To celebrate, I'm looking back at the story of her birth, which I posted on The Bump back in December.
If you're grossed out/weirded out/not interested in childbirth (don't worry, my story is not graphic), feel free to ignore this post. Or just enjoy the pictures of my cute kid.
On Monday, December 6, 2010, I had my 41-week appointment where I had a non-stress test and my membranes stripped. At that time, we also scheduled an induction for that Thursday with the hope that I wouldn't need it. After the stripping of the membranes, I started having light cramps. These lasted through the night, but I didn't think much of it because this is pretty typical.
At 5 AM Tuesday, I woke up with slightly stronger period-type cramps. They were constant, not timeable, but I figured calling into work would probably be a good idea. By 6:00, I noticed a pattern with the cramps and began timing them using an app on my phone. They were consistently 4 minutes apart, lasting for just under a minute. This went on for 2 hours before hubs suggested I call the OB nurses and see what they thought.
They recommended I head to the hospital, which I was happy to do, because the cramps had amped up their intensity little by little. We checked into the hosptial at 9:00. I was 2 cm, so my OB decided to break my water at 10:30.
From there, the contractions gradually became more intense, especially when I tried walking a couple times. I only got a couple steps out the door before I gave up and hurried back to bed. The pain was definitely getting to me at that point, and I got some relief with an epidural at 1:30. At that point, they checked me, and I was at 3 cm. The doctor decided to throw some pitocin in my IV to get things moving.
The epidural made me love life again, and I was able to smile and be social for awhile. We watched a couple movies to kill time, and the epidural started to wear off after an hour or so. The button they gave me to bump it up didn't do anything, so the nurse came in and topped it off, which immediately helped. By about 4 or 4:30, I was at 8 cm and ready again for another top off of the epidural.
By 5:00, I was ready to push. There was no pain but enough pressure for me to feel what was going on down there, so that helped me push. Pushing should take a couple hours, we were told, so both sets of grandparents went to grab some dinner, and my doc was in the next town over running some errands. Apparently, I was good at pushing because the nurses had to call the doc back right away.
At 5:26, Bridget Kendall was born! She was 9 lbs 4 oz and 21.5 inches long. Hubs cut the cord, and they put her on my stomach right away for a few seconds. Then, they cleaned her off a little and put her on my chest. Just like I've always heard, when I started talking, she looked right up at me. It was cute!
So all in all, it was a very straightforward birth--everything went normally and pretty quick. Recovery wasn't pleasant at all since I did have a little tearing, but painkillers definitely helped, during and after the birth.
Now for some pictures.
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