tHe sTorY oF LeiGhtoN gaLe pArt 1

so, my little bitty baby is turning one in a week.

i can't believe a whole year has gone by.

it got me thinking

i should probably record her birth story before i forget it all!

so, yes, i'm a year late.

but better late than never right?

friday, january 29, 2010

i had finally decided to start my maternity leave. i stayed home and enjoyed relaxing and sitting on the couch. since this was my due date, i had a doctor's appointment to check the progress and have a sonogram to make sure little miss priss was doing fine. the doctor that checked me {mine was out of town} determined i was dilated at a 1...woo hoo!

that night we went to eat dinner with clay's parents {tg and grumpa}. by the time we went to bed that night, i wasn't feeling great. my stomach just felt a little weird. i didn't sleep great and woke up several times during the night feeling a little crampy.

saturday, january 30, 2010

i woke up pretty early and still did not feel well and my lower back was hurting really badly. for the next couple of hours i felt pretty certain i was in the early stages of labor and debated calling my parents so they could get on the road. they wanted to make it to kansas city in time for the delivery.

around 8 am clay decided to go get bagels for us for breakfast. i told him i couldn't wait any longer and i called my mom to let her know they should get ready for a trip to kansas city.

about 9 am i started having contractions. they weren't super consistent yet, but i felt sure that i was in labor. clay and i started getting ready for the hospital. we already had almost everything packed, so we took showers, cleaned up and packed the last few things we needed.

at 11 am we started timing the contractions. i tried to turn on a movie to distract me from the pain, but let's be honest...it did not help! after an hour of timing the contractions, clay called the on call doctor and they said we should head to the hospital!

we arrived at the hospital around 1 pm and got checked into a delivery room. the nurse checked me and i was dilated at a 1...please remember that 24 hours earlier i was dilated at a 1. this was not encouraging to hear considering i had been having painful contractions for the past 4 hours. the nurse said she would come back and check me in an hour and if i hadn't progressed any further they would send me home. umm, excuse me? no thank you! we started praying and thankfully when she came back i was dilated to a 3 1/2.

in the next few hours, i got an epidural {hallelujah} and was able to take a nap and relax a little more. i was not progressing very quickly so they gave me some pitocin to help the contractions do their work. around 5 pm, my parents arrived from texas! i was so excited that they had made it before the delivery.

my epidural starting wearing off a little bit and i was feeling more and more pain so the nurse anesthetist came back in to fix me up. much better. the further into the evening we got, the more and more i wanted, i needed to something to drink. i was parched and trying to convince everyone to give me a sip of water! finally they let me have a popsicle. oh my, i have never been so excited to choose between red, orange, purple and green.

at 10:30 pm, the nurse came in and checked me and determined it was time to start pushing! nurse maggie sent the grandparents to the waiting room, telling them we would probably see them in about an hour. the doctor was called and we began the pushing!

part 2...coming tomorrow!