The Story

With Campbell being six weeks old now, I thought it might be time to post "The Story." It's mostly for my benefit, so I don't forget. But for those of you who are curious about the lovely details surrounding the entry of our sweet beauty into this world, read on.

After many, many conversations, along with much thought and prayer, Brock and I decided we would be induced the day before our due date. I had been dilated to a 4 for 3 weeks, and was concerned about the complications that could arise with going over-due. We felt good about it, and it worked well with Brock's crazy school schedule too.

Thursday morning I woke up about 4:30 am to contractions. This was nothing new, as I had been contracting for weeks now, just nothing regular. Every time I would think, "Okay, if I have another one like that, I'll start timing" they would stop. I didn't think this would be any different, so I was pleasantly surprised when they continued coming, and actually started to get stronger. I started timing them, and they were coming ever 10-12 minutes. I decided I would just get up, and finish some last minute things around the house before we headed off to be "induced."

The hospital called at 5:45 am, and asked if we could come in at 7:30. I told them that would be great, and continued getting ready for the day. I got to shower, and get all dolled up for the big occasion (which is completely different from the experience with Daner). I called my mom about 6:00, and she got here about 7:00. When the hospital called, I was sad that I wouldn't be able to say goodbye to Dane, because he doesn't usually wake up until around 8:00, but he must have felt the excitement in the air, because he was up even before my mom got here.

We got off a tad late (all the while my contractions were getting stronger, and coming closer together) and arrived at the hospital around 8:00. We got all checked in, and admitted into our room. They hooked me up to the monitors, and my contractions were coming ever 4-6 minutes, and I was dilated to a 5 1/2. It appeared that our little angel had received the memo, and was ready to come on her own:).

Last chance for a belly shot. 39 weeks, 6 days

My doctor (awesome, awesome doctor) came down around 9:00, and thought it would be a good idea to break my water. She tried for probably 10 minutes with the hook, and it just wouldn't break. It was crazy, because I could hear it catching on the bag of waters...pretty strange sound. She decided to try an internal fetal monitor, because that has to break the bag of waters to attach to the little darling's head. Even with that, it took another 15 minutes for there to be any signs of the water breaking.

I got up and walking around. Brock and I walked for nearly an hour, until it was time to head back and get hooked up to the monitors again. I kept saying to Brock, "Man, labor's going to be cake walk. I can't even feel these contractions." After getting hooked up to the monitors, I realized why I couldn't feel the contractions, it was because I wasn't having any. At all. Since Sam (our wonderful doctor) had broken my water, I hadn't had any contractions. Two hours without anything. Fantastic!

On the monitors, little Bell's heart rate wasn't quite where they wanted it to be. I changed positions, and it improved, but after so long without contractions, they were concerned, and wanted to start a small amount of pitocin. I was trying to go unmedicated, so they promised to do the smallest dose possible, just to get my body going again. And that it did.

They started pitocin at 11:00. By 11:45, I was ready to ease the pain in the bathtub (oh how I love baths!). By 12:00, I was ready to talk about an epidural. I remember saying to Brock (as my contractions were coming one on top of the other, with seemingly no break whatsoever) "Why am I doing this? Let's just get the epidural and enjoy the rest of the day. We can play games, watch movies, whatever. This is just miserable." He agreed, and the nurse came in to check on me. I told her I was ready to get some drugs in me, and she said that the anesthesiologist had a scheduled c-section at noon, so if he was in there, we would have to wait for him to be done. She called him, and he said he was in the OR, but his patient wasn't. If we wanted to get the epidural, he could do it right now, but it would have to be right now. I said "Sign me up," and tried to get back to the bed, as I was suffering the worst pain of my entire life while the contractions were just not stopping.

12:15, the doctor gets the catheter placed to start the epidural. No medication yet administered. I say, "I have to push." And when I say have to push, and mean HAVE to push. Craziest sensation ever. He yelled something to the nurse, and she came out with a gigantic needle (which thankfully I didn't see, but Brock swears it was a foot long). He is talking me through something, as I am not paying attention, and trying to pant my way through my contractions so that I don't push. It really took everything in me to not react to what my body was screaming at me to do. I may have broken poor Brock's hand.

I immediately felt some relief, as he is telling me he had to give me a spinal block, so that the anesthesia would take effect faster than the epidural. I told him I loved him (yes, I really did), and he was on his way to provide sweet relief to another lucky recipient. The nurse gave me a minute to relax, and then went to check to see if it was time to deliver this child. She put a glove on, and realized it was unnecessary, as the sweet child was already crowning.

Sam hurried down, and 3 contractions later, we welcomed our sweet little Campbell into the world. 12:50 pm, 7 lbs 7 oz, and 21 in long. Beautiful, and screaming her guts out. Sam mentioned that she was really glad that the delivery had gone so quickly, because Bell was born with the cord wrapped around her neck twice. And as Sam removed the first "necklace" as she called them, she pulled Bell's arm out, which also had the cord wrapped around it (and Sam called a "bracelet"). Even with all her jewelry, she was, and is, perfectly healthy and wonderful.

Our amazing doctor, Rebecca (Sam) Ponder

People ask if I would have known that it was time to deliver if I would have still gotten the medication. I really don't have an answer. I'd like to think that I would have said, "Let's do this" and just stuck it out. But I can't describe how much pain I was in, and knowing that, I don't know if it would have changed my decision. The only answer I have is that I don't regret how things went. I'm glad I got pitocin, because who knows what could have happened with the whole cord situation had I not sped things up when I did. The pitocin made the contractions stronger than they would have been naturally, so that caused more pain (theoretically), which caused me to absolutely, positively, want/NEED the drugs. It all worked out how it should have, and now we have another angel living in our family, and that is what matters most.