Totally Taylors: October 2012

I have slacked once again my friends, so sorry! I just don't know where the time goes anymore. And I swear my intentions have been to get on here and update, but with a newborn, it just doesn't happen. My day is mostly spent cuddling, swaddling, nursing, NOT cleaning, NOT showering until well after noon and definitely NOT blogging. But as promised, here is Kenna's birth story :) (forewarning: this is mostly for me to never forget but also for those who want to know...narration/picture overload!)

It all started Tuesday afternoon (September 25th) at my weekly OB check. Dr. West checked me and said I was only dilated 1 cm and that was pretty much it. He didn't think I'd have her for probably another week. Not cool. I was very ready at that point. He then also broke the news to me that he would be out of town that weekend, Friday through Sunday. I didn't burst into tears, although I felt the lump in my throat, but I'm sure he could clearly see my panic. He assured me that if I went into labor over the weekend, one of his colleagues would be be delivering and they were all very good. Oh I'm sure they're good but I didn't pick one your colleagues, I picked you and I want YOU pulling this kid out. I didn't say this out loud but he heard it through my tear filled death stare. He followed up by saying, "you most likely won't have her for another week so plan on me delivering." Oh okay, I'll do that...not. We walked out of the clinic and I was instantly determined on having this baby in the next day or two OR keeping her in until at least Sunday night. Determined.

That night I woke up with tremendous contractions every 20-30 minutes. Not close enough together to get excited about, but intense enough to keep me up all night. I decided, when 5AM rolled around the next morning (way too quickly) that I was done working. I had a pretty good feeling she was on her way from all the activity the night before. So Carson and I stayed home all day on Wednesday and monitored my contractions. They were pretty much non-existent but I had a few every couple hours. What I didn't know was that when your water breaks, it can just feel like little trickles of pee (which I was not a stranger to). Later that night, my contractions would get more intense and closer together for about an hour and then completely stop. I was so damn frustrated not knowing what to do. So when I got up to pee and then gushed a little something right afterwards, I pulled my head out of my ass and thought to myself, "hmmm, that just might be my water I've been feeling leak all day." Carson talked me into calling labor and delivery to tell them what had been going on. Once I did, they told me to immediately come in and get checked, to avoid infection if my water had in fact broken earlier and I hadn't known it. So off we went, with no contractions and no intention of actually being admitted. I felt like a total loser when I got there, like one of those women who doesn't know false labor from the real shit. I'm pretty sure all the nurses there thought the same thing about me. But in the end, it didn't matter one bit because they confirmed my water had broken and we were staying! I don't think either of us knew how to react at that point. Holy shit balls, we're having a baby!

Thumbs up! (I'm secretly terrified.)

The calm before the storm.

Unfortunately, I was still only dilated 1 cm and my cervix was still sitting very comfortably in the non-labor position. Because I wasn't sure when my water broke, at about 1AM, they put me on a very low drip of Pitocin to give my body a little kick in the pants to start active labor. And boy what a "kick in the pants" that shit was. Within an hour, I started having contractions every 3 -5 minutes, mostly in my back and in my butt hole. I literally felt like I was going to shit myself. It.was.awful. Luckily, I had Carson and Megan there to help me through it. They were totally amazing. I labored, pretty intensely for about 2 hours and as much as I tried to fight it, I threw up and started crying. Oh, and then I asked the nurse for a gun :)

Someone please kill me.

After a few hours of hell, my nurse, Katie, came in to check my progress. Since it had only been 2 hours, I don't think she expected much progress. But sure enough, luck was on my side again and she said, "do you want some good news?" When she told me I was already at a 7 and that she would get my epidural STAT, I completely LOST it. Bawling out of pure happiness. Thank GOD!!! The anesthesiologist made it to my room within minutes and I swear he got that sucker going in record time. I felt instant relief from my back labor, went totally numb from the waist down and finally started to relax and rest. All I can say is UH-mazing. I would have made out with whoever invented that drug if they had walked in the room. Seriously, you people who have babies naturally...wow, you rock...and yet you're so stupid! You don't know what you're missing!

I slept on and off for another few hours in pure bliss. At about 6:30AM, my doctor got there and expressed that he really couldn't believe I had gone into labor sooner than he thought. I was SO incredibly happy that he would be the one delivering my kiddo after all. (side note: my doctor, Dr. West, BEST BEST BEST doc I could have ever asked for...but that's a WHOLE separate post. Love the man!) He checked me again and I was close to a 9. He said he'd be back in about an hour after he performed a C-section, and we'd start pushing then. In the meantime, my nurse's shift was over and Nikie, an equally as amazing nurse, took over. At some point, close to 8:15, I started pushing. And this is where my epidural REALLY came in handy. I only felt pressure during contractions but no pain whatsoever. It was awesome; pretty exhausting but not bad at all.

I can only imagine this came out blurry since Megan was

multitasking and ALSO holding one of my 30 pound legs up.

After pushing for about an hour, Kenna J was born at 9:28am on Thursday the 27th of September. A perfect 7 lbs. 20.75 inches long and a full head of hair...which my doctor kindly made into a mohawk as she was crowning :)