And out came Ryken Chip!

So. Just as we were hoping....we didn't end up having to wait until August 15th to meet our baby boy! YAY!

Here is how it all went down.

Monday, July 28th
So, I had my appointment on Monday, just like we planned. I was a little nervous with how it would go, because I took Kenzie with me. Usually, we plan my appointments for when Chip isn't working and he comes with me and takes care of Kenzie while we're there. But he wanted to work that day....just in case something happened that night : ) My appointment was at 9:50am. Kenzie and I got there right on time and luckily they were running on schedule, so we didn't have to wait long for them to get us in a room. I took snacks and toys for Kenzie and she just sat in her stroller. She was such a good girl.

My doctor came in and checked Ryken's heartbeat, which was perfect as usual and right around 140 bpm. The she checked me. I was between 2-3cm dilated and still only about 40% effaced. (At this point...being told this, I was VERY hopeful!) (I know some of you will have NO CLUE what this means...and that's ok. But for anyone who has recently had a baby or is going to have a baby, this stuff is important...lol. Plus, I know what it means and want to remember these little details!) Anyway......so she stripped my membranes. This is basically where she sticks her finger inside the cervix and scraps her finger between the sac that the baby is in and the uterus. It has been sitting there for so long that it is kinda stuck together...and the doctor "unsticks" it. This is not a pain-free process....it is actually quite uncomfortable. But totally worth it if it works! SOOO.....my doctor did this nice little "procedure" for me and tells me to rest for a few minutes and she is going to do it again.

She came back in the room about 10 minutes later and says "your cervix is still so thick and high that I really don't know if this is going to do anything" (At this point...the hope I had been given a few minutes earlier was somewhat shattered.....). So she says she'll do it one more time. She goes to do it and the 2nd time it didn't hurt nearly as much...I actually kept waiting for her to do it, and then found out she was already done! It was at this time that some of my hope was restored because she told me "Wow....now you're a stretchy 4cm (almost 4cm). And you're much much softer....that was like a totally different exam". She was getting ready to go on vacation the next week and really really wanted to be around to deliver me. So she told me that if I hadn't delivered by Friday morning (August 1st) that she wanted me to come in and she would strip my membranes again. This was pretty cool because she doesn't have office hours on Friday mornings....so she was going to have me come in during off hours just to try to get things going so she could be around.

So I left the office around 10:30am. I was a little bit crampy, but nothing bad. No contractions. I was pretty sure it wasn't going to do anything........

Kenzie and I got home and she took a nap. When she got up I decided we'd go out for lunch and then we'd walk around Walmart for awhile to see if I could get any contractions going. We went to Arby's and then did our shopping trip and nothing happened.

We got home and Kenzie went down for her afternoon nap. Chip called me to see if anything was going on. NOPE. Nada. Nothing. Very uneventful afternoon.

Around 5:30, I went to the bathroom and had what is so nicely termed "bloody show". This is a term for this gross nasty snot like stuff that has blood all through it. Nice huh? So....that got me a little bit excited. But honestly, when you're at that point in pregnancy, you can have so many "signs of impending labor" and not go into labor for days...or sometimes weeks. So I wasn't getting my hopes up.

Chip got home shortly after that. We hung around the house and Kenzie woke up late...around 6pm from her nap. I started making dinner at 6:40. As I was taking out a pot to boil water for spaghetti, I had my first contraction. I told Chip...but expected it to be a one time thing. About 3 minutes later, I had another one. Nice! And then....about 3 minutes after that....another one. So after about 20 minutes of having a contraction every 3 minutes, I started to get kind of excited. But I still was telling myself it probably wasn't the real thing yet. BUT just in case it was I decided to call and "warn" our friends, Tim and Jennifer, who were going to watch Kenzie if we needed them to. We told them that our plan was to wait and see if my contractions kept going and we'd get Kenzie into bed and get everything ready and then call them around 8:30 if we decided to go to the hospital. So....I was busy rushing around, packing my bag.....changing the sheets of our bed for T&J....etc. The whole time, contractions were 3 minutes apart. So....we left for the hospital around 8:45.

In the car, my contractions slowed down A LOT. It was pretty discouraging. During the 15 minute car ride, I only had 2 contractions, and the 2nd one was much lighter than they had been. BUT as soon as we got out of the car and started to walk up to the entrance of the women's center and Banner Desert, the contractions came back every 2-3 minutes and strong again. So I get into triage sometime shortly after 9pm. As soon as I laid down and got all hooked up to monitors, my contractions seemed to vanish. They checked me and I was ALMOST at 5cm. So the contractions I'd been having were doing SOMETHING. They monitored me for awhile and not a lot was going on......so I asked if I could walk around. They said sure. So I walked from around 11pm to 11:45pm. The contractions were 2-3 minutes apart the WHOLE time I was walking...and they got bad enough that I had to stop and hang on to Chip or the wall or squat or do something and breathe through them. So I got back to my room......waited for a nurse.........got all hooked up again around midnight. They checked me again, and this time I was more like 5 1/2-6 cm. So....they decided to keep me! YAY! We got to our Labor and Delivery room around 12:45am.

SOO....I guess the rest of this story takes place on Tuesday, July 29th!

(Here I am in my labor and delivery room)

Once we got to Labor and Delivery I decided I was going to go walk around again and keep the contractions coming. I walked for around 15-2o minutes but that was all I could take. The contractions were coming every 1-2 minutes and were getting MUCH stronger. So, we headed back to my room and they let me sit on an exercise ball.


Here I am...showing I am 6cm dilated and it was 1:10am.

At around 1:45am, I decided I wanted to lay back down in bed. I got in bed and nothing was really happening. Then at 2:15...the contractions started coming again. They were every 5 minutes, but they were STRONG and VERY VERY "UNCOMFORTABLE". I was thankful for the 2-3 minute break I got between them. After about 4-5 of these contractions I informed my nurse that "whenever that epidural decided to find its way into my room I'd be ok with it!". She got my IV going and called the anesthesiologist. At 3:15 Dr. Seamus Malloy came into my room and boy was I glad to see him! If you would have told me 5 years ago whether I'd be excited to have a man put a catheter into my spine via a super-sized needle I wouldn't have believed it. But that is one of the BEST feelings ever. So. After that I was feeling much better. Then it just became a waiting game. At 4am, I got a surprise visit from my doctor. I wasn't expecting to see her until morning, but she had been called in for a delivery. So she checked me and I was at 7cm and my bags of water were "bulging" (meaning about to break). So she decided to go ahead and break them. She told me she'd be back around breakfast to deliver me. My oxygen was getting low, so I had to wear a lovely oxygen mask on and off for the next couple hours. Chip loved how attractive I looked in it and wanted to remember it forever........


Here he is...just waiting......

So....at around 6am my nurse checked me and I was at 10! YAY! But Ryken was still REALLY high up, so they decided to let my contractions push him down for awhile.

A little after 7am, my doctor showed up. She sat on the bed and had me do some "practice pushing". For pushing, they like you to push for 10 counts, and you can usually get at least 3-4 sets of 10 counts in during each contraction. So she told me that for practice she wanted me to do 3 sets of 10. I pushed the first 10 count and got to 5 of the 2nd one and she told me I had to stop. They got the bed all ready and she got her gown on. While she was doing this she told me I'd have a baby during the next contraction. I didn't believe her.

She told me to push again on the next contraction. I did 2 sets of 10.......and then she said "ok...now only push half as much". So I did about 5 small "half pushes" and OUT HE CAME at 7:32am! (Kenzie was born at 2:32pm...I thought it was cool they were both at 32's!)



It was incredible. The two nurses just kept telling me how perfect it was : ) It was a really neat and different experience from when I delivered Kenzie. With Kenzie, her cord was wrapped around her neck twice and then around her leg, so my doctor had to cut her cord in order for her to be able to come out. They took her away from me right away because she wasn't breathing very well and they had to suction her out and get her to start crying. I knew that her delivery was a little bit abnormal, but I didn't realize how amazing it was when the baby came out ok and not needing the extra attention! Everything was so relaxed with Ryken. He came out and they put him on me. My doctor took her time cutting the cord. I got to keep him right there for several minutes before they cleaned him up, and even at that point they took him and cleaned him at my request, not theirs.

Here we are with my incredible doctor. I am so glad that she has gotten to deliver me both times!



So....that was how my labor and delivery went with Ryken Chip. It was great : ) I will post more about the rest of his birthday another time (hopefully soon!).