The Delivery Story

Sorry that it has taken so long to post. Obviously it's been a crazy few days. A few of you have asked for the delivery story, so here it is.

I took Wednesday off of work to rest and get prepared for the induction that was to take place Thursday morning. I got some cleaning done around the house and enjoyed an afternoon in the sun with my mom. Mom left at 4:30 in the afternoon. Andy was already teaching lessons so I got in the shower and then was going to start planning dinner. At 6:00PM I was very tired and decided to take a nap for an hour until Andy finished his lessons.

I woke up at 7:00PM and had to pee...of course. I went to the restroom and thought that it seemed like something kept coming out. I finished, stood up and thought, weird. I bent over to get my blow dryer and I felt like something came out. I went to the restroom again and noticed that something was coming along with the urine. I stood up and bam....water hit the floor. I was so thankful that Lyla decided to come on her own. How crazy that my water would break exactly 12 hours before our scheduled induction. However, the water was a brownish color. I knew exactly what that meant. I just finished cleaning up the floor when Andy walked in. He looked at me and said, "what did your water break or something?" I said, "yes, but it's not clear. Can you call the doctor?" Andy called and spoke to a nurse who said the doctor on call would call us back. We started getting everything ready and at 7:30 decided to head to the hospital even though we had not heard back from the doctor. I was very concerned about the color of my water. I knew that meant Lyla had a bowel movement in the womb. I wasn't sure what that would mean as far as my labor. Would they still allow me to labor and deliver vaginally or would it mean a c-section?

I started having contractions in the truck on the way to the hospital. We got to the hospital and my high school friend, D'Lynn, who is an L and D nurse met us and told me she picked out a great nurse for me. We got checked in and situated in the room. At my first check I was already 5 centimeters and was having contractions about 4 minutes apart. After an hour I was up to a 6 and the contractions were coming stronger. My plan from the beginning was to hold off on an epidural for as long as possible. Our nurse suggested giving me Nubian (I'm sure I spelled that wrong) to take the edge off. That was a huge help. At 11:30 Dr. Harden came in to check me. I was at a 7 and 90%. I still had a small bag of water, so she broke that. The drugs were starting to wear off. The lack of pain relief combined with the breaking of my water brought on some major contractions. I was having 2 contractions on top of each other, each lasting about 2 minutes with only 1 minute break before the next set of two contractions. That meant 4 minutes of constant contractions. That was it! I had enough! I got an epidural. It helped so much. I was able to rest and visit with my family.

At 2:45AM my nurse, Tammy, said it was time to start pushing. We kicked the family out and started to work on getting Lyla to crown. Lyla still hadn't come down as much as we would have liked, so it took over an hour to get her to crown. They brought a mirror in so I could watch what was going on. Andy was a great pushing coach. It's funny because he always said he didn't want to see "down there", but once we started he was enthralled. He said later it was the coolest thing. Once he say her hair he was stuck. What a miracle. We loved that both of us were able to watch her come into the world.

A little after 4:00AM Dr. Harden came in and got ready. Lyla came into the world at 4:27. Because of her miconium in the womb, the NICU staff were waiting for her. Lyla was handed straight to them and they began working on clearing her lungs. After about 20 minutes they told us they were going to take Lyla to transition for 6 hours to monitor her. They wanted to make sure all the miconium was out of her. Also, her breathing was a little rapid so they wanted to keep an eye on that as well. I got to hold Lyla for about 2 minutes before they took her away. Andy followed her to transition and came back later to report.

I was moved up to post partum at about 6:30AM. Andy went back to check on Lyla at 8:00AM. Everything was looking good. Test results all came back good! They told Andy she would be released at 10:45AM, would be taken to the nursery to be checked in and then brought to us. We finally got our sweet girl at 11:15AM.

It has been a whirl-wind ever since. Andy and I have just been loving on our girl. We are so excited to have such wonderful friends and family to come visit and wish us well. The world of parenting is wonderful and overwhelming thing. This little being is all ours. We just can't believe how quickly on little 7 lb person can consume our world and or love! It is so much fun watching Andy fall in love with Lyla. He is head over heels. And she loves her daddy. She just looks at him. It melts my heart!