All the gory details

Here is the birth story, for any interested parties.

WARNING: It might be gross


Sunday morning (my due date) I was lying in bed, about to get up and get ready for church. Jordan and I had spent some time after we woke up talking to my belly, giving baby girl a pep talk. I had just said to Jordan: "This day owes me a baby" when I felt a particularly strong kick, and heard a pop. I thought that was kind of weird, so I got up to go to the bathroom and make sure everything was normal. As soon as I was on my feet, I realized that I was doing some serious leaking, and it hit me that my water had broken. I had to tell Jordan about three times, he kept saying "what?!, wait, what?!"

Panic mode.

I had no idea what to do, so I stood in the bathtub to keep the floors clean while Jordan ran to grab my pregnancy reference book. The book said to call my Dr., so I made a call to my clinic and talked to a nurse. She confirmed that my water had broken, and told me to make my way to the hospital, and that she would contact my doctors and let the hospital know I was on the way.

While I was taking a shower to clean myself off (it was sticky, gross) Jordan was running around the apartment freaking out. It was pretty funny, that adorable man. I could hear him running around and just yelling-not saying anything, just shouting "aaaahhhhh!". We got ready as fast as we could, and made our way to the hospital.

Once there, we checked in and got a small triage room. They tested the leaking fluid to make sure it was amniotic fluid. The test came back positive, so they led me to my giant labor and delivery room. Seriously, this room was giant. There was a sitting area with a couch, coffee table, and chairs, the bathroom had a big whirlpool tub, and there was a ton of room for me to walk around while contracting.

Up to that point, I hadn't really had consistent contractions. They were small, and 15 minutes apart. They decided to put me on a very small dose of pitocin to help speed things along. As soon as the iv was in, I felt like the contractions started to come really strong and really close together. This was at 2:00 pm- I did the whole "natural labor" thing for about three hours before deciding that I didn't want to feel that anymore. The contractions hurt like crazy, so I asked for an epidural.

Oh, that epidural. Getting it put in was the worst. I was still contracting, and Jordan accidentally let me know how big the needle was before they stuck it in my back. Once it kicked in though...bliss. It was such a nice relief to not be feeling those contractions anymore. This was 5:30 pm. I couldn't walk around after the epidural, so I had to hang out on the bed for the rest of labor.

It wasn't until 11:30 pm that I had dilated enough to begin pushing. This part was really hard. It seemed like no matter how hard I pushed, I never got any closer to delivering a baby. With each contraction, I would push as hard as I could, and then wait for the next one. This lasted for so so so long. I was so thirsty, but every time I would try and drink water I would start throwing up. Also, the epidural kept me from feeling the contractions, but I still felt all the pressure of a human slowing moving down the birth canal. I tried as hard as I could to not think of that pressure as pain, but it was a pretty fine line. I only looked at the clock a couple times, always surprised at how long it had been.

After four hours of pushing, the doctors starting to talk to me about using a vacuum, and if that didn't work forceps, and if that didn't work a c-section. I knew I wanted to avoid the vacuum and forceps, and Jordan and I both felt hugely against a c-section. Thankfully, her heartbeat was good despite the time spent in the birth canal, so they let me opt to keep pushing. This was the point where I feel like I was outside my body. I was just so exhausted, and I could feel baby girl's head move forward with each push, and then move back. I felt like everything in my body was turned of,f and I was just watching myself push and push and push, take a break waiting for the next contraction, throw up, and then start again.

Finally, her head got out. She had been looking sideways, so her head was getting stuck. The poor girl, her head was so bruised and so swollen. There were a couple sores where blisters had formed and ruptured. I didn't see them pull her out of me, I was so tired and was so in the mindset that I had to keep pushing that I didn't even realize she was out until Jordan told me to look. I saw her just as they were lifting her up, and placing her on my chest. I couldn't believe it! They gave me a baby! It was over! She was finally born at 5:03 am after fourteen hours of labor (from the time my water broke) and five and a half hours of pushing. Jordan and I just held her little hands, counted her fingers and toes, and laughed. It was awesome. I was so glad that it was over, and so glad that our baby was there. We knew looking at her that she was Daisy.

After Jordan cut the cord, he and the nurses took Daisy away to clean her up, weigh and measure her (7 lbs 10 oz, 20 in), and do all the security measures. Her footprints were recorded on a sheet with my finger prints, a tag was attached to her umbilical cord stub that has a chip in it to shut down elevators and stairwells so no one could take her, and matching wrist tags for all three of us. Meanwhile, the doctors were attending to me. Thankfully, I barely tore-just one stitch. I pushed out the placenta, and they carried it over to me to show it to me. It was super gross and pretty fascinating. They lifted up the opening for me to see where Daisy and floated around for nine months, and it was hard to believe that it held my baby. It looked so thin! I can't believe it didn't pop before then.

We were taken to our recovery room, which was super nice-a HUGE shower-and promptly passed out.

We are so glad to be home with our Daisy, and so in love with her. She is just super adorable.