Anna’s Birth Story

October 6th. Mommy & Daddy take a trip to Terhune Orchards. Donuts and cider, because I knew it wasn’t the day. Wednesday, Thursday, Friday. Nothing. Not even a hiccup. <1 inch dilated. They schedule an induction for the upcoming week. Oh wait, they want to do it a day earlier. Tuesday, it was set.

But, Saturday rolls around. I start feeling the most faint, ever so slight, teeny pangs here and there. I didn’t tell anyone. Grandma took us shopping, Marshalls, I think. I told Daddy when he came home from work, and we repacked the bag I packed and repacked for weeks on end– once more, and waited…

So they say, when contractions are at least 1 minute long and 5 minutes apart, it’s time to roll. Well, we were at 1 minute long, 4 minutes apart… for over 24 hours. Mommy hadn’t eaten, hadn’t slept, just – delirious. We finally head to the hospital around 1am on Monday morning. To be honest, we could have stayed home longer, but at that point, I just wanted reassurance you were going to come.

We check-in, and I was dilated 3cm. That’s the cut-off, or they send you back home. Oh my. Things start to get blurry from here on out. I wasn’t prepared to get an IV so soon, but being pretty dehydrated they started pumping fluids, immediately. I think I slept a bit, soon to be woken up by I guess, are “real” contractions. I was planning to get drugs, but wasn’t sure when. I wasn’t sure of anything, I was winging it.

And they started to intensify, rather quickly. At 5cm+ dilated, it seemed like a good time to make sure the anesthesiologist was going to be available in the near future. I’m going to guess it was around 6am when I got the epidural. The needle was fine, I’m learning my threshold for pain, is quite high? But, she had a bit of difficulty getting something out or closed, and I had to sit still, through multiple contractions for almost 30 minutes, while she figured it out. I sleep a few minutes here and there, but the nurses constantly had me adjusting positions to keep your heart rate up. They had a bit of difficulty measuring mine too, she said maybe it was the nail polish covering my finger! “Fun in the Gondola” It was a special occasion, after all.

Around 10am, O. M. G. Epidural or what, I don’t know, but I felt like my bottom half along with my rib cage were going to BURST. They said I was barely 10 inches dialed, and it would be best to wait as long as possible before pushing. Oh my. You were already pushing yourself outta there at this point. I decided to press this button that gives you more epidural. Ha. I hadn’t used it yet.

OH, by the way, the other day, Daddy hurt his hand playing basketball. Yup. We had to go to Urgent Care, because, it looked– messed up. The doc claimed it was a “moderate sprain” and put him in a splint. Moderate, or what, he barely had any mobility in his yes, right hand. Lucky for him, Mommy is super strong and basically crushed his already injured hand, because you were pushing down (up? out?) so hard!

I’m feeling like you know, that second right before you hear an alarm clock, or someone wakes you up, but you were in the middle of a dream? In a haze, somewhere along the way my water broke, contractions were back to back, no breaks. I’m about to pop Daddy’s hand off, nurses say don’t push, but you Girl, were on your way out almost but not quite 10 inches dilated or not.

The midwife, did whatever she did to that last 0.01 and its game on. Mommy (still) has no idea what is happening. I will say, the nurses we had, were quite amazing. They were patient, kind, respectful. Daddy? Trooper. My Superman, at this point. He stood by my side, his almost-broken hand and all. He put me at ease, let me know you were on your way (he was seeing everything), kept repeating how much he loved us. He’s the best.

In the thick of pushing, you gave Mama, zero breaks. The nurses were reading the monitor and, were like “Usually, there’s a few seconds of rest in between contractions.”

After about 2 hours, you peeked your little head out, turned your head towards Daddy’s voice and straight into his face. They put you on my chest, and there you were.

Anna 주애 Kim
October 12th 2015
2:18PM
7lbs 2oz.
20″