Welcome to the long version of Evelyn’s Birth Story!
It was a Friday morning.
I was awake in bed (because that’s what I did towards the end of my
pregnancy—laid in bed awake!) around 4:30 in the morning when I felt a little
stomach cramping. Seeing how this was my
second child, you would have thought I knew this was LABOR, but instead for the
next hour I convinced myself I was having bad indigestion – what I thought was
compliments of iron supplements. These
“stomach cramps” were pretty consistently 7-10 minutes apart, so at 5:30 when
heard Matt stirring around in bed, I told him, “Just so you know, I’m having
what might be contractions.” You see, the weekend prior I had had some
pretty bad Braxton Hicks contractions, so I wasn’t about to cry wolf to him
again! J
We stayed in bed until 6 when I came to terms with the fact
that these cramps were starting to hurt, so I told him, “I’m pretty sure this might be the
day.” I decided to get up and move
about, hoping to stimulate early labor into something more, and Matt got up and
started finishing up some final things he had to get done for work that
day. I finished some laundry, and
thinking it potentially was going to be a long day of labor, made a German pancake.
At 6:45, I emailed my work saying something like, “I’ve been
having consistent contractions since 4:30 this morning. I’m not sure exactly where this is headed,
but there’s a good enough chance this is labor that plan on me not being at our
meeting today.” I called my sister and
mom, letting them know what was up.
Nealy (thankfully) shook some sense into me and said, “Kiley, THIS IS
LABOR. YOU ARE IN LABOR. YOU ARE GOING TO HAVE THIS BABY TODAY.”
Maybe it was those magic words, maybe not, but from 7am on,
things started to progress. I called my
neighbor to see if we could drop Avery over there. I packed a banana, granola bar, and diapers
into a bag for Avery and set it by the front door. I stuck some last-minute items into the
suitcase. Meanwhile, Matt was still
sitting in the living room working on his work stuff. At one point, I had to tell him something so
I went in there and had a pretty strong contraction while we were talking; it
was then that he realized we needed to get the show in the road!
At 7:40 I spoke with the midwife on call for the first time and
said, “We’re coming!” She said that the
hospital we were planning on delivering at, Woodwinds, was full and to go to
St. Josephs. At that point I was SO
HAPPY to hear that news because Woodwinds is a 25 min drive and St. Josephs is
only 15 minutes. I knew we didn’t have a
lot of time.
Okay, back to the German Pancake. I finally sat down with my
peanut-butter-slathered German pancake and a big glass of milk in hand when all
of the sudden a wave of heat and nausea and a tidal wave of a contraction swept
over me. I snapped out of the
contraction with a very sore toe, and looking down, I realized that I had
dropped my glass of milk on the floor. It
was then, at about 8am, I knew once and for all—we need to GO! (At the time, I had a feeling that this was
the beginning of “transition.”)
I called our babysitter and asked her to come over and bring
Avery to our neighbor’s house… there was not time for Matt to wake her up and
bring her over. I told Matt to forget
about the broken glass and un-blended smoothie sitting in the blender on the
counter and to get our stuff into the car. We get into my Jeep and for the first time
ever, it would not start. For real people! Matt got everything moved over to his car and
when we were finally pulling out of the driveway it was 8:05. I was still super super hot so I cranked the
AC full blast the whole way to the hospital.
In the car on the way there I was thinking things like:
“I willingly, and knowingly
put myself in this position?! I’m so
stupid!”
“Hard contractions are good because
they are really opening your cervix.”
“This is why people get epidurals!”
“Jesus help me. Jesus help me.”
“Relax your body. Work with the contraction. Don’t fight it.”
“I could really be okay with two
kids. Really.”
“I think maybe I feel like I need
to start pushing.”
“Open, cervix, open!”
“I’m so glad we don’t have to drive all the way to Woodwinds.”
“Please be over soon. Please be over soon.”
We got to the Emergency entrance, they called “transport”
and asked us to “Wait over there, please.”
Matt had enough sense to tell them we will NOT be waiting; get someone
else to bring her up. I was having the
time of my life in the wheelchair while they paged someone else to get me. We soon found out that wheeling people up to
maternity was not this guy’s normal job because, sure enough, he got us
lost. (To his credit, St. Joe’s is a
very confusing hospital to navigate.)
It was 8:30 when we got to my room. My nurse Mary said that Melissa would be
there in 3 minutes and that we were going to try to wait to check me until she
got there. This was the first I head
that Melissa was the midwife on call
at St. Joes and I was SO HAPPY to hear that because she was the midwife I saw
for all of my appointments! Anyway, I
said that I felt like I needed to push, so the nurse checked me, announcing
that, “Yep, you are complete.” Then she
said, “I never tell a laboring woman that she can’t push, but Melissa really
will be here in a couple of minutes.” When
Melissa got there I remember looking into her eyes and saying, “I’m so glad
you’re here. I’m so glad it’s you.” (There are 20 midwifes in the practice, so
chances were slim that I’d end up with her!
God has good, and sometimes almost funny, timing.) Gaining a little confidence knowing she was
there to guide me through, I started pushing.
It was then Melissa realized I did not have an IV going (I was positive
for group B strep). It took two nurses a
combined total of four tries before they got my IV of penicillin in; all the
while I’m doing my best at pushing this little girl out. Feeling the need to push was a new sensation
for me because since Avery had a “nuchal” hand, I never felt that urge with her. During each push I just wanted to hold Matt’s
hand, and in between each push I’d take a big gulp of water. After about 15 minutes of pushing Melissa
said, “If you give me two good, strong pushing contractions, you will have your
baby laying on your chest.” Apparently I
shot up in bed and said, “Are you serious?!”
Sure enough, two contractions later and sweet, slimy Evelyn was flopped
on my chest, at 8:56 am. THE END!
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