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We just passed Kiersten's 2-month "birthday", and since time is flying by so quickly, I thought I should probably record Kiersten's birth story before I forget it! ;-)
I was so impatient for K to arrive that I had honestly been praying for her to arrive earlier. Days kept passing, and she showed no signs of arrival. But on the morning of my due date (June 17th), I was woken up by some strong contractions. To preface this, keep in mind that I was induced with Bethany, so I had no experience of going into labor naturally... so I was unsure what my body would do when given the chance to "do it's thing." Anyways, I knew enough to know that I was having contractions. But they weren't super strong, and they were 7-8 minutes apart - so Todd and I decided to go ahead with our plans for the day, which included garage sale-ing in the morning. I LOVE garage sales, and we've gone to a lot of them, but I think this day of garage sales will stand out in my memory. Pausing at a table of baby clothes to breathe a little deeper, stopping in the middle of the sidewalk to let a contraction pass, pulling out the stopwatch in the car between sales to make sure the contractions weren't getting closer together, and of course, answering the question "When are you due?" and getting shocked looks from strangers.
The day just kept moving by, and my contractions didn't seem to be getting any stronger. I even took a "nap" that afternoon and my contractions slowed down to about 10 minutes apart, but continued. My parents-in-law decided to go ahead and make the trip to our house, assuming that the baby would be born sometime in the coming day or two. We ordered pizza and rented the new Sherlock Holmes movie that night (both were probably poor choices for a mom in labor, but still fun!), and I sat on the couch and squeezed Todd's arm during contractions.
I had called my midwife a couple of times throughout the day, and we both agreed that I was still doing fine laboring at home and that I didn't need to rush in to the hospital. But because I had been laboring all day long, I didn't pay as much attention as I should have to the fact that the contractions were slowly... so slowly... getting stronger.
And so, when I lay down to try to get some rest at 12:30 am on June 18th, my water burst. I seriously thought that Todd could hear it. I immediately knew that we didn't have much time, and labor suddenly went from bearable to incredibly intense. Before I could even make it out of the bedroom, my contractions were so hard that I couldn't move or breathe... which made it hard to get out to the car. I remember panicking as Todd started over the first speed bump and realizing how awful it was that I wanted him to drive as fast as he could - but to inch over those speed bumps (and there are quite a few on this college campus!). I was also keenly aware of how far we were getting from our apartment building, where we had a nurse friend who had promised to help if I had a home birth. I could feel the baby pressing down hard, and I just wanted to be somewhere where the baby could be born... either at home or the hospital, but not in the car! By this point my contractions were to the point that I was screaming and punching Todd's arm, and I barely opened my eyes except to see if we were getting any closer to the hospital. (Embarrassing fact: we had never visited this hospital before, and didn't even know where the ER was once we got there. Umm... now that we know how fast labor can attack, I don't think we'll make that mistake again!!!)
Anyways, we finally made it the hospital, into a wheelchair, and into the ER lobby - where we waited (Todd impatiently, me incoherently) for an eternal 5 minutes for the maternity ward nurse to come and take us to the maternity ward. When we reached the maternity ward at 1:20 am (which, by the way, felt to me like an extremely long and bumpy walk from the ER), the nurse said that she wanted to get a urine sample, and in my head, I said, "Are you insane?!? This baby is going to come out in the toilet if I do that!" She must have interpreted that from the look on my face, because she changed the plan to: "Let's just get you in a hospital gown and up on the bed." And it's a good thing she did. When I lay down, I was 9 cm and the nurse could feel Kiersten's head just a fingertip away. I pushed for six minutes, and out she came at 1:36 am. Ahhhhhh...... So nice to be done with that! I actually got to sleep that night!
Kiersten has been such a joy - so peaceful, such a good sleeper, and SO many smiles! Babies like her make you feel like parenting is easy!
