Well... to my absolute shock... Kayla's due date came and went without her being born! I truly in my heart thought that she was going to be born over the weekend on either the 11th or 12th, but nope... no baby! I was even trying all of the old wives tales to induce labor too, and nothing worked! On the morning of Jan 14th which was Kayla's due date... I started getting a lot of regular contractions. They started at exactly 12:01 am right as it turned the 14th. And I got up... had a snack... got up again and had a drink... laid down and by 3am they were about 5 minutes apart. So I even went upstairs to get Cody and I told him that I thought it might be "time." He asked me if I was getting the contractions were "I knew" and I was like... well... I don't know... they're 5 minutes apart... Soooo I guess? And we sat in bed for about an hour or so as I kept getting contractions, and we got up and got dressed, and I called the hospital to ask if I should come in. They told me when they were consistently at 2 1/2 to 3 minutes to come in... so after I talked with them, I started timing my contractions at 4:25am. I had 3 contractions that were within 2-3 minutes apart, and then I had one that was just over 5 minutes apart. Then I had 5 contractions that were within 2-4 minutes apart. So I'm like.. OK this is it... I'm going to get up and have a snack and go to the bathroom and we'll probably be going in. Well... after that... my contractions started getting further and further apart. It was around 5:30 and they were between 4-5 minutes apart and Cody was like... you need to just try to get some sleep and stop timing all these, because you've been up all night. And I was exhausted, so I went to sleep... and I woke up at 7:30am and the contractions had all gone away! I was absolutely shocked! And Cody had already called into work and told his boss that we thought I was going into labor. But sure enough... I didn't have hardly any other contractions at all throughout the rest of that day! It was unreal! I honestly thought that we were going in, and that I wasn't going to need to be induced the next day on the 15th...
But here I am on the morning of Jan 15th. Now, I hadn't had any contractions on the 14th until around 11pm when I was going to bed. And baby started flipping and flopping around... and I was like oh boy... I'm in for another night like last night. Well I had packed my favorite sleeping pants for my hospital stay, so I decided to just put those on. I think they were a little bit looser and more comfortable, because after that I luckily slept through the rest of the night. This was right before we were going in to be induced with Kayla. Our induction time was at 8am in the morning. So by the time that we got there, got checked in, signed all of our paperwork and actually started taking the Pitocin it was around 9:30am.
I initially thought that the delay of our induction was so that I could be scheduled with either Dr. Bellante or Dr. Foote. However, I was really surprised that I was delivering with a Dr. Hahn. I didn't have any idea who he was, but I was concerned with who he would be and if he would have an accent that I wouldn't be able to understand and etc... but I didn't need to be worried, because I had no problems with him the few times that we saw him. We were in delivery room 314. And our first shift nurse, Chris was absolutely wonderful! She was sooo nice to me and ended up being my knight in shining armor when I actually gave birth to Kayla.
Here I am right as we were starting the Pitocin. Whoever says that when you get induced and are on Pitocin that your labor comes on hard and fast... are just jerks for saying that. Or maybe they are just really old, and back in the day it was a much worse process. They started me at Pitocin level 2 to begin with, but they can go up to 40. So honestly, it was a slow start to having bad contractions. They would check me every 20 minutes to evaluate how my contractions were going and then they would decide to bump me up or not. I think throughout the whole process, I only had to go to level 16 or 18. So I will say that my perspective of the Pitocin process could be influenced by that too.
Here is the monitor that they had us hooked up to. I had to wear two bands (which ended up driving me crazy by the end of the night). The blue line was monitoring Kayla's heart rate, and the purple line was monitoring the frequency of my contractions. When I was at Pitocin level 16 or 18 which was around 6pm, I was getting contractions pretty close to each other and it was putting some stress on Kayla, so my nurse Chris backed down on it for a bit. Kayla did NOT like the contractions at all, and she was very squirmy and she liked to dodge the heart monitor quite a bit. Chris was really good at finding her again, and using a minimal amount of gel on the sensor to do it too. She told me that if they could break my water, that things would progress pretty quickly for me. However, I guess I had a lot of extra fluid and she said that a high level is usually around 22 and mine was at 24. So basically the baby was floating too much and not pressing down on my cervix which is what would make things progress. Dr. Hahn was concerned that if he broke my water that Kayla's umbilical cord could fall through my cervix, because he wasn't confident that her head was low enough to plug the area. And I remembered from our birthing class that the umbilical cord is basically the baby's life line and if it falls out, it is treated as an extreme emergency c-section... To the point that the father might not even get into the room. So obviously that had to be avoided, and he wanted to see if she could drop a little lower so that he could safely break my water. I would say that my labor process was great during Chris's shift. She was very nice to me, and I honestly wasn't in too bad of shape at that point. She left at 7pm, and I got a new nurse, Caitlin, to come in that was on until 1am.
Sometime between 7pm and 8pm, Kayla switched positions, and that was when things really started to get uncomfortable. I was progressing into having labor contractions but due to her position shift they were all hitting me in my back... which was WAY more uncomfortable and painful than when they were in the front. And laying in bed was absolute torture... it was horrible. So I kept getting up and trying to sit in a different spot, but as I moved the heart monitor would drop off of Kayla, and it was just very frustrating and upsetting. At one point, I was hurting so bad that I had tears in my eyes and when Caitlin checked in on me, she told me that we were probably at a good point to get my epidural. I agreed, and the doctor came in around 8pm... but unfortunately he had an accent that I couldn't really understand... so I was a bit scared of the epidural and I couldn't understand his "step by step" that he was telling me... the only thing that I could make out was when he was sticking me with the epidural he goes "Uh oh, crap... I'm going to need a new kit." Talk about having freaking anxiety after that, because who wouldn't want to hear the doctor inserting something into your spine say that... but thank god for my nurse... because she put her hand on me and was very comforting and she told me that the line had just bent and that it was ok... but that I was going to have to be stuck with the needle over again.
After the epidural my pain level went way down, but it was still horrible to have to lay in the bed. The epidural took the "edge" off of how bad my back hurt, but it was still hurting and uncomfortable. As the contractions went on, I guess Kayla was getting out of breath from all of the contractions and they told me that I needed to lay on my side to take some pressure off of her. And I wanted to so badly, but it hurt so bad! It was maddening! It was torture laying like that and having to hold still so that the monitor didn't fall off. And at 1am, the nice second nurse left and my third nurse of the night came in. And I know that this blog is public, and I have a rule about never saying anything negative about someone in my blog... but this third nurse was rough on me. She came in and was like "On your side now." And I don't remember my exact words to her, but I was basically asking if there was anything more bearable that we could try... and I didn't feel like she had any compassion for me. She was basically like... well this is what your baby needs so you're just going to have to do it. I felt like she was accusing me of not caring about the baby, and it was really upsetting. Also, anytime that I moved at all... we'd lose Kayla's heart monitor.. and then she'd come in and use a TON of gel (I was basically sopping in it) and it would take what felt like forever to find Kayla again, and then the monitor would slip right off the spot. And I was COVERED with the gel, just saturated with it. And I was like why don't you wipe me off and then try it. She did, but she still used way too much gel so it was really slippery. So that was incredibly frustrating. And even worse, after all these contractions and everything for all these hours, every time I was checked I didn't have any progress... I was basically stalled out at 4cm. Then finally I got to 5 cm, and at the next check she said I was oh it's 4 1/2 now. And it was killing me... And I had been laying there for like 20 hours and the last 8 had been super uncomfortable and I was like... so when can the doctor come back in to check to see if my water can be broke? And she basically rambled off this list of things that he was currently doing and didn't give me any time frame. So I was like... so what are the next steps here? And she's like, well you've only been here about 20 hours... sometimes this can take 24-72 hours! I'll come back and check you in 4 hours to see if you've made progress and we'll go from there. And I'm like Jesus Christ! 4 HOURS! AH!
So I'm sitting there going crazy for hours, just watching the clock... because I knew that at 7am, my first nurse, Chris would be back and Dr. Bellante would be in instead of the other doctor. And from 6am on, I was building my case as to why they had to take me for a c-section. I was like... I don't even care, I'm going to demand it. I'm not sitting here for another 4 hours to be checked and find that I don't have any progress. So that whole last hour, I'm just stewing watching the clock... like please come in for shift changeover... please come in... And like my knight in freaking armor, Chris walks in and was instantly like, "You're still here? Oh no, this is not going to do. I'm going to find Dr. Bellante right now and we're going to break your water." So she did, and Dr. Bellante came in, checked me and was like "I don't know what Dr. Hahn was talking about, this looks fine to me to break. Let's get this going." And honestly, now in hindsight I feel like he had a really busy night
that night. I remember the nurse listing off quite a few things going on and I think that a lot of people were there in labor ahead of me, so I
really feel like he might not have had the time for me to go as well. So I think that's the reason he wasn't coming in, and really why my
water wasn't being broken. I'm sure there was something to her
umbilical cord being a risk, but I think my water could have been broken
way before it was.
I also think that my nurse could have been having a bad night because of that too, and I think that with my monitor constantly falling off and her having trouble getting back on was probably making her night really hard. With the perspective of reflecting for a few days, I really don't think she meant me to feel the way I did, and she would probably be sad to see that I felt that way, because I had a high frustration level and I think that maybe she wasn't as experienced as a nurse either.
Anyway... Dr. Bellante went ahead and broke my water. And my gosh, I felt like a faucet of water was turned on, and WHOOSH... came my water. And that actually happened quite a few times. And my nurse was like, I told you that when your water was going to break that it was really going to break! Then she was like, "Ok, we're going to have you move like this so that we can get that baby to change positions so that she's easier to push." By 9am, I was at 9 cm! Then my thighs were in such pain! It felt like the third day after a work out when you've worked yourself too hard and have completely exhausted and sore muscles. And throughout the night, I had been laying on my side and I had been squeezing a towel inbetween my thighs so that my catheter didn't poke me... and I was like oh my god, I ruined my legs last night... I couldn't BELIEVE how bad they hurt, and I couldn't move them in any position for them not to hurt, and I was like how did I do this?? It feels like I did a massive workout on my thighs. And I told Cody, how in the world am I going to be able to push with my legs this hurt? And my nurse pointed out to me that I was actually experiencing my contractions in my thighs now. She pointed to my contraction screen and she said watch, they hurt you as you have a contraction. This was happening because Kayla was so low and I was so dilated, the contractions started to move lower. Once I realized that it was like a sigh of relief almost to have an explanation for what was going on, so I was able to see the contraction starting, peaking, and then I could work through my thighs hurting so bad.
Before I knew it, it was 10am and they were checking me to see if I was ready to push. They said some first time moms push for 1-3 hours on average, but when my nurse checked me she said that the baby was really low already and in a good position. Dr. Bellante was in the room to see my progress and they started to have me push. Whenever I got a contraction, I was able to push 3 times for as long and as hard as I could. And my nurse was pretty much my pushing coach too. She would tell me to
take a deep breath and then she'd tell me to push. After I pushed
once, she'd tell me to push again. Now most doctors don't stay in the room with you while you are pushing, they mostly just come in to catch the baby right at the end, but Dr. Bellante was in the room with me pretty much the whole time I was pushing. At one point, she was going to hop out to do a circumcision but when she walked out, I remember thinking noooo I want to be done... come back... did two BIG pushes and my nurse told me to stop because the baby's head was coming out and she ran and got the doctor back. As I was pushing, Cody was holding my left leg and my nurse was holding my right. They also brought in a different nurse to just take care of Kayla when she was born. I'm proud that I was such a good pusher, the day before there was a girl in the room next to mine and we heard her screaming for hours and saying that she couldn't do it over and over, and when I heard her the day before I had a determination to not act that way. So I just pushed and pushed. As I was pushing, I couldn't even feel my contractions anymore. They kept asking me if I was getting a contraction and I kept telling them that I didn't know. So they'd look at the monitor and tell me when to push. I was frustrated to have to stop pushing after 3 pushes, I was ready to be done! And I was determined that she was coming quick, so I was pushing as long and as hard as I possibly could. When she was crowning they asked me if I wanted a mirror to see her head, and I was all business like no, ain't nobody got time for that... let's go! It did sting and hurt like heck though! It was painful pushing those chubby little checks out! But finally, we were going and I said that I wasn't going to stop pushing so I pushed for a total of 5 times and with a whoosh Kayla and a ton liquid came gushing out! Cody got a great view of the whole thing... me not so much! I started pushing around 10am and Kayla was born by 10:40am! So time went really quick from when they broke my water at 7:15am to when I had her at 10:40am. As much as my night before was hell, I am so so so glad that I was able to deliver Kayla with my own doctor and the nurse that was so great with me. Looking back, I can't imagine delivering Kayla to a doctor that I didn't know, that was in a rush, and with a nurse that I didn't really like all night. It was much better to wait until the morning and deliver her with the doctor that I've been going to my pregnancy appointments with and who will see me during my follow up appointments too. So as frustrated as I was all night long to get things moving, I guess everything does happen for a reason and I'm so pleased with the way it worked out.
Once Kayla was pushed out, I remember waiting to hear her cry. At first she took a sputtered little cry and I saw her nurse with the suction tube in her mouth and I'm pretty sure I held my breath for those 5 seconds or however long it took to suction her before I heard her cry. And her nurse was cleaning her off as she was handing her to me and then some more as she was on me. And I was like hello little baby, and I looked over to Cody with tears in my eyes. And then it was just me and baby snuggling together. I was vaguely aware that the doctor was delivering the placenta (which I never did see, but Cody did) and then that she was stitching me up but all I had eyes for was my little baby. They had the cutest little hat on her and I was able to snuggle her and we had our first breastfeeding session while we were laying there. I probably held her for a good hour or longer before I gave her up. I remember feeling vaguely sad for Cody because he hadn't gotten to hold her, but not sad enough to give her up too quickly. That first skin to skin interaction and breastfeeding process is so important. I remember that he was leaned over us and that he said she had his butt chin.
Here is Cody finally getting to hold the baby. I asked him for his phone so that I could take pictures of him.
After he snuggled her for a bit, the nurse guided him over to get her measurements and do her first shots and what not. I was super curious to see how big she was! She was officially 8 lbs 8.75 ounces but she had her first poop while I was holding her (at some point her nurse must have put a diaper on her while I was holding her). So we called her 8.5 lbs and she was 21 inches long.
This was the picture that we sent out originally to everyone. And I really do not like this picture at all. I was always shocked by this picture because I didn't feel like it looked like the baby I was holding at all. I honestly wish that we had waited a few hours to send any pictures to anyone or that we would have sent the picture above out to people with more to come later, because that picture above does look like Kayla to me... not so much this one. I think this was right after they put the vitamin K drops into her eyes. I'm also really sad that someone else posted this picture to Facebook and that it was the picture that 170+ people commented on. I wasn't too involved with the sending out of the announcements of her, but I know with our next baby I'm going to tell Cody no sending out any pictures to anyone until we post them on Facebook ourselves. I really had no sense of urgency to tell anyone that she had been born right away, and I don't think that I started sending out messages until around 1:30pm. I was super shocked that while I was holding Kayla the nurse came in and told me that my dad was already waiting outside. I guess he just came to the hospital right when visiting hours opened at 11am, which happened to be about 20 minutes after she was born. She said she thought that we must have sent out a message to let him know that the baby was born and she said she was sorry that she was the one to tell him that I'd had the baby. I said well that's ok, but he'll just have to wait out there a few hours until Cody got to hold her and we got transferred and settled into our permanent room. And of course, once he knew that I had the baby he felt obligated to tell my mom... which is understandable but that still meant that I didn't get to tell either one of my parents myself that I'd had her.. which to be honest is a little bit upsetting and sad. Especially with the fresh perspective of how it feels to have had my own baby I would have loved to have called them when I was ready and tell them I had the baby... especially my mom. She has been telling me once you have your baby you'll know how I feel for you, and I honestly do because it is a deep love right at first sight. Hopefully next time, we'll be able to announce our own baby on Facebook and people will wait to come to the hospital until we call them.
Finally we were moving to our permanent room, 340, and the nurse pushed me in a wheel chair and Cody pushed Kayla in her bassinet. I got to press the baby is born button at the nurses station on the way to her room.
Once we got into our room around 1:00pm, I sat in the rocking chair and got to hold the baby. And we sat there calmly for a little bit together and then we started to send out our messages to people that we'd had her. It was overwhelming trying to send out messages, I only sent it to a few people but still I was getting lots of replies and I was trying to keep up with everything. I felt very overwhelmed trying to keep up with responding to messages my whole time in the hospital to be honest. I didn't think of this at the time, but with a few days of perspective, I regret just sending a text out to my mom. I wish that I had called her, but I think that until I've been typing all this out I didn't realize how badly I wanted to talk to her until now. Around 2pm, I told Cody to go ahead and send dad a text to come in because I knew he'd been sitting in the waiting area for a few hours already.
I know that there were a lot of pictures taken that day, but I don't have very many of them. Here is a picture with dad and the baby.
Here is a picture with mom and the baby. I didn't know this but I guess there is a sickness going around at my mom's work so she didn't want to hold the baby for very long. I didn't know that until we had gotten home from the hospital and mom told me, but I guess that makes sense why she didn't hold her long and didn't come back up to the hospital.
Hannah and Sam also visited the baby in the hospital. I'll have to get pictures from them, because I know they have some.
Our first night in the hospital was a little bit hard, because I knew that I had to feed the baby every 3 hours, but I really didn't know how. I realized quickly that our breast feeding "class" that we had taken focused more on the benefits of breast feeding and why you should do it... but it didn't actually have any practical advice on how to actually do it! No one told me how to wake up a sleepy baby to get her to eat in the night. Our first night, it took me an hour and a half to get her to eat for 10 minutes on both sides. Which was brutal because the feeding clock starts from when you start feeding the baby, not when you finish. So if I started feeding her at 10pm, and it took an hour and half, I still had to be back at 1am to feed her again. Basically, no sleep for the weary when it comes to that first night. I think that's also why I had a hard time wanting to talk with anyone else right away, because you really have to prioritize your time when things are that touch and go. Remember, I had been in labor for 26 hours before I had her and I was recovering from that plus I was waking up basically every hour to feed her. I was so tired that I was prioritizing sleep, eating, or going to the bathroom (which is quite a long process right now too, but that's a different story). At one point, I even had the nurse come in to help me try to wake her up. We raised her into the air like Simba, we did baby situps, and we even got a wet cold wash cloth to put on her. Which was so mean, but it was the only thing that worked sometimes. We also had trouble nursing on the left side all night. I was also holding the baby in my arms against me, pretty much like this picture all night. And that gown that I had to unsnap and then try to resnap back up when I was done was driving me crazy!! However, I was still recovering from giving birth to her so I didn't trust wearing my own clothes yet.
As time progressed and more nurses and lactation consultants came to help me, I realized that it was my body heat that was putting the baby to sleep. So I learned to put her on a pillow and feed her a little away from myself. I also realized that she favored laying on her head on her left side instead of her right... so that was why we were having trouble nursing on the left side. I can tell the way that she was laying in the womb because bending her arms and legs into her pajamas was difficult and then nursing in certain positions were harder on her because I believe her muscles aren't as developed. So when I changed to the football pose we had a lot more success. I feel like it took us a few days to figure all of this out so it was confusing at the time, but makes more sense now. Every day we seem to improve and learn more about her.
I was SO grateful that nobody came to visit us late on our second day, because right at 7pm the lactation consultant came in, and I was due to feed Kayla at 7:20 anyway. Well that girl worked with me for over an hour and gave me all kinds of tips and suggestions. After that I finally felt like we were having more productive successful feeding sessions. I can't imagine where we would be on our breast feeding journey right now if I hadn't been able to sit with her. I quickly realized that feeding the baby in my hospital bed was WAY more comfortable than sitting in the rocking chair. Here we are during our last nursing session before we left the hospital. I can't even describe how much I love this picture. For the last couple of days I've broken down into tears every time that I've looked at it, because it fills me with so much emotion. Of all the things I've done and all the pictures I've taken this is probably my favorite ever. This picture pretty much sums up my life right now. Everything that I do is literally planned around feeding my little baby and for our sweet snuggles when she is happy and content afterwards.
Kayla was the only little girl at the hospital during our stay, so she was the little queen bee. I guess there were 8 boys and her! However, as we were leaving the baby chime went off and they told us that another little girl had been born. We moseyed around the hospital the morning it was time to take her home. It felt very soon to be taking her home, I had her on Thursday morning and we were leaving to go home on Saturday morning (Jan 18th). It was nerve wracking getting her into her car seat because we aren't too experienced. So far Cody is the one that has handed all of the car seat business.
We got home and Cosmo was interested in seeing her. Someone asked if we had anyone take something that she had worn and let the pets sniff it, and I kind of thought that was silly because we only have cats. But Cosmo was definitely interested in smelling her, and I must really smell like her because he was sniffing me up like crazy. After that our day was full of trying to get the house arraigned and setup right for everything that we needed. Cody called it getting in his daddy steps, because my doctor told me that I should stay on one level of the house and try to avoid steps as much as possible. So I kept telling Cody... can you get me this... can you get me that... So he was running around pretty much the whole day getting things together and organized. He also had to run out and get me a few different medicines.
The first night was a little bit rough because at first I set up my nursing station in the same area as where I was planning to sleep. Which meant I had to set it up and tear it down after each time I used it. At night, Cody went up to bed to sleep and I was trying to cover changing her and then feeding her. I had my alarm set to wake up 15 minutes before she was due to be fed and then I was setting up my nursing station then waking her up to strip her down and change her and then I was nursing her. Well after about a round of this working, she woke up before my alarm went off... and it was like a chinese fire drill. I was scrambling to wake up from a screaming baby and I was trying to setup my nursing stuff super quick and then I was changing her while she was screaming her head off. And my anxiety was through the roof. I was actually shaking and so upset. So I called Cody to come down and help me. He took over changing her diaper and getting her ready, and then that gave me a chance to set up my nursing stuff and be ready for her when he was done. This has now become our routine and has worked incredibly well. I feel like we are partners now in taking care of her and my breast feeding experience is much more relaxed when I can have a second to calmly sit down and get ready for her.
I told him how much I appreciate him helping! He goes up to bed so he can get some sleep. I call him when it's time to help. He comes down, changes her and hands her to me in the appropriate position and then he goes back up to bed. I feed her and then get her changed to go back to bed and get to sleep myself afterwards. I think this is an ideal set up for us, and I'm so grateful that he has 12 weeks off of work to be able to help and support me.
Here are some first couple of days at home baby sweetness pictures! She laying in her boppy lounger in this picture.
Content baby in mommy's arms after eating.
Laying in her bassinet.
Here we are after making it through her first cluster feed right as my milk came in. She ate continuously from 9pm to almost 1am! But I had been waiting for this to happen and I was so happy that we got through this together.
Here she is in her room for the first time.
Here she is at her first doctor's appointment. She had gone up in weight by one ounce which was music to my ears! She was healthy and looked good at the appointment.
