Before I get into the story I want to include a few pregnancy pictures, since I didn't get any after these were taken.
This picture is from Thanksgiving.
This picture is from Lauren's birthday party.
This picture was taken a few weeks before Christmas, and we used it for our Christmas card.
My last day of work was on January 18th, which was a whole week before my due date. The next day which was a Thursday Steve and I went to my doctors appointment. We had a light lunch and dropped off Lauren at Mom and Dad's house. I think we then went by Target for some shopping before heading to the appointment, which was at Durant Road. On the way there we both we starving so we went by Bojangles and got a chicken finger combo with sweet tea and split it. It was awesome and apparantly the baby liked it to because she was super active during her non-stress test! We saw Dr. Bernstein after the NST. He said that I was 3 cm and that he could feel the baby moving her head all around. We talked to him about an induction, and he said he likes to wait to closer to 41 weeks. He said we could schedule an induction for the Thursday or Friday after my due date. On Friday morning Steve had to work, so I dropped of Lauren at preschool. I then went to babies r us to return some clothes from my shower. After that I went home and worked on the changing table. Mom picked up Lauren and let her nap at her house so I could continue working. I don't remember anything about Saturday. On Sunday morning we went to early service. On the way there I thought that I felt some cramping, and I thought maybe something was starting! I felt a little more during the beginning of the service, but by the end I didn't feel anything anymore. On Monday Steve had to work again, so I watched Lauren in the morning. Dad was going to pick her up for lunch and a nap so I could work on the house some more. I woke up that morning around 4 or so and thought I felt some light contractions. They would come and go about every 30 minutes. As soon as I got up though I didn't feel anything else. Lauren and I had a good morning. She decided to pull down her shirt around her waist. I gave her some yummy apple that mom had given us, and she pulled her bean bag into the kitchen and sat on it to eat her apple. It was so cute-her shirt was still around her waist-I took a picture of it on my cell phone and sent it to Steve. I started feeling some contractions again around 12 or 1 I can't remember now exactly when. I 'm pretty sure Dad had picked up Lauren by that time though. They seemed to be about 11 minutes apart, but they weren't really consistent (some were much stronger than the others). I talked to Mom and thought maybe I should take a shower in case something really was going on. I wasn't sure this was really labor, and I figured I would have tons of time to hang out at home if it was! HA! I had gotten my hair cut really short the previous Tuesday, and I had planned to have my hair nice and straight for the birth. It was straight, but needed to be washed, so I went ahead a washed it. After my shower the contractions got worse. I remember coming upstairs and trying to time a few on the baby2see website. I may have gone into Lauren's room to work on some stuff and eventually ended up in the guest room bed. I layed there for awhile and I remember having very painful contractions. I called Steve right before he got off at 3 and told him I thought he should probably come home instead of working out. He could tell by my voice that something was going on. When he got home he was running around trying to get ready, because he knew we were headed to the hospital. Meanwhile I was trying to figure out what I should do. Should I call the doctor's office and leave a message for the OB nurse, talk to the receptionist, or go to the hospital. I had never been in labor before during business hours. Krista said to call the office and say I needed to come in for a labor check. I called and made an appointment with Dr. Rush for 4:00. It was 3:45 at the time. Steve got the hospital bag (which I had never actually finished pakcing) and we hopped in the car. We went to computer drive and Steve kept asking me if we should just go to the hospital. I thought we probably should but we went to the appointment. I remember sitting in the waiting room getting upset thinking they had better come get me soon in the middle of contractions. I was planning what I would do if I had to wait much longer...They took me back after waiting for a little bit. I saw the nurse then she took me to the room. Dr. Rush came in pretty quickly and checked me. She said "you must have a high pain tolerance, you are a 5 and I can stretch you to a 6!" She never would have thought that by the way I was acting and walking around. She told us to go straight to WakeMed and not to go to triage unless they didn't have a bed for me. We rushed to the hospital and Steve dropped me off at registration. I was a little annoyed at them at first, but they ended up sending me up to the floor pretty quickly. Of course an older lady had to push me up in a wheelchair. I would have rather walked. It was similar to when they wheeled me up with Luke. It seemed like the slowest trip of my life! Finally we got up there and headed to triage. I had to explain to them that I was supposed to be a direct admit. There seemed to be some confusion. I guess they hadn't heard from the doctor, so we had to wait a little bit. I had a few contractions, and I remember being able to relax a little bit during them. By the time Steve got up there from parking the car they were ready to take me to a room. When we got to the room the nurse asked me if I was getting induced! Duh, is there no communication here. No, once again I AM IN LABOR! I changed into my gown and got into bed. She hooked me up to the monitors and all was well for a bit. However she started having a hard time finding the heartbeat, so she told me to lay on my side. This was awful. It made it harder to relax as if it wasn't already hard enough. I told her I wanted an epidural, so she started getting things rolling as fast as possible. Of course it seemed like she was moving very slowly. Part of this was that she had to ask me lots of questions and I had to sign forms before anything could happen, but she really wasn't moving as fast as she could! Anyway she got my iv going and drew my blood. I knew I had to get the entire bag of fluid before I could get an epidural, so I was happy to get that going. Afterwards Dr. Bernstein came in. Once again I stated that I really wanted an epidural, so he said he wouldn't check me until I was comfortable. This kind of surprised me, but I guess he knows what he is doing. Steve called his mom, my mom got there, and they were finally calling for anesthesia. Unfortunately during that call I said that I felt some pressure. I said maybe it wasn't anything, and my nurse said no I think it is something. Anyway someone checked me and said I was 9 cm. Dr. Bernstein told the nurse to tell them I was a 7. Mom was like can you still do an epidural and he said I have before. We're not sure if he was just telling us this to try to keep me calm or not. We quickly discovered that the epidural was not going to happen, and Mom asked about other pain meds. I decided not to do anything else, since I figured there was a reason people don't usually use them. It seems like it is either an epidural or nothing. So I opted for natural childbirth really because in my head there was no other option. I didn't want to have some drugs that barely worked and not be able to say I went through natural childbirth when I still felt 90% or so of that pain. Plus I did think it would be nice to say that I did it. I'm pretty sure that he then broke my water and I started pushing. It's kind of crazy that my water never broke! I pushed for about a half an hour same as with Luke and Lauren. I'm not sure how women are done after two pushes. That would have been nice! Finally at 5:45 pm Katherine Grace entered the world! She was beautiful and healthy and looked so tiny. She had beautiful dark hair and a lot of it. They put her on my belly as I requested for skin to skin contact. I felt relief after she was born then he delivered the placenta and this hurt some more. After that Dr. B started stitching up my 2nd degree tear. Since I didn't have an epidural he had to give me a shot first. Eventually I was able to start breastfeeding. I then went to the bathroom and got in my wheelchair and went to my postpartum room. This room was really nice and the shower was to die for! It had two shower heads one being the rain kind that is straight over you. The room was a decent size, but not nearly as big as the room I was in after delivering Luke. They gave Kate a bath in the room while we were watching. Mom and Lucy were there. Krista came by later and brought us grilled chicken sandwiches from McDonalds. I didn't get my Jersey Mikes that night, since it isn't in the best neighborhood.
We didn't get much sleep that night, and I tried to nurse Kate as much as possible. I remember changing a lot of (meconium) diapers that night and the next few days. I started pumping the next day to try to get my milk supply off to a good start. I then gave Kate the colostrum with a syringe. We had a pleasant hospital stay and we were able to go home Wednesday afternoon. (MaryBeth came and visited with us on Tuesday as well as Pastor Wagner. Uncle Mike also came by for a visit. It was a busy day, and we were happy to be home the next day!) I remember the weather being very nice on the day that we went home.
Unfortunately since I am trying to finish this up and it is now May 18th a lot of the details have become fuzzy. I do remember the first week being very rough. I hardly got any sleep, and I was wondering how I was going to do this. I also had a case of the baby blues/postpartum depression. I even went to a moms helping mom support group meeting when Kate was 4 weeks old. Things got better as I had hoped
