Adventures In Parenthood: Happy Birthday Claire!!

It's hard to believe that our Miss Claire Bear will be a year old tomorrow. This past year has gone by so fast! In honor of her birthday, I will be writing about the day she was born, so be warned that there is gross girlie talk about to happen.

The morning of Thursday May 21, 2009 had started off with me not feeling very well. Not feeling well was the story of my whole pregnancy, but I had been up all night with really bad low back pain. Kevin could tell that I wasn't feeling well, so he decided to stay home, just in case. My back was hurting so bad that we decided to go to the hospital (I was already 3-4 cm dilated as of my appointment that Tuesday). I called my grandmother to let her know we were bringing the kids over. We got to the hospital around 8 a.m. and found out that my doctor was on vacation, so the on call doctor would be delivering our baby, bummer. As we were being escorted to our room, the nurse that would be taking care of me, walked out and exclaimed, "Kevin, is that you?" I looked at him like, who is that? He couldn't believe it, our nurse Katie, had worked with Kevin for 5 years at Disneyland, cool. So Katie got us settled and checked my cervix...4-5 cm...so she called the doctor. The doctor was in surgeries until 3:30, so I couldn't be induced until then, but we were also hoping that I wouldn't go into active labor until then. AAhhh, the waiting game. We did have her check to make sure that the baby was still head down, since Claire had decided to go breech at 37 weeks, but that is another story for another day. We also told her that we didn't know what we were having and wanted Kevin to call out the baby's sex when he/she was born. I cannot tell you how exciting it was to not know the sex of the baby, and the anticipation of is it a boy or girl (even though I swore we were having a boy and were calling it by the boy name). We had accidently found out with Curtis at 29 weeks and found out on purpose with Lauren. If we decide to have another one, we are definitely not finding out. Anyway, to combat the back pain, which we found out was because the baby was resting his/her head on my spine, Katie had me lay on my side, but partially on my belly for 15 min, then change sides. I did this for about 1 1/2 hours and it did help, so we decided to take a walk around the maternity ward to try and get things moving along. Around lunch time, Katie checked me again and I was only 5 cm with contractions every 7-8 min and my water bag was bulging, so Kevin went to get something to eat, while I had ice chips, lucky me. I did sneak a few bites of his burger since I was very hungry. After lunch, we just did more of the same, walking around, lying on my side, you get the idea. Since things weren't progressing very fast, the doctor decided that she was going to break my water at 3:30 after her last surgery, so at 2 p.m. I decided to get an epidural, since my back pain was getting really bad. The anesthesiologist came in at 2:30 to do the epidural, but low and behold blood started to go into the tube, so he had to pull it out and redo it...fun, fun, fun. The cool thing about this epidural was that I could still feel the contractions, but the back pain was gone...very nice. So 3:30 comes around and the doctor comes in to break my water...not so simple, the hook broke because my water bag was really thick, so she had to get another hook. Thankfully, this time it worked, so we wait some more. At 4 p.m. she checked me again and I was only 6 cm, so they decided to give me Pitocin. I told them that I didn't need it because once my water breaks, labor is very quick (Four hours with Curtis and two hours with Lauren). I argued with them on this, but they won out, so I got the Pitocin. Around 4:15 as I'm lying on my side, I feel a bunch of liquid coming out and it feels like something is sliding out, so I tell Kevin to run out and get Katie. He goes to the nurse station but she isn't there, so I press the nurse call button. A couple minutes later Katie comes in and I tell her what happened, so she goes to lift my leg to check me and quickly puts it down. She tells me that the baby's head is coming out and overhead pages the doctor... no answer... so she pages the doctor on her beeper and finds out that the doctor had gone to her office across the street...great, the baby's coming NOW and the doctor isn't here, so what does Katie tell me...don't push...that's a lot easier said than done. So I'm trying not to push, when all I really want to do is push, and finally the doctor arrives...yeah! Now I can push...first push, head is out...second push, I feel a lot of pressure and stretching, but baby's shoulders are stuck, so doctor is wiggling baby, very painful...third push, more tearing and I scream...fourth push, baby slides out...I look and the first thought that comes to mind, that doesn't look like a boy. So doctor looks to Kevin and says, "Okay dad, what is it?" and I hear him say, "It's......a girl!" No way, it can't be a girl, it supposed to be a boy. Kevin cuts the cord and they place her in my arms...and she is beautiful, all 8 lbs. 4 oz. of her. What a blessing!!