Birth Story!

As I'm sure you all know by now, Evelyn Renee Burns was born on 11/9/11 at 7:22pm. She weighed 6lbs and 7oz and was 19 and 3/4 inches tall. The delivery was not without its drama, I'm sure as any delivery involves, so between diaper changes and snuggles, I'll try to get it all down here. ;)

As I think I posted in my last blog post, I had been having on and off contractions since Sunday night/Monday. I would time them, but they were all over the place. Tuesday night was particularly miserable and I knew it would be a long day at work on Wednesday. Little did I know HOW long. Everyone says, "When you have contractions, you'll KNOW it!" But apparently for me, that is not the case until the baby is ready to fall out! Wednesday at work was pretty miserable but the contractions were like 5-20 min apart. I called my doctor at lunch and they said unless they are 5 min apart and regular its not worth going in, so I toughed it out. After lunch when I was typing at my computer, I could not get comfortable to ended up sitting on a Swiss ball to get relief while I did my paperwork. After lunch it seemed like the contractions were getting stronger and a lot more uncomfortable....and closer together. I thought about passing off my last patients of the day to a co-worker when my boss came up to the gym and said she wanted to check in on me because she heard I was not looking so good. We decided we had better call my doctor again, and Steve, and before I knew it, I was collecting my things and leaving work for 3 months!

Steve drove me to the hospital and the valet had a 4 car backup so we opted to just park ourselves, painstakingly far away, but we hiked it up to L&D and entered the triage. The nurse put the monitor on me and told me my contractions were actually 2-3 minutes apart, some were stronger than others, and I only really felt the bad ones...which is why my timing was apparently off. I was 3 cm dilated and she said I would be staying and having a baby tonight! Woo hoo! We were both shocked and excited, our baby was on its way!!

We called friends and family to let everyone know the news, and we settled into our L&D room. My mom was the first to arrive, followed by Steve's mom and Lori. Steve went back home to get my bag and other essentials I had packed for the big day. I called work to let them know the news and they told me Christina, another co-worker of mine was actually at the same hospital being induced at the same time as me! I knew she was being induced but I didn't realize she was at the same hospital as me! I decided once I was hooked up to my IVs (after 3 pokes mind you) with my Pitocen (after my doctor said I looked WAY too comfortable walking around to be in labor), Steve and I would walk the halls to see if we could locate her and get this labor moving. Because of HIPAA, nurses aren't allowed to tell us what room she is in, so her nurse "suggested" she do some walking too, and we happened to meet in the hallway!! After we caught up with each other, Christina went back to her room and I kept up the walking with Lori while Steve went back to the room to call more friends. Just as Lori was telling me a funny story, I felt a huge surge of pressure and then about a gallon of water exploded out of me! AHHHH! Luckily the floor cleaning guy was right behind us in his zamboni thing, and Lori and I ran back to my room laughing our heads off while the nurses and my doctor were cracking up at the nurses' station! Luckily I was afraid this would happen, so I had taken some "precaution" however nothing could hold back the surge of that much liquid exploding! hahaha

Once that happened, the contractions became a lot worse. I was on all fours on the bed trying to breathe my way through them, but they were getting worse with each one. My nurse suggested the epidural at that point, saying it could take 30 min for the doctor to get it in....so I figured I better give her the go-ahead as things were painful, although I felt I could handle them at that point, in 30 min things could get way worse! The doctor arrived to put in the epidural and everyone in the room was asked to leave while they did the procedure. It was really hard not to move during the contractions but the doctor got it in quickly and was pumping in bolus meds as I repositioned myself in the bed. I was still having a lot of pain, and for some reason, only my R leg was numb, I could still feel contractions on the left and I could feel my left leg. The doctor and nurse were confused so the nurse decided to check my cervix to see where I was at dilation-wise. She laughed and turned to the doctor to say something and when I asked what I was, she said, "9cm!" They immediately paged my OB (who was in the cafeteria thinking he had hours to go before I would start pushing) and the pushing began. Steve ran to get Lori and Jen (my birthing coaches, because Steve wanted no part of holding a leg haha) I was so scared I would feel everything because the epidural still had not taken full effect, but luckily even though I could feel the left side of my back and left leg, the parts that counted were comfortably numb. Everyone arrived in the nick of time...I even asked, "is someone going to catch the baby if it comes out!" because I could feel her coming! While I was pushing, everyone kept saying, "Look at all that hair!!" and everyone was putting in their final guesses for boy or girl when all of a sudden, my doctor told me to look up (because I kept my eyes closed the whole time, I didn't want to see any part of this) and I saw my slimy, beautiful, baby girl crying in his arms! "Its a girl!" everyone cheered!

I was crying, Steve was beaming and Lori and Jen snapped pictures of our precious memories. It was an amazing experience, but I was just in total shock that 4 hours after walking through the door, we had our baby girl! I think all the nurses and my doctor were too...eveyone was laughing and joking "This is her first baby and she came in at 3cm and in 4 hours was at 9!" It was then we remembered everyone in the waiting room, (well Steve's mom was texting, "what is going on!!") and Lori brought everyone in to hear the news about who had just arrived. I wanted to be apart of the big announcement and not let Steve have all the fun. So when everyone filed in, we announced, "Meet Evelyn Renee Burns!" and everyone was so excited!! After some hugs and tears, everyone filed out so we could have our first moments together as mother and baby, and would meet us later on the Mother Baby Unit!

I guess that's the gist of the story of Evelyn's birth. She is such a blessing in our lives. I'm going to try to keep up the blog month to month with pictures of Evelyn and what she's up to I suppose...or maybe I'll start a new one, who knows. Thanks for reading everyone!