Lucy Mae's Birth Story

June 10

That whole day was a killer. I was scheduled to check into the hospital at 7pm, so I felt like I couldn't function all day and just sat staring at the clock as the minutes inched by. I was basically feeling every emotion in the book- nervous about labor, scared something might go wrong, anxious to become a mother, excited to finally see what our baby girl looked like, happy to be done with pregnancy...yeah the list goes on. As we were getting ready to pack our things in the car, I got a call from one of the nurses that it was insanely busy up there and asked if we could instead call her at 8pm to see if we could come up. A long hour passed and when I called she said we could come in at 10pm. 2 more hours!! I was going insane. Brent didn't mind since he wasn't looking forward to just sitting on the couch at the hospital while I was induced. As I was laying on the bed trying to stay sane, I noticed my stomach was not feeling too comfortable. People always say "Oh you'll know when you're having contractions". Well I didn't know. I thought maybe they were contractions but they were obviously at the beginning stages since they were sporadic. Finally 9:40pm rolled around and we were off to the hospital!

My last pregnancy picture! This was taken when we first thought we were headed to the hospital..

After a long process of going through my medical history, signing papers, yada yada..they finally hooked me up to the monitors (not a fan of the insanely tight bands around the belly) and IV and blood pressure and started the cervadil medication. I was dilated 1.5 cm and 30% effaced. With the monitors hooked up we could see that I was already having contractions, so this baby was clearly coming regardless. I was excited to hear that because I was a bit nervous about being induced in the first place.

June 11

At about midnight, the contractions came a rolling in. I liked watching them on the screen to see when they were coming and leaving. The worst part was if I needed to go to the bathroom, I had to unhook myself from the 5 machines and push the IV along with me. Soon the contractions were truly miserable. All of the positions I learned to help deal with contractions were pointless because I was stuck in the hospital bed. All I could do was grip the side of the bed and try to remember to keep breathing. Any time I moved to try and get comfortable one of the dumb bands would lose Lucy's heart beat and a nurse would run in and tug the band around until we found it again. Suuuuper comfortable while having contractions..not. 

Brent was sleeping the night away on the other side of the room since there was really no way for him to help me through any of it.

Obviously before the intense contractions

Brent's super comfortable bed

My nurse offered me an Ambien to try and take the edge off and possibly get some sleep. Yeah..right. There is no sleeping through contractions. Instead it just made me feel like I was sleep walking. 

4am- I was dilated to 3 cm and the contractions were fierce however I wanted to wait until I was 5-6 cm dilated before getting an epidural. I don't remember what pain medication they gave me but wow it made me so loopy. I just remember my eyelids feeling so heavy where I really couldn't open them, feeling like I couldn't speak, and being so so so hot. I'm not sure if I somehow woke Brent up but he just stood there fanning me with paper for what seemed like hours so that I didn't feel like I was on fire. Though I was loopy and out of it, I still remember feeling the contractions through the pain medication.

6am- they checked me again and I was dilated to 5cm. Apparently they asked if I wanted an epidural and I said YES! (I don't remember that at all, just that they flipped the lights on and a group of people came in and said I was getting an epidural). I was in too much pain from the contractions to really be nervous about the epidural. Whoever administered it was amazing, I don't remember feeling a thing. Next thing I knew I was numb and finally got some sleep which was heavenly. Apparently I went into such a deep sleep I wasn't breathing enough so a nurse ran in an put an oxygen mask on me. Not surprised, I truly sleep like the dead.

7:30am- my doctor came in to check on my progress and break my water. When he checked he was shocked that I was already completed dilated! Baby girl was coming regardless if she was induced or not, though inducing just made things go super fast which I appreciated. When he broke my water he saw that there was some meconium in the fluid so extra nursery nurses had to be there for the delivery to help suck all of it out of Lucy since she swallowed some. My doctor wanted to see if she would drop a little more on her own, so he went and did a C-section in the mean time. When he returned an hour later, she was basically on her way out by herself. So everyone rushed in and the show got started.

I am so grateful for the nurse I had since she helped me figure out how to push since I was completely numb. All it took was 5-6 pushes and out came Lucy Mae!

While they were working on her, all I could do was look over with tears in my eyes. I was already so in love with her and couldn't believe she was ours.

Born at 8:48am, 7 lb. 13 oz. and 19.5 in long.

Brent is so in love with his baby girl and is already an amazing dad. He didn't hesitate to start changing diapers and was there to calm us both down when I thought she was choking or not eating enough or when she wouldn't go to sleep. I definitely couldn't have gone through everything those few days without Brent by my side. I am so thankful for him!

Brent's siblings and parents were so sweet to send us gifts to celebrate Lucy while we were in the hospital.

And Lucy got some super cute visitors who were very excited to see her.

(Uncle Kyle, Aunt Lauren, Everett, Grandma and Grandpa Stock came too but I didn't have any pictures unfortunately)

Myka and Auntie Courtney

Myka was SO excited that Lucy was finally out of my belly. She refers to Luce (oh yes she already uses her nickname) as her baby. 

Uncle Evan

Grammy

Pappy

June 13 we were able to go home. I'd lie if I said I wasn't just a bit nervous leaving all of the help of the nurses, but I was excited to not be bothered or woken up every 2-3 hours to be checked on.

I can't believe we are officially a family of 3, 4 if you count our little dog child :)