Labor Day

The font is all screwed up on this post and it won't fix! Blah..

Well it started on Thursday when I took the day off work and then again Friday. We had the kids that weekend and I even had a hair appointment at Grass Roots on Saturday and on Sunday we went to Cowabunga bay and I even did all the water slides… who knew I would give birth two days later?! On Monday I called into work again because I was exhausted and cramping. I think the heavier contractions started around 4pm, but since I had never experienced contractions I wasn't sure if that was exactly what I was feeling. I was reluctant to go to school that evening but I didn't want to miss class in case I needed to miss classes later to give birth and care for Royce in her first few days. Well, class was rough I had to leave several times to throw up (the story of my entire pregnancy!). I came home about 45 minutes before Josh did (we both have class at the the same time but different classes). I was hunched over the toilet throwing up and my stomach was super tight the tightest it's ever been and the longest duration. But like I said I still wasn't sure if these were real contractions. Earlier that day I had an intuition that I needed to pack our hospital bag, so with my intense pain I literally crawled up the stairs and started throwing things into a bag- this was before class by the way.

So anyway it was about 11 pm and we were contemplating going to the hospital- Josh said I needed to call it, we both agreed if it wasn't real they would just send us home. I knew I wouldn't be able to sleep because I was in so much pain. So we made the trip to Ogden Regional. We arrived at the emergency room and they wheeled me over to the Woman's center. They immediately hooked me up to a baby heart rate monitor and contraction monitor. What they determined was the baby was in distress every time I had a contraction her heart rate would drop below 140 bpm. They said it was because of my dehydration and they hooked me up with a lot of saline bags and oxygen mask, my doctor was called. They thought an emergency c-section might have to be done and I immediately began signing consent forms. By the time my Dr. arrived they said the baby was no longer in distress but I was dilated to a 4 and my contractions were 2 minutes apart. She broke my water around 1:30am and that was probably one of the grossest feelings ever!

I was moved into the labor room and hooked up to more saline, antibiotics (because I had strep-d) and given some pain medicine. Josh found the couch and crashed, about an hour later I asked for my epidural and it was not what I expected. I didn't expected to feel so tingly numb, like that feeling when your leg falls asleep. But I don't think I could have gone natural so it was a god-send! I managed to sleep on and off and around 8am I had went from a 5 1/2 to a 10! And fully effaced. They immediately started prepping the room, they asked me to start pushing to get her head lodged away from my pelvic bone, my doctor still hadn't arrived so the wonderful nurses were helping me along. I ended up having to have an episiotomy because there just wasn't enough room for her to come out, everything is nearly healed now. Josh was wonderful- holding me up while I had to push and putting cold wash clothes on my head. Even with the epidural I would still feel immense pressure. I knew every time a contraction was about to come on. When the contractions came I had to sit up and push for 10 seconds, breathe, then push again for 10 seconds. I did this a total of 3 times during each contraction. I thought I was going to faint because I forgot to breathe during each 10 sec. push. I pushed for 1 hour before beautiful Royce made her appearance into this world. She was born at 9:05 am on June 30 (her due date was not until July 16) when I saw her I was so overwhelmed with joy I started crying, she was more perfect than I had imagined. Josh cut her umbilical cord and then she was placed in my arms. Our beautiful daughter had finally arrived... and she was more than we ever expected. We love you Royce.