Labor and Delivery Story

This has taken me entirely too long to type up. Sorry if I've kept you in suspense. :) I hope it all makes sense. If you're like me you love to hear about other people's labor stories. Here's mine:

On Saturday night (10/30) I started timing a few Braxton Hicks thinking maybe they were getting consistent. Nope. Sunday morning I had the "bloody show" which got us thinking we would have a Halloween baby. We didn't go to church in hopes that things would get rolling quickly. I finally finished packing my hospital bag and did some general cleaning up. I had irregular contractions all day long ranging from 5 - 18 minutes apart. Nothing consistent.

During the night I woke up to fairly hard contractions. I had a stop watch to time them and still nothing consistent but things were rolling. Isaac came in at some point and wanted to sleep with me. We went out to the couches. Isaac fell off the couch he was on and came to snuggle with me. The last few contractions I remember timing were getting closer but still not regular. They were 5 to 8 minutes apart. When practicing deep breathing, Mark told me to breathe in confidence/peace/etc., and breathe out tension/pain/etc. However, as the contractions became harder I found myself thinking "breathe in tension!!" That was not right!!!
Then my water broke (about 7:25 am Nov. 1)!! Luckily I was on a towel but I still wanted to get to the bathroom quickly. I threw a sleeping Isaac onto the floor but I was still on his blankey a little. He's crying about his blanket and I'm trying to get my fat self off the couch quickly. I started calling for Mark to wake up.

While I was in the bathroom Isaac came in mad. I don't remember what he said but he lectured me and closed the door. Contractions were suddenly very intense and they were coming pretty fast. I was freaking out a little thinking "I want drugs." If you've ever talked with me on this subject you know that I'd really rather avoid an epidural.

Mark piled up some pillows on the bed for me and helped me out of the bathroom. Isaac came into the room during a contraction and saw I was laying on his pillow. It was the end of the world. Poor kid had a tough morning. Mark told me that during an intense contraction he heard me moan and while rushing to come help me he accidentally knocked Isaac down. Mark said that he got this response from Isaac: "Don't knock me down, DAD!"
My contractions were extremely intense and I wanted to push!! During some contractions I couldn't help but push a little bit...

Mark had to get Lexi to wake up, get the kids dressed, grab last minute things, load my stuff and the kids into the car all while racing back and forth to calm me down during contractions... He's my hero!!! I realized we should have gotten a few more things together the night before. Good thing he preforms well under stress!

We dropped the kids off at my visiting teacher's house on our way to the hospital. She told Mark when he called that one of her kids had a fever so she would find someone else to take them. I was so grateful that she dealt with it for us. Luckily I had told her who else had offered to watch the kids for me and she called one of them..

I figure we got to the hospital just before 8:30am. Mark pulled up to the front doors and ran in to get someone with a wheelchair. We bypassed any type of check in. They wheeled me straight to a delivery room, helped me change clothes, got me in bed and hooked me up to their monitors (the monitor started rolling at 8:37 am)

The nurse went to check me and if I recall correctly she kind of chuckled as if to say "I don't even need to check. You're ready." I piped up and asked if that meant I was a 10. She said, "10 plus" and told me not to cough or sneeze. They called the midwife to see how close she was. She was at the closest stop light which isn't far but I knew she wouldn't make it. I couldn't help but push lightly during contractions while we waited for the ER doctor to come in. He came and said I could push. I was a little hesitant at first so my first push wasn't very strong but after one more push she was here! 1 contraction and 2 pushes = baby!! 8:49 am. I was SO happy!! I wish I could have seen my face. I was smiling SO big. I felt such relief and joy!

The midwife got there minutes after the birth. We should have called her the very second my water broke but it was pretty crazy and we didn't realize how little time we had. I guess it made the ER doctor's day though. He likes to deliver babies but rarely gets a chance. 12 minutes after I was first hooked to the monitor the baby was born! I was glad that I chose to deliver in Jerome rather than Twin Falls because we definitely would not have made it to Twin. That could have been way too exciting. It wasn't even like we waited too long. My contractions were not consistent or steady until my water broke.

After holding our little one for a few minutes we were curious to know how big she was. she weighed in at 9 lbs 7 oz. and 21" not a tiny girl but also not nearly as big as brother was. Thank goodness. We named her Kari Lynn Dahle (pronounced car-ee)

For her first name we took the last 2 letters of my mom's name and the first 2 letters of Mark's mom's name and mixed them up = KARI. It is also a family name on Mark's side.
My maternal grandmothers name is Marilyn. We decided to use the last half of her name for Kari's middle name and added an N.

Kari is perfectly healthy and a great eater!! We got to go home Tuesday morning. It was our shortest hospital stay yet.

(I wanted to add a silly note: Tuesday morning they brought me breakfast w/coffee. I had Mark ask if I could get some hot chocolate instead. Apparently there wasn't much communication going on between the nurses and they all wanted to make sure we were taken care of. We ended up with 3 cups of hot chocolate each!! I love hot chocolate! I didn't turn any of them away. We all got a good laugh out of it. )