Tuesday March 20: Went to my doctor for my check this week. She said I wasn't dilated and that nothing seemed to be progressing yet. I had read that dates can sometimes help with labor and that you should start eating 4-5 dates a day for 4 weeks prior to your due date. Well I only have about 2 weeks, but I figure it can't hurt, so I bought dates on the way home from the store to start eating every day.
Thursday March 22: I finally finished getting babies room ready
Friday March 23rd: Nate and I went on a date night to a Blazer Game, thanks to Nate's parents. Due date is still almost two weeks away but probably our last date night before baby comes. The Blazers were playing the Boston Celtics and ended up loosing 105 Boston vs 100 Blazers.
Saturday March 24th: After eating Panda Express, my fortune cookie seems to know something is up.
Sunday March 25th:
Today after church we were planning on celebrating Easter (a week early) with the Kandoll family at
Jana’s house, I was bringing salad and ice cream toppings, so I had to get all the food ready to go
before church.
When I dropped Landon off at Sunday school I told his teachers that I would be having a baby soon,
and that depending on when I went into labor my mom (Tracy) would be dropping him off and/or
picking him up from Sunday school. I gave them her name and phone number, so they would have it if
they needed.
After church mom wanted to see where Landon’s Sunday school class was, so that she would know
where to bring him if need be, and that way his teachers would recognize her as well.
After getting Landon I told him I wanted to take him to the bathroom, and then we would be heading
to Auntie Jana’s house. After Landon went to the bathroom, I was squatting down to help put his pants
on, and I felt a gush. I said “oh my, now it’s mommy’s turn” and quickly got myself on the potty. I was
pretty sure my water had just broke, which was unexpected as I was 38 weeks 3 days. Luckily I had a
light pad on, as well as some shorts on under my dress, which soaked up all the amniotic fluid that had
come out, so I didn’t make a mess in the bathroom.
After leaving the bathroom I told Nate that I thought my water had broke, and that we needed to go to
the family birth center to be checked out. I quickly went and told Mom, as she was going to be taking
Landon whenever baby came. At first we were just going to take Landon with us, because if it wasn’t
my water breaking then we would have to pick him up, but the more I thought about it, we just decided
to have him go with Grandma and Grandpa Ankenbauer. Luckily the night before I had brought his
clothes bag up to their house, so the only thing they needed from our house was his blanket and turtle
night light.
Because I wasn’t having any contractions yet, and our gas light was on, we went to Costco to get gas,
as was originally the plan. While waiting in line I told Nate that maybe we should run home first so I
could change clothes and grab something to eat. I knew if they did admit me they wouldn’t let me have
any food, and I didn’t want anything greasy from fast food.
I was also trying to figure out how to get my salad stuff to Jana’s house. I called my brother-in-law Wyatt who lives by us and they were still at home, and were willing to wait to get the salad stuff from us before heading to Jana’s house.
When we got home Nate discovered that we had forgotten to put the infant car seat in the car.
We had put the hospital bag in, but the car seat had just been sitting by the door. I quickly changed,
and then after standing up and gushing some more amniotic fluid out, I changed again!
While home I quickly sent a few of my permit jobs to the printers for Bryan, as well as some e-mails
letting him know I would be out for awhile. Plus I loaded and ran the dishwasher and had Nate take
out the garbage so we wouldn’t come home to a messy house.
We finally got to the family birth center around 2 PM. They took me to a normal birth room that they
were using for triage, as their triage area was having some work done to it. The nurse Laura said she
had to do a test to see if my water had in fact broke, and the test which can take up to 10 mins to turn
positive, took only a few minutes to confirm what I already knew to be true.
Dr Michael Klotz came to check me, but due to my water being broke he didn’t do an internal exam as
it puts me at greater risk for getting an infection, so he just felt from the outside to get an idea of
placement of the baby. Laura hooked me up to monitors so they could watch the baby’s heart rate,
and also look for contractions. Dr. Klotz said they would just watch me, and that usually labor would
start within 12 hours, and if not, they would re-asses and decide the best route to go. I asked him
about walking in the halls, and he said he didn’t think it would really help, but that I was welcome to
after they monitored the baby for awhile.
Once they were okay with moving me to a room, we were moved to room 134, and nurse Erin took
over to do my intake. Even though I pre-registered they still have to double check your answers. At
least this time since I wasn’t being induced I was able to eat some Jell-O and have some juice.
I was really hoping that I would only need one IV port this time (with Landon I had to have two due to
my BMI being over a certain number), and Erin told me they did away with that rule, so I would only
need one. Erin checked both arms and decided that her best chance was to put one in my left hand.
She did get it on the first try, but due to it's location I was constantly catching it or hitting it on thing,
making it very annoying.
After being on the heart rate monitor for an hour or so, they let me get off so I could walk. As Nate and
I walked loops in the birth center, Nate was monitoring the Blazer game on his phone, giving me anupdate on the score once a loop.
After being off the heart rate monitor for an hour it was time to go back on it. Erin then informed me
that I did have to have a second IV after all, but it was because I had a low lying placenta. She called
in one of her nurse colleges who is better at placing IV’s, but after she looked at my arms they decided
to call “vascular access” the IV specialists to put it in. I was very glad they did.
Erin had me hold heat packs in my hands and covered me with blankets to try warm me up. Nurse
Nick came to put in my second IV, and he had special tools to look for veins, plus he gave a quick
numbing shot before he put the IV in, so it went much better. That IV was put into my right forearm.
I finally felt my first contraction around 4:30 PM. It was most similar to the braxton hicks contractions
I’ve been having for months, not really painful. I was finally able to get up and start walking again, and
the walking this time did seem to help bring on more contractions. I started having about one per loop,
or every 3-5 mins, but they were still only mild in the pain department.
After being off monitors for an hour, I had to go back on, and once I would get back in bed, my
contractions would stop again.
Around 6:30 pm, after the shift change, the new doctors Duggirala and the resident doctor Grove
came it to finally check me. At that point I was dilated to a 3, and 50% effaced. They said they would
come check me again around 9:30 pm.
The next round of walking my contractions seemed to be getting stronger, and coming around every
3 minutes. This time they didn’t stop completely when I went back to the room for monitoring. At this
point they used a hand Doppler to listen to the babies heart beat though one contraction, instead of
having to hook me up to the monitors all the way. Then I could go walking again.
By around 8:20 pm, the contractions were getting painful enough that when I would get one it was
sending gushes of amniotic fluid out, and I didn’t want to be walking the halls any longer. I was worried
that the contractions would stop if I just sat in bed, so I paced the floors in the room for a few minutes
until a gush of fluid sent me to clean up in the bathroom, and I decided from there I would stay in bed.
My contractions kept getting stronger, and when Staci my nurse came to check on me around 9 pm
I was having to really breath though the pain of a contraction, she asked me if I was ready for my
epidural. I said that I was getting there, but I thought I would try wait until after the doctors checked
me at 9:30 pm.
By the time the doctors came into check me I was very ready for my epidural, so they called for the
anesthesiologist. At 9:30 I was dilated to a 7, and 80% effaced.
By the time I got my epidural my contractions were pretty painful. Of course as he was trying to
place the needle is when I had a contraction. While he was placing it I got several very painful zings
of pain down my right side. Once the meds were flowing I could still feel the pain of the contractions
on my left side, although they were much more mild compared to what they had been. They had me
prop myself to the left with pillows to try help with the pain.
The doctors said they weren’t planning on checking me again for several hours, or unless I felt lots
of pressure like I needed to push.
By midnight my contractions were getting quite uncomfortable again, so I was able to press a button
to give an extra boost, but I honestly couldn’t tell if it helped or not. I called for my nurse Staci and told
her I thought the doctors should check me.
Dr Duggirala, and the resident Dr. Grove came it to check me. When Dr. Grove checked me I was
100% ready to go. They discussed if they should have me labor down, or try some practice pushes.
I told them I wasn’t really an experienced pusher, because I couldn’t really tell what I was going on
when I delivered Landon because he was stuck, so I didn’t know what good push felt like.
They decided they would have me do a couple practice pushes, to see how easily she moved. She
told me to take a deep breath, and hold it for 10 seconds, then exhale/inhale and hold for 10, and then
once more. All while crunching over, and pulling on my legs, we did this every contraction. It took
probably two contractions to get the hang of it, and Nathan did the counting for me. They decided that
my pushes where doing really good, so we were just going for it.
Nathan’s counting was very slooooooow! But by design. They had me do quick inhales to try not
release the pressure while trying to push. I remember when her head was crowning, they said she
had lots of dark hair. They asked if I wanted a mirror so I could see …. “NO!” was my answer! I just
wanted to push her out. With one of my next contractions I pushed her head half way out, and then
they wanted me to wait till the next contraction. It was very painful just sitting there with her half way
out, so I asked if I could just try push her out. They said I could try, so I did several more pushes, and
pushed her out the rest of the way.
She had a pretty short umbilical cord, so they could only put her on my belly until they got the cord
cut and clamped. Then they placed her on my chest. She was covered in quite a bit of vernix, as she
was born early (38 weeks, 4 days)
It took the doctors around a half hour to stitch me up. I had 3rd degree tears (down to muscle).
My nurse Staci said she didn’t think I was going to tear, but that it happened at the very end.
I suspect while she was halfway in/out as it felt like I was tearing then. The doctor said it looked like
I tore in the same area that I had probably torn with Landon.
In the end I only had to push for 28 minutes, and our baby girl was born at 1:09 AM.
While I was being stitched up, and I couldn't nurse her yet, I was curious about her weight, so I asked
the nurse to weigh her. Before she was born we made weight predictions. Nate guessed 7 lbs 7 oz,
I had guessed 7 lbs 4 oz, and the doctor had guessed 7 lb 12 oz. Well the doctor was closest as she
came out 7 lb 14 oz, 20.5” long.
After being stitched up I tried breastfeeding, without much success, but they told me that a lactation
nurse would come see me later in the morning. So around 4 AM it was time for some shut eye.
Around 4:30 AM some loud beeping started happening in the hallway, after several minutes I pushed
my call button to ask the nurse what was going on. Well it turned out the fire alarm in the main building
was going off. We didn’t need to evacuate, but it took several more minutes to shut off.
Around 6 am my IV drip system started beeping, and I had to call the nurse to do something about it
then it went off again just after 7 am. Unfortunately that was around shift change and they didn’t
know which nurse was getting assigned to me yet, so it kept going off every 5 minutes until the
nurse came in.
Monica was my nurse for the day, and she came in with a tray of breakfast.
It wasn’t long before we had people asking to come to the hospital to visit.
Kailey meeting big brother Landon.
First family picture
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