NO JOKE!!). I could have probably waited a little longer to get the epidural, but I knew it took around 30 minutes to receive it once I asked, so I figured I would go ahead and request it, and boy am I glad I did! Once the epidural was ordered, the nurse checked my cervix again, and I was surprised and disappointed to find out that I had only made it 1cm farther in 3 hours! I thought for sure that I was in for a looong day after that.

The anesthesiologist made it to the room around noon and my epidural started to work its magical powers about 10 minutes later. The contraction pain went away immediately, but I still felt really intense pressure down below which I didn't feel when I had an epidural during Lila's birth. The nurse said that was normal and that it should numb up in about 15 more minutes. Around 12:30 Dr. Klein came back in to check my cervix again, and found quite the surprise. He looked at the nurse and said "she's ready to go," which I thought was a joke because he is just like that. BUT, he was dead serious, and apparently I wasn't just fully dilated, her head was halfway down the birth canal.

It's just amazing to me that I went from 4cm to 10cm and basically crowning in less than 1 hour! ...although I'm not complaining! Josh had gone to the lobby to get his lunch that my parents and his mom had brought back, so I had to call him to come back into the room before we started pushing. Alli was out in four pushes, no tears and no stitches needed! She had the sweetest little cry and the tiniest little head.  Of course we took a million pictures, and Josh did such a great job as the photographer. He got some really awesome shots of Alli on her way out too (which I'll spare you of!).

Once she was in this world, it was hard to believe the whirlwind that was that morning.  It all happened so fast (not that it wasn't painful!), and was so amazing. God is so good, and I'm continually amazed at His beautiful creation!! We are so in love with our little family of four!!