The Birth

Tuesday, May 3, we went to see the dr. to evaluate what the plan of action should be. He was either going to admit me that day to just prepare me to be induced or I would have to go in Wed. morning to start the induction. The dr. came in to check me and he gave me a face and I thought, "Oh no 41 weeks pregnant and I can't even dialate to a 1!" But the dr said, "I do not have bad news, your a 1, that is just enough for me to break your water, tomorrow morning!!" I was so relieved that one I made progress and 2. I did not have to spend an entire day in the hospital and not even be in labor. I finished my day with working, taking advantage of the warm weather by walking around the camp taking pictures, and painting the tabernacle bathroom. I do not think Matthew or I could sleep very well because we had to get up at 4:30 am but at 2:30 am I woke up to contractions. For the first time in my pregnancy, I had contractions, I never had braxton hicks or false labor but tonight I started having a few contractions and I lost my mucous plug.

Wednesday, May 4, we left for the hospital at 5:00 am, I was still having contractions, they were pretty far about and really short. We got to the hospital, I think we were both nervous, anxious, and excited all at the same time. We filled out our paperwork and took us to our room. They started pitocin around 7:15, they started with a very low dose and the contractions were not bad at all and were around 4 or 5 minutes apart and about a minute long. Around 7:45 the dr. came in and checked me and I was between a 1 and a 2. He then broke my water, which took about a minute and felt very weird. At that point my contractions were getting much stronger and closer together. The part I hated most was that they had to have this stupid heart moniter on the baby and everytime a contraction came on and I moved the heart moniter or the baby would move and lose her heartbeat. So they would come in my room and tell me about how it had to stay on the baby. By this time my contractions were 2 mins apart and 120 seconds long and they were very painful. I would usually jump out of bed with the contraction and try to get in a comfortable position standing leaning on something which then brought a nurse to my room due to the heart moniter. The heart moniter made me stressed and very irritable (well probably the contractions made me irritable) The babies heart rate started dropping lower with some of the contractions which made the nurses worry. By this time I was having some contractions right on top of each other with no break and then I would get like a minute break. The dr. came in and decided to put an internal moniter on the baby to keep her heart rate and get a better reading. Let me tell you having to lay on a bed through several contractions not being able to move was very difficult, I was almost in tears. At this point he checked me and told me I was a 3 or maybe between a 3 or 4. I was horrified that it had not gotten further than that with such strong contractions. The baby was face up and it needed to be face down so he tried to see if he could move it with his hand. That was very uncomfortable especially with having contractions while he was doing it. The contractions started to make me sick and I then began to throw up. I had gone through almost 4 hours of terrible contractions of being 2 minutes apart and 120 seconds long and decided to get the epidural. I got the epidural around 11ish. The nurses were very happy because as soon as I relaxed the babies heart rate stayed consistantly higher. The dr. came in around 12 or 12:30 and checked me again. He told me I was between a 7 and an 8 and he thought we would have a baby by 3:00. The baby was still face up but this time as he was trying to aide in moving her I couldn't feel it thank goodness. I was now in transitional labor.

At 2:00 the nurse came in and started having me push, the dr. would be in soon. He thought it would be awhile of pushing since she was face up. I did hard pushing for 15 mins and she was not moving down and I had to put oxygen on because the babies heart rate was not recovery after the pushing and I took a couple minutes off from pushing. The dr. came in and realized that the baby did not have enough room to come down and began to cut the skin that was blocking her. I was so glad that I had an epidural at this point. After he was done cutting, I began pushing and she still had limited space so he decided that we would need aide in getting her out and they had to use the vacumn after I had pushed for 20 more minutes. Finally, after 10 more minutes of pushing her head came out. The dr. then told me one more push, after him telling me to push so hard for the head I started to push and he was like woa not that hard. There she was laying on my stomach crying, it was a very emotional wonderful moment for me and Matthew to finally see our little girl After Matthew cut the cord they took her over next to my bed to clean. Then I began to lose an extreme amount of blood. My room filled with more nurses and activity than I ever thought. All I remember was the dr. who is usually a patient calm man was giving quick orders and the nurses were not moving fast enough for him. Finally after 45 mins, the dr then began to fill me in on what was happening and that they may have to take me to an operating room if the bleeding did not stop. I just began praying, thinking the last thing I want to do is leave my baby and go to an operating room. Again, thank goodness I had an epidural for all of that!! Then within ten minutes then told me the bleeding was under control and as long as it stayed that way, there would be no operating room. Praise the Lord!! The room calmed down and I finally got to hold and feed my baby.

Somewhere in there Matthew was holding our little girl and said, "She has to be Niah, she does not look like any of the other names on our list." Niah Beth King was born at 3:02 pm, weighed 5 lbs 10 oz. and was 19.5 inches long. She is doing very well and we both love and adore her.

This is a picture of her that I took just today. I realize she is my baby so I am partial but I do believe she is the most beautiful baby.