Kiptons Birth... part 2

You can read part one here.

After laboring most of the day Jared and I headed to the hospital around 8:30 that night. We arrived at labor and delivery and they quickly had me put on a gown, inserted and IV and placed a few monitors on my belly. I had been worried that I had spent all that time at home laboring and that I wouldn't be that far dilated. They checked me and found out that I was a good 4.5 almost 5. AWESOME!!! I was so happy to hear that. I had been worried that I'd gone through all that work at home and that they'd tell me I was 2+ or something! We then learned that I most likely had been leaking amniotic fluid all day and that we should have come in and had it checked. Oops. The book I had been reading throughout our pregnancy mentioned that amniotic fluid has a slightly sweet smell and this didn't smell like urine, but it didn't smell sweet either. We tell this to the nurse and she's like "uhhhhh... NO!" and explained to us while that's sometimes the case in her experience it can either smell fishy or like nothing at all. She was pretty certain I had a slow amniotic fluid leak all day. She did a quick test and it immediately came back positive. After that the nurses became anxious to get things rolling so our munchkin could be born within the 24 hour time frame so infection doesn't happen.

The anesthesiologist appeared right away and was able to insert the epidural. Jared is very squeamish about needles so he opted to turn around while they inserted it. Oddly enough when they rubbed iodine on my back it REALLY burned and was the most painful part of the whole epidural I thought the epidural was HEAVEN!!! It was literally the most comfortable I had been in weeks. I've noticed a re-occurring theme with myself and medicine. So far I haven't met a medicine that my body hasn't responded well to or had a bad reaction with. The epidural worked out perfectly. My legs were slightly tingly but I could still move them and the pain was gone. It worked exactly as it should. Loved it and I'd do it again in a heartbeat. It really did make those final hours special for us and dare I say enjoyable?

Apparently for a first time pregnancy patient I progressed pretty rapidly. Or at least more so than the others that were laboring there that night. The nurses seemed eager to let me know this for some reason. I don't know why they bring that up... not like it matters or that anyone is in a competition! We were just happy that by laboring at home as long as we did and by how things were progressing that we avoided being put on pit.ocin. By one pm, four hours after I was admitted they had me start pushing. I pushed for about an hour later and our little boy was born!!! That was amazing! Seeing his precious little face brought back so many memories of when Kylie was born. It was crazy how similar and familiar it felt. The same love and the instant adoration for that precious little life. He really never cried much. Just whimpered and whimpered when he was placed on my chest. We were just so happy that he had made it here safely and looked so healthy and pink. We had decided ahead of time to do delayed cord clamping. I don't know if it really does much good, but it couldn't hurt (it allows some of the cord blood to drain into the baby). So we drank in every inch of him for several minutes and then the cord went limp and it was clamped off. I ended up tearing a little bit, but not by much.

to be continued...