After Lucy was born two and a half weeks early I wanted to be prepared for baby girl to arrive any time a month before her due date! I was quite surprised at my 36, 37 and 38 week check ups that I wasn't close to going into labor. When I was 38 weeks, on February 16th, I went to a BYU basketball game with Ben's grandpa. He wanted someone to go with, and I agreed to attend with him. It was a late game and I didn't get home until 11 PM. That night I started feeling so much tightness, but I couldn't time any of the "contractions" so I was confused. They were off and on and consistent. I couldn't sleep all night and by the morning I figured she would come sometime that day. I guess it was intense pre-labor Braxton Hicks, she was moving ALL night long. Friday night we went to Costco and walked around a bit. I figured if I walked around again that I would start going into labor again. Nothing happened. Saturday and Sunday came and went and I was surprised she wasn't coming! I was 38.5 weeks on Sunday and at church I was more uncomfortable but didn't have any "contractions" to time or anything. On Monday the kids and I were home until about 10:30 am when we went to the mall playground.
The morning/afternoon of baby girl's birth were pretty normal. It was President's Day and we planned to meet Ben for lunch, but he was at work like a regular Monday. The kids and I went to the Orem Mall's new indoor playground and saw Ben's boss there with his grandkids. The mall had a storytime and activity that the kids enjoyed. I chatted with Ben's boss and I mentioned that I might have the baby any day/hour. Then we went to Jamba Juice and got a couple smoothies and brought them to Chick-Fil-A to meet Ben for lunch.
I wasn't feeling any different than I had been the weekend before, so we enjoyed a regular lunch together and saw a couple friends. I was feeling fine and didn't feel anything abnormal. William didn't have preschool, so we headed home for Lucy's nap time and his quiet time. My mom texted me around 1:30 and I had texted her back saying I felt fine. I did have some of the pink tint discharge that morning, so I was somewhat on the lookout for any other signs. Suddenly I started to feel some cramping around 1:45. At 2:09 I started writing down contractions. At 2:25 I texted my mom back and said I had a couple contractions while I was walking around that were about 15 seconds long. My times were from around 2:00-4:00 every 10 minutes for 30 seconds long. I started getting worried/excited and got things ready around the house and the kids' overnight bag together. Ben called Diana and she came over around 3:30 to pick up the kids and take them to her house. I had their bag ready to go so she took them in our minivan. Ben said he thought we should go to the hospital right then because last time with Lucy we went too late.
I gathered my things and we drove three minutes away to the Utah Valley Medical Center. I decided to go to the Provo hospital this time instead of Orem Community Hospital. The main reason for this was that they have a NICU and Orem doesn't, and it's even closer to our house. We valet parked and went up the elevators to the 5th floor and checked in around 4:00 pm. It was weird that it was in the middle of the day, because my other two were during the night time. I tried to nicely let the receptionist know that I progress very quickly and that I needed a room ASAP. At this point I was still having contractions and I would just stop talking and sit down during them. They brought me right to room 15, the same EXACT room I was in for my blood transfusion. It was pretty neat and not a coincidence that I had everything happen there out of all 40 rooms on that floor.
The nurse checked me in pretty quickly and I was only a 4 and 80% effaced. I was a little disappointed but my contractions were 6-10 minutes apart around 20-45 seconds long. They gave me a large peanut shaped yoga ball to put between my legs to get things going/progress faster. They prepped for my group B strep medicine since I tested positive for it a few weeks prior. I told the nurse about the bad experience I had getting an IV for my blood transfusion, so the anesthesiologist came and number the area and put it in with minimal pain. Then I told the nurses that I go quickly with my babies so we went ahead and got the epidural started. It didn't hurt too bad but left me feeling sore on the insertion spot for a few days (something I hadn't felt with the spinal tap). By 5:15 I had my epidural going, and the worst part was the 5 seconds of pain poke to numb the area before the epidural itself. Then it was a waiting game... I never really had horrible labor pain up to this point.
Around 15-30 minutes later my left leg was numb and I couldn't move it by myself but my right leg was less affected. From then on I laid on my right side to try and numb that side more evenly. I was at a 5+ at 5:30 pm. They let me just relax for an hour or so. It was so different just "relaxing" waiting for baby girl. I was anxious the whole time and wondering what my contractions were doing, getting antsy that she wouldn't come soon. Around 5:30-6 Becky the midwife on-call broke my water to try and get things going. There was meconium in my water. She wasn't too concerned and so I got to hang out again and we watched some t.v. At 7:15 I was a 6 and kept the peanut between my legs that whole time. I kept watching the monitors to try and see what the contraction timing was. I kept second guessing myself for getting the epidural when I did and wished I had waited a little longer so that baby girl would already be here by then. At 8:00 Becky decided to give me the smallest dose of pitocin to try and get things going again. She thought it might get my contractions back to normal intensity, as they had started to fluctuate from very light to very heavy randomly. My contractions were every 4-6 minutes at that point. The pitocin seemed to work a little bit but the nurses wanted to "up" it one more notch of pitocin at 8:30. They left Ben and I alone again and I started to feel some of the more intense contractions. Then I felt a lot of pressure down low, different than contraction pain. This happened a few times and I asked Ben to check if she was coming out or if he saw anything- but he said he didn't.
Around 8:40-8:45 the nurse and Becky walked in to our room together. They had been watching my contractions on the monitor outside the room and wanted to check what was going on. They said the contractions looked "weird and confusing". Becky came over to see how dilated I was and she said "OH, she's right there!" Her head was right there, ready to go. Becky had the "team" called in immediately and she had me move down the bed a few inches. Ben helped my leg back to a regular position and I didn't get in the stirrups because baby girl was so close to coming out. The team came in just in time for her delivery. Becky told me to push. I tried pushing once, then her head was out and her body just slipped out right after! She cried right away and they looked her over on the table next to me. I remember thinking she looked tiny, as I figured she'd be at least 7 pounds because of Lucy's high weight. I had her on my lap for a minute while they cut the cord. The team cleaned her up and didn't seem worried about her or anything. I didn't need to take her to the NICU and her apgar score was 8 at 1 minute and 9 at 5 minutes. They finally weighed her in at 6 lbs. 4 ounces.
Ben took lots of pictures and soon after I had her on my chest with her cute hospital hat on. It seemed so surreal having her in my arms. It was the longest, drawn out pregnancy but I know we could have almost lost her so it was even more special having her arrive safely!
An hour or two later we got moved to the 4th floor to a recovery room. Ben slept at the hospital with us and we discussed names. It took us until Tuesday morning, the 21st, to decide on Madeline Joan Lewis.
