Kate's Birth Story

On Saturday, August 15, 2009 John and I were finally able to meet our little girl Kate at 10:39 pm.

Three days prior to this life changing event I was sent into the hospital by my doctor to start a long inducing process. The process began that Thursday afternoon at 3:00 pm when I was admitted into the labor and delivery unit of United Hospital. At admittance to the hospital the nurses started me on both fluids and Magnesium, which I was hooked up to until 11:00 am on Monday. The Magnesium helped to prevent my body from seizing, which is a complication that can result with pre-eclampsia. I was then started on a drug called Citotech, which is supposed to induce contractions to open the cervix. My body decided to fight the drugs the entire time, and after an entire evening I was barely any further along than I had been the day before.

That morning my original doctor came in and started us on a plan that included pitosin and gave us an end time of early the following morning. Unfortunately my doctor had to do her clinic rounds and after she left another doctor decided to change the plan. Midway through the day all efforts were stopped and we were told that they would not resume until the following day. Hearing this my doctor actually came back to the hospital and spoke with us in person with a kind of apology, we do not think that she was very happy that her plans were changed.

After another night of sleeping at the hospital, we woke up on Saturday full of hope that this day would be the day that Kate would make her grand appearance. Right away in the morning they started me again on pitosin (we think my doctor really kicked them all into gear). By 10:30 the resident and nurse came in to break my water, which started the contractions to fire off like crazy. Since I was on the magnesium already and could not walk around (the drug makes you feel like a wet noodle, and totally out of it) the nurse suggested that I get my epidural then, to prevent the chance that it got too busy later and I miss my window. After the epidural I was able to take a good two-hour nap.

At 7:00 pm Doctor Ozelle came onto shift at the hospital. I had met her before and really liked her. She told me that I was measuring at a 5 and that the nurse would check back in a little bit. After about 30 minutes the nurse told me that I had gone from a 5 to an 8, we were definitely starting to get close. Not long after that the baby started moving on her way, and we were ready to start pushing. After 24 minutes of pushing the doctor tossed Kate up onto my chest, where the nurse got her all covered up.

Once I got to see her I basically didn't realize that there was anything else even happening in the room. The first thing that I noticed was that she has John's lips, and really did look a lot like him. I was able to cuddle with her for a little while before we got moved to our permanent room down the hall from labor and delivery.

Throughout the next couple of days we were extremely grateful for all of the family and friends that came to visit. It was really great for us to get to show off our new little girl and have them all meet her. On Monday we were told that our new family was able to go home, so we packed it all up and headed back to our house.

Though this whole process did seem like a huge hurdle that we would never get over, we both realize now that the end prize definitely made it worth it.