Birth Story- Makenna

I use this blog a lot for journaling! I think it's funny that some think blogs are horrible because I personally wouldn't have documented as much as I have without it. Plus, it prints out with pictures:) Since I didn't start my blog until after my girls were born, I thought I would write their birth stories here so theirs would be documented along with their baby brothers all at the same place. And since Makenna's birthday is coming up, I thought I would start with her.

We had been waiting for Makenna for a long time so we were both extremely excited. I was due March 18th and had no idea when she would come. I figured she would come late since she was my first. I was wrong. On the morning of March 16th, I woke to Trav's alarm at 6:00 and felt a little bubbling down there so I went to the bathroom. As I got up, I noticed that my undergarments were all wet. At first I didn't know what the heck happened. I yelled out to Travis that I thought my water broke. He ran to me and asked, "well, did it or not?" I told him that I didn't know for sure and he's like..."how do you not know???" It wasn't like it was a huge splash like you normally see on tv but since I was continuing to get wet and I knew I wasn't peeing on myself, I figured it had to be. I called my ob's office and they told me to get to the hospital. I ran around trying to get a bag packed since I thought I would have a couple hours of contractions at home before I needed to go to the hospital so I didn't have it done. Travis decided to go to work while my mom took me to the hospital since I wasn't even contracting. I really wanted my husband to take me but I was just trying to get ready so I just said ok. I hopped in the shower and got ready to go (I wasn't about to go have a baby without being clean and shaved;) My mom took one last pic of my prego belly and as we were about to leave, Trav comes walking back into the door. His coworkers thought he was crazy for coming in and told him to go home. So he got things ready for his sub for the next few days and came back home. I was so happy that he did!! We didn't even get to the hospital until about 9:00. They checked to see if I really did break my water (which I did) and they admitted me. I was already dilated to a three! They got me all set up and started pitocin at 10:00. They started to really hurt at 10:30 and increased over the next hour. I knew I wanted to get the epidural but wanted to wait as long as I could so that I could experience what they felt like. I finally couldn't take it anymore and asked for the epidural at noon. The anesthesiologist was a young Asian guy with long hair and he reminded me of Keanu Reeves. He was so laid back which is the kind of doctor that I like and he just sounded like he knew what he was doing which put me at ease. It wasn't bad and he said it went in perfectly. I felt better immediately and was able to relax. They checked me after and I was already at a six!! I was dilating really quick so that must have been why they hurt so much. Five minutes later, she came in and said she wanted to check me again because of how it looked on the monitor and I was at an eight!! Holy cow!! What?? Not much longer after that I was complete. I was moving really fast for a first timer. My mom told me I better close my legs so that she could get there in time:) I thought she had plenty of time because I was sure I had a couple of hours of pushing to go anyway. Since I was moving so fast, the nurse just sat me up and let gravity and nature move the baby down so I might not have to push as long. That really hurt though. I started feeling the contractions coming back in my ribs but it worked!! I only had to push for about 20 minutes before they called for Dr. Swainston. Pushing was hard for me. I felt like I couldn't breathe so I'm sure I was holding my breath. It felt like my head was going to pop off. As we were waiting for the doctor, I started feeling the contractions in my lower stomach again. I thought about putting extra medicine in but realized that it was almost over so I might as well wait. Thankfully it didn't wear off all the way down:) I am realizing later that my nurses probably turned my epidural down so I could push! Punks. They could have waited to see how I pushed first! O-well. Dr. Swainston got there and I started pushing really hard. He said, "Whoa, don't throw her at me!!" Her head popped out and one more push and she was out. It was so amazing. They put her on my stomach and it was so awesome. She was so beautiful and she was ours!! She got here at 4:12 in the afternoon so I really only labored for six hours. I felt very lucky and fortunate to have a pretty fast labor and that she came out healthy. She was a little shaky when she came out but was just fine after I nursed her! We are so thankful to have our sweet Makenna in our family!!