I was scheduled to get induced Wednesday night (May 1st). Since I knew Adam was going to take a ton of videos and pictures and I knew when I was going into the hospital I took my time that day showering and shaving and doing my hair and make up. I had had a couple small what I thought were braxton hicks contractions that night and then they stopped. At my last doctor's appointment I asked if I started labor on my own when should I go in and he told me when they were five minutes apart for about an hour and they were a minute long. At One o'clock that afternoon I started having contractions on my own, I wasn't sure at first because they felt nothing like what I thought a contraction would feel like, they were completely in my hips and I thought it would feel like a muscle spasm like when you get a charlie horse in your leg but it felt like a dull ache. Well, my contractions started off at five minutes apart, they didn't build up to it. So at about 1:20 I told Adam "I think I'm having contractions," and I think they are five minutes apart. So very calmly we both started packing up our bags, throwing out the trash, putting the car seat in the car and we took pictures and video before we left.
When we got to the hospital I told them I was scheduled to be induced but had gone into labor on my own. They said okay have a seat and we will get a nurse for you. So we sat down and waited about 15 minutes. Turns out the doctors office didn't tell the hospital I was going to get induced so it was a good thing I went into labor on my own because we would have spent the whole night waiting for the hospital to call us to come in . A nurse finally came in and took us to a room, by this time it was 3 o'clock and I was having contractions every 3 to 4 minutes. I got into the gown, got onto the bed and she hooked up two monitors to my belly. One to hear the baby's heart beat and the other to monitor my contractions. I was dilated to about a 3.5. Not long after this I started having to breathe through my contractions (hee hee whooo, hee hee whoo). Adam was a great coach, he was so calm and held my hand when I needed it and told me how to breathe (and took a million videos). We were able to have the nurse who taught our 3rd trimester class so it was nice to see a familiar face. At about 5 o'clock the nurse said they were going to have the doctor come in to break my water, a couple minutes later I felt what could only be described as a really hard kick and then gushing water. It really did gush, it didn't leak. So I told the nurse "I think my water broke," sure enough it had broken on it's own and then my contractions started coming every minute apart and they started getting pretty intense. I told the nurse I was ready for an epidural but he was in a c-section procedure at the moment. While we waited the nurse gave me an IV pain killer which helped to dull the pain but it also made me really sleepy and I couldn't keep my eyes open so I talked to everyone with my eyelids closed. When the anesthesiologist arrived he started telling me what would happen and the risks and I was still having contractions so I would start to breathe through them and he would say "I'm just gonna keep talking," so I would nod and just keep breathing. When he finished talking I got into position, and kept having contractions. "You're having another contraction?" Why did you wait so long?" I didn't. My labor progressed really fast for my first baby. The epidural was amazing, it worked perfectly. I was able to really relax and this may seem weird but I enjoyed the rest of my labor.
I spiked a fever and my nurse said it was from my water breaking so I'm glad it didn't break before I went into labor because I could have gotten one of those infections they warn you about. So I had a wash cloth on my forehead and they gave me antibiotics and lots of fluids.
At about 6:30 my nurse said I was almost 10cm dilated and fully effaced so I would start to feel pressure soon and then it would be time to push but she was switching with another nurse so she would update her on my condition. When the new nurse got there at 7 I told her I was feeling A LOT of pressure. It seemed like she wasn't taking me seriously because this was my first baby and they didn't think that I would progress so fast so she took forever to check me. When she finally did she realized I was fully dilated and she called the doctor who was not at the hospital and told him to come in . Then she told Adam and I that we would start to push until the baby was crowning and then wait til the doctor got there. So we got ready and we pulled my legs back and she goes "STOP," you're already crowning. We waited 45 minutes after that for the doctor to get there at which point they got everything set up and I got ready to push.
"Okay Leslie, deep breath in and bare down for 10 seconds, take a deep breath in and do it again." So I pushed twice for ten seconds and her head came out, along with the biggest gush of fluid with a TON of pressure that literally sprayed everyone around me (sorry for the visual). Then, I threw up and as I threw up, Olivia came the rest of the way out (with a lot more fluid). All in all, I pushed for LESS than a minute and I was in labor from 1:00 to 7:58. When she came out all I heard was "oh how weird, take a picture" This did not make me feel good, I thought she had like an extra finger or something. Turns out her umbilical cord was wrapped figure 8 style around both her ankles. They let Adam cut the cord and in the video you can see that as soon as he cuts it, Olivia goes completely limp. Then I hear "call the special care nursery." They took her over to the incubator and suctioned her out and took her vitals. She was perfectly fine, the doctor said that she spent so little time in the birth canal being pushed out that it didn't allow everything in her lungs to be squeezed out. So after they suctioned it all she was just fine. They then placed her on my chest and I got to see my little girl for the first time. She's perfect, she had dark brown hair (not a lot but it was there) and the cutest dimple on her right cheek. They say it's love at first sight and it is but, it was also so surreal, it didn't seem possible that this was the little creature that had been living inside me for the past 9 months and that she was now all mine and that I would be a Mom for the rest of my life. She is so beautiful. I can't stop staring at her. She smiled for her first picture taken with us and the doctor.
*Adam's Point of view*
So I finished my last final for the Spring semester on Tuesday morning. So Tuesday night, I was enjoying my video game, NBA 2K11 to celebrate another semester ending, and I remember Leslie saying she thought she was having contractions. I was like they'll probably go away, plus I didn't want to stop playing my game cause I was killin' it on My Player Mode! :P
So Wednesday came and we had breakfast, and we watched some Netflix together for awhile. Then I remember Leslie saying something around 11AM or 12PM that she was going to start getting ready for the day. I was think maybe she was feeling some contractions, but she didn't say she was so I decided to start playing some NBA 2K again. I played one game, and then I ate some lunch. By the time I finished eating, Leslie came out and said she was starting to feel what she thought was contractions. So I was like well, did you time them like the doctor said? She said she'd been timing them for about 20 minutes, and they were every 5 minutes. So I thought, "well that's enough evidence for me to start getting everything together." So I told Leslie to get finished getting ready while I got everything together.
Once we got everything together, I wanted to document with some pictures and videos before going to the hospital, and Leslie was a great sport and smiled through it all! She's the cutest pregnant woman ever! :)
Anyway, we got to the hospital, and they were like, "oh, this is your first baby. Ok, take a seat while we get a nurse assigned to you." I was like you mean you don't just throw us into a room?! ha ha Well I was like that fine, but we waited there in the hall for about 15 minutes which made me a little mad, but I just wanted to stay calm for Leslie and Olivia. They gave us a room, and then our first nurse hooked Leslie all up, so we could hear Olivia's heartbeat and the contractions. I thought it was pretty cool! I got some videos of it and everything. :) But I was a little nervous about our nurse cause she wasn't very personable, and she didn't really tell us what she was doing, so it was kind of awkward. BUT we were pretty pumped to discover when our nurse came back in that it wasn't the same one! The second nurse was our 3rd trimester class teacher! She was on call and they called her in because they had three more girls walk in after us, all within the hour! So we felt pretty blessed to have an awesome nurse now, and we get there before "the rush." :) Well we were there for about 2 hours, and our nurse came in and said our doctor wanted to break Leslie's water to get things going faster. And no joke, it couldn't have been longer than a few minutes, Leslie said, "Whoa! (with a weird look on her face) I think my water just broke!" The Nurse and I were like no way... cause she just talked about breaking her water. I think Olivia heard and thought, "Oh you're not sticking anything up here that can potentially poke me!" and then she gave a swift kick and POP! :P
So once that happened, Leslie's contractions got really intense! So I started to help her breathe, and I was very happy that she was listening to me. I was a little sad cause I had a cough still, so I could breathe with her, but Leslie still did what I was telling her. Which I believe focused her mind on something besides the pain. But the contractions started becoming 2 minutes apart and lasting for about a minute or just shy of that, so I could tell she was starting to get tired. The anesthesiologist was busy in a C-section, so after Leslie asked for the epidural, she had to wait for almost an hour! I did get worried after they gave her a pain reliever while waiting cause she was already tired, and now she was acting like she couldn't open her eyes. But I think I kept it pretty cool on the outside... plus I just goof around a lot, it lessens any tension.
Well the epidural finally came, and then Leslie started getting a fever, so they mentioned infection. I thought, "well you better give her something!" but once again just kept my cool, and talked to Leslie since she had the epidural now and was just enjoying the moment. I told her to go to sleep since we were probably going to start pushing soon and that could tire her out fast. So she listened to me and probably only slept for about 30 minutes before we were interrupted by our nurse.
At about 7PM, we had a nurse change and she was nice, but we missed our second nurse cause we had an emotional connection with her. So our 3rd nurse said, "Well I'm going to check you, and then I'll tell the doctor and we'll probably start pushing." So she checked, and left for about 10 minutes. During that 10 minutes, we heard some weird stuff coming from our monitor which I actually got on camera, and we had forgotten about until we watched it when we got home. But I think it was Olivia moving down the canal. Anyway, at the time we didn't think anything of it. So our nurse came back in and said,"OK, time to push." She got all ready, and then she grabbed one leg, and I grabbed the other and pulled them back. "OK, let's put her legs down." Me - "Is that the head?!" Nurse - "Yep! I'm going to call the doctor and get him hear cause she's ready to come out!" This is when excitement hit, I was like alright! Olivia is here any minute now!
Well 15 minutes went by... Nurse - "Doctor will be here shortly." While two more people came in with her. One was another doctor, and the other was a resident. Me- "wait, are they delivering the baby?" Nurse - "No, there just here in case the baby decides to come on her own or if there are any complications with momma or baby." I thought, "Oh, they're just covering their butts cause they didn't expect Leslie to be so bad A and move along so quickly. This is my wife, she's not the norm." :) Yeah, I'm pretty pridefully about Leslie's performance and calm demeanor, if you can't tell.
Come to find out, our doctor wasn't even at the hospital because he wanted dinner and didn't think Leslie would move along so quickly. So he didn't show up until 7:45PM. He got everything out and ready, which took about 10 minutes... so as you can tell from the date of birth at 7:58PM, Leslie didn't even have to push very long.
Now since I was holding a leg, I had another nurse film for me. I wanted the whole birth filmed at Leslie's head... well since Leslie only bore down twice and Olivia's head popped out, and sprayed everyone (which was freaking awesome!), we didn't get that part filmed. It caught everyone by surprise! Then the nurse with the camera finally realized the baby was coming out she hit play, so I got some good footage of Olivia coming out of momma! I'm sure she will cherish that when she's older... maybe not teenage years... probably more like in adulthood. :P
Her legs were wrapped by the cord in a figure 8 style which everyone in the room thought was pretty cool. Maybe she'll be a gymnast or dancer with those moves in the womb. :P She was a very active baby in there! She was so beautiful even with all the white, slippery stuff all over her and looking like a smurf (blue). I was so excited to see Olivia, and proud of Leslie's performance with it all. Talk about a full spectrum of different emotions at that time! I wanted to hold her so bad, but she had to be cleaned and her lungs needed to be suctioned since she flew out of mom (and didn't get the natural squeeze of fluid out of her lungs). I wasn't worried about her though, there were a lot of professionals there working on her. Olivia seemed very happy on Leslie's chest, so I got some good pictures and videos. Then I finally got to hold her! She was just looking at me, and it was all surreal. Thinking, "This is our baby. I'm a dad?! Crazy!" Yes, Love at first site... before I even held her though; holding her just made it more real.
That night, I tried to eat; I only could muster half a sandwich. I tried to sleep; the excitement was too intense. I tried to sleep on the extra bed; it was too stiff. I ended up sleeping in the hospital bed with my two favorite girls in the whole world; marking the best moment of my life! Of course, equally matched with marrying Leslie in the St. George Temple for Time and Eternity. I'm sure there's many more Best Moments to come.
Thanks for taking the time to read!
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