Mackenzie's Birthday

Well, I've now been home for about a week and a half and I am starting to get more accustomed to the lack of sleep, etc....So, I figured it's about time to start blogging about the events of her life so far!

On Sept. 3rd (one day before her due date), I had my regularly scheduled doctor's appointment. Brannon took off work and picked me up, and I really didn't feel like anything was going to happen (no contractions felt), so I decided not to bring my suitcase with me. I figured that would be disappointing to bring it and then be sent back home. Brannon had planned to get the suitcase anyways, but we were running late, so when he got home I rushed out the door and he forgot. (Needless to say, if you don't bring it.....that's when you'll need it!)

At the doctor's office, when the doctor checked me - I was 3.5 cm dilated. Sounds good, but without contractions, we would still have to wait.... However, as she finished she said she felt some wetness and thought my water may have broken. So, when I sat up....sure enough - it had broken!! So, off we were sent to the hospital across the street. It was rush hour.....so no time to get my bags :( (However, our friends Ashley and Scott came and got the key to our house and went and retrieved it for us!! Thanks guys!!)

We got checked into the room by 5pm (about an hour later) and the contractions were just starting. I wanted to wait a bit to get the epidural in case that slowed down the labor. By about 7, I'd had enough and wanted the epidural. And by 7:30, I was feeling much better. However, the actual sticking of the epidural was interesting. Apparently the guy was new (the nurse asked him b/c she hadn't seen him before), and it took two tries to get a good stick. The first time he made my foot jump and get tingly - and his response was it's okay if it went away...??? Then, he didn't like what he saw, so he said he'd have to do it again. I was a little freaked out having something stuck in my spine under those circumstances, but I survived!

As the evening wore on, I progressed pretty quickly and by midnight I was 9cm dilated and my doctor thought we'd be pushing in about an hour. Well, many things started to not go so well. My epidural kept wearing off/not being strong enough and they had to call the anethesiologist back multiple times to up the dosage (the last time, he took an hour and I was in ALOT of pain). On top of that, I was running a fever and they tried multiple things to bring it down and didn't want me to push until they could bring it down. After tylenol and two bags of IV antibiotics, it was still there and the baby's heartbeat was increasing due to my fever. They then took my blood to get the type in case of a c-section and Brannon was upset because I was at 10cm by this point and we hadn't even tried to push. They said it was just in case they needed to do the c-section quickly if things didn't go well and her heartrate got too high while I was pushing. Plus, she hadn't dropped all the way down yet even though I was at 10cm, so they didn't know how well the pushing would go.

SO, at 6:15am (many, many hours after I was at 10cm), they finally let me start pushing. I pushed for about an hour and a half and at 7:48am she was born. Brannon was not queasy at all (as some of you knew we were worried about his ability to watch the whole thing!) and watched every moment and cut the cord. He was thrilled!! As was I :) And he was just amazed at the whole process saying it was the most amazing thing he'd ever seen!