Kacie Grace decided that she just couldn't wait to get here, so she came a few weeks early, born June 9th (due June 27th).
On Sunday afternoon I was playing in the backyard with Haley and Seth when I suddenly started leaking! I had been in the pool, and my swimsuit was still a little wet, but I thought that it might be that my water broke (which didn't happen until almost the end of labor with Seth, so I didn't really know what it felt like). At my last prenatal appointment my midwife had told me that I tested positive for group b strep (a common bacteria that people can be a carrier of) which meant that if my water broke I needed to go straight to the hospital, because I needed to be on iv antibiotics throughout labor. So, even though I wasn't sure, I figured better safe than sorry. I called Carey to come home, my mother-in-law came over to be with the kids (she happened to be just up the street at her sister's house), and we headed to the hospital. Once there, they determined that my water had broken, so they got my iv antibiotics started and Carey went home to get our stuff. I think we got to the hospital about 3:00 in the afternoon. The next million hours were spent waiting to go into labor! Ali, our awesome friend came to be our doula and we waited and waited and waited! We paced the halls. Ali rubbed essential oils on my feet. We were about ready to go out and get some wasabi! The plan was to start pitocin around 5:00 in the morning if nothing had progressed. Pitocin was basically my biggest fear...as I wanted to have another natural labor and pitocin usually leads to really painful, intense contractions, which leads to an epidural (at least that's the picture I had in my mind). Around 11:00 that night we decided to just try and go to sleep. Every time I woke up through the night I looked at the clock, begging the Lord that I could go into labor without pitocin. Around 4:30 I got up to do some more walking, trying to surrender to the way things were going. I kept reminding myself that no matter how the labor went, I was going to get to meet Kacie relatively soon.
5:00 a.m. came, and they added pitocin to my iv, starting at a very low dose. Every half hour or so they would come and up the dose. Still, nothing was really happening. Once the pitocin was started, I was confined to my room, as they had to monitor Kacie really closely. Around 9:30 my wonderful midwife came and asked me if I wanted her to check my cervix and see what was happening (I had already been at 4cm for about a week). At this point, Carey was at Ali's house sleeping (she lives really close to the hospital), and Ali and I cheered, because we had been wanting someone to check me but nobody would! She checked me and broke my forebag of water (apparently sometimes there can be a second bag of water...who knew?). That was all I needed. So, after being at the hospital for 18 1/2 hours just waiting for labor to start, at 9:50 I finally had my first "real" contraction. They turned the pitocin down and then off, and my labor went REALLY fast. Less than two hours later, at 11:43, Kacie Grace was born. It was so hard (duh) and so amazing and I am so happy she is here!
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| That's my amazing midwife, Meredith. I am so thankful she is the one who delivered Kacie. |
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| My friend and amazing doula, Ali. I get teary just thinking about how thankful I am that she was with us. |
