We went to bed that night not knowing our lives were about to change! At 1am I woke up and felt a gush of water…either I peed my pants (hey, I was 9 months pregnant, that was definitely a possibility!) or my water broke! I was still half asleep so I nudged Miles and tried to tell him what happened. After a few attempts he finally picked out the words “water” and “broke”. He flew into action immediately! I on the other hand slowly got out of bed and started going through my checklist of items to grab for our stay at the hospital. After calling the doctor, we were advised to wait until my first contraction to come to the hospital (if no contractions started we were supposed to go to the hospital in the morning because my water had already broken). I took a shower and did a few things around the house because I definitely couldn’t sit still. (One thing I never learned from all my pregnancy classes…apparently when your water breaks, its not just a one time gush of fluid…it’s a constant leak after that! Not fun, but at least I knew my labor had started and I didn’t have to worry about counting contractions!)
I felt a contraction around 2am so we headed to the hospital. After I was admitted I don’t remember too much of what happened until later in the morning. I tried to sleep some and we started making phone calls to family. Probably around 8am my contractions were getting stronger and I requested some pain meds via IV. The medication basically knocked me out in between contractions so I would sleep, wake up to a contraction, and then fall back to sleep. I did this for a while and then decided to try out the Jacuzzi to see if it would ease some of the pain from contractions. At this point I was in a lot of pain and I was very vocal during contractions! My mom said I sounded like I was singing opera, I thought I sounded like a beached whale. It was about 11:30am and I couldn’t handle it anymore…time for an epidural!! I had immediate relief and was instantly in a great mood. I was able to get some rest for the next hour or so and my body did some awesome work. When I was checked a little while later I was fully dilated and effaced and ready to go! We had to wait a little while for the doctor to get there but at least I wasn’t in any pain. I was completely numb from the waist down so I never felt the desire to push as many women do. Because I couldn’t feel anything it was a little difficult to push, but with a lot of direction from my doctor, I only had to push for a little over 30 minutes.
Finally, it was time to meet our baby girl!! Miles was ready to catch her! He was able to actually help deliver Maddie, which was an amazing experience for us both. Maddie gave us a little scare, as the umbilical cord was wrapped around her neck, but the doctor calmly clamped it and Miles was able to cut it. And then all of a sudden my baby girl was placed on my chest and she was absolutely perfect!!! I was able to snuggle with her for a minute or so before they took her to clean and measure her. I’ll never forget that precious moment that Miles and I got to share as we met our baby girl for the first time! She was born at 3:26pm and she was 7lb 6oz and 19.5in long.
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| Our happy little family! |
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| 1 month flew by!! |
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| I love her smiles, they melt my heart! |
