The Labor Story:
I was due with Katelyn on March 4th. Colton had come four days late so I wasn't really expecting her to come early, and I wasn't really ready for her to come early either. However, Jon had just rotated to a new job within Deere at the first of March and was told that the second week of March was going to be very busy and he wouldn't have much flexibility with time off. I needed Jon to be there as much as possible so I really didn't want her to come late either. Considering I am a huge planner who hates the unknown, the whole situation really stressed me out. So, I set up an appointment to be induced on March 6th. I liked the idea of letting her come on her on time but I needed Jon to be able to be there and not be busy with work. That helped me de-stress a bit but I was still uncomfortable about the whole situation. March 4th rolled around and nothing. Not a single contraction. I was super uncomfortable but I had no signs that the baby was coming anytime soon. I went to the doctor for an NST on my due date and the nurse who was hooking me up to the monitors was talking to me about the weather, etc. I joked that I was probably going to go into labor that night because there was supposed to be a big snow storm rolling in overnight and it was just my luck. She said that she wouldn't be surprised because they tended to deliver a lot of babies during storms- something about the drop in barometric pressure causing women to go into labor. I don't know if that is true or not but whether it was just a matter of luck or barometric pressure (or she was just ready all on her own) that night I woke up at 1:45am and felt a little weird. I had the fleeting thought that maybe my water had broken but I brushed it off thinking it would be more obvious if it had and I closed my eyes to go back to sleep. I lay there for about five minutes and finally decided I better get up and go to the bathroom just to make sure everything was ok. When I got up all doubts went out the window. It was QUITE the gush! (Sorry if that's gross). I had no doubt that my water had broken. I woke Jon up and told him that my water had broken and we needed to go to the hospital. He was completely disoriented and kept walking around in circles with a crazed look on his face. Funny that I was the one who had to remain calm.
We called a friend to come watch Colton and we headed to the hospital just as the snow was starting to fall. By time we got to the hospital the contractions had started and were becoming pretty regular and painful. We kept telling them that I wanted an epidural as soon as possible but they said they had to make sure I was really in labor first and that my water had really broken (even though I was positive it had). Then they had to ask me all these medical history questions and contact the doctor and what seemed like a million other unimportant things. My patience was all but lost when they finally called the anesthesiologist two hours later to come give me the epidural and then it took him an hour to get there because of the snow storm. It was a very painful three hours but all was beautiful and I was able to get some sleep once I got the epidural. Things started getting painful again once the pressure increased. The doctor came in around 9am and said that everything was going great and I was more than half-way there, just progressing a little slowly. She said that she had no doubt I'd get there on my own but if I wanted some pitocin to speed things up we could do that. I asked if there was any risk and she said there really wasn't at this point and so I said, "Let's speed this baby up!" A couple hours later I was at a 10 and after about half an hour of incredibly exhausting and painful pushing, our beautiful baby girl was born. She had the cord wrapped around her neck but the doctor was extremely calm and fixed it really quickly and everything was alright!
I gotta say, it might already be apparent, but I really do not like the whole labor and delivery process. I don't feel like I am a wimp normally but I always feel like one during childbirth. I hate the pain of it all but looking at my beautiful babies and holding them close- I know it's all worth it. Babies are such a miracle from heaven and I know that the sweet spirits of our little Colton and Katelyn were sent to us special from our Heavenly Father.
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