A Baby Story

During my bed rest I watched a bunch of episodes of A Story.  Each one was unique and interesting in it's own way.  Since my deliveries are typically pretty routing I was expecting the same sort of thing for this baby.  I should have known it wouldn't be that simple.  He's been different from the get-go.  I was nauseated at the beginning, put on bed rest and he came later than the others.  Go figure.  I should have expected the unexpected with him.  Even though millions of babies have been delivered to countless numbers of women throughout time each baby story is special and interesting to the mother and family.  My story for baby number six was no different.  Unique, special, amazing, surprising, painful, joyful, emotional and wonderful in the way only a birth can be.

 Since this baby took his sweet time getting here when the contractions finally started I didn't know whether to laugh or cry.  I did eat another pineapple that day (my third in 3 days) so who knows if that helped or just caused me to have a raw mouth.  I went into the hospital 2 days before my induction date and a week and a half before my due date.  Regardless of how or when it happened it finally started!  The problem is it wasn't super convenient......not that there is ever a very convenient time to have a baby but the contractions started at the "witching hour" which is when all heck breaks loose.  It was dinner time and it was my cooking day so my kitchen was messy from cooking 4 meals and it was time for scouts, YW and basketball plus Trav was working late.  I texted him to tell him he may want to head home and tried to get everything squared away for me being gone for 3 days.  This is where I will openly admit that I have cleaning issues but I tried to get all the laundry done, kids schedules coordinated, lunches packed, house cleaned and dishes put through the dishwasher all while stopping every few minutes to breathe through a contraction and get the kids squared away for the night.  Once Trav got home and we got the kids off to Scouts and YW then I could focus on packing my bag and packing the kids overnight stuff to take to my Mom's.  We finally left the house but we had to take the kids to my Mom's and drop off Kaden's scout book that he forgot at the church on the way to the hospital.  It hit me then - how do you know you have a huge family....when you are running errands for your children while in labor on the way to the hospital.  It was one of those surreal moments.  We finally got to the hospital and checked in.  Luckily a friend from high school was my nurse so she got us the VIP treatment right away.  Thank you Vanessa!  I was still dilated to a 4 and my contractions were kind of all over the place.  Some were 2 minutes apart, some were 6 minutes which they said is kind of typical for a "grand mul-tip" aka a lady that has had a lot of babies.  I also had group B strep which means they ideally wanted me to have 2 rounds of antibiotics before I delivered the baby.  Since I typically go fast once my water is broken we had to slow things down a bit.  No epidural for a while until the 4 hours were up.  Fun!  Then once the 4 hours were up they gave me pitocin and the baby's heart rate dropped into the 70's which freaked them out (and me as well).  After that they stopped the pitocin and told me that they needed the baby to have some time with no interference to monitor the heart rate.  It was a LONG night with my contractions all over the place.  I finally got the epidural and they broke my water around 5:30 in the morning.  Then all of the sudden the epidural stopped working on one side and I was feeling everything.  Super fun.  From then on I went pretty quickly to a 10.  My doctor was supposed to do a scheduled c-section at 7:30 but she checked me at 7:15 and I was complete.  They quickly got the anesthesiologist in to see if he could fix the epidural and he ended up putting more meds right into my spine with a syringe and I finally had some relief just in time to start pushing.  I think the greatest invention ever is the epidural!  It only took a few pushes and Kaleb Timothy was born.

Trav came prepared for a long hospital night with a book, his ipad and phone.  I don't think he realized quite how long this one would be!

My awesome OB Dr. Moeine

Some fun contractions!

I may admit that I said a million and one prayers while watching the heart rate monitor all through the long night

Long night!

The girls and Trav were super patient - Jessica even slept in the bathtub.  My Mom left her seminary class with the seminary principal and raced over to the hospital to be on time.

Kaleb gave us all a few scares a few times when he would get unhappy after a contraction.  I had 5 nurses in the room at one time with my bed tilted so I was almost upside down to try and get his heart rate back up.  My nurse was even starting to mention a possible c-section if his heart rate dropped again.

The girls were in the delivery in a very strategic zone where they could witness the happy parts of the birth.  Here they are pretending to be scared.  They both had to leave during after Kaleb was born for all that fun stuff.

Sudi and Travis giving each other a high 5 after a successful birth

Trav calling his parents to tell them the good news

Tired girls.  They both thought the birth was very cool and got a little teary 
and a little grossed out

He's Here!