I was having pregnancy dreams. This was nothing new, however this time I was dreaming about contractions. I was watching people and even objects have contractions. I woke up at 2:45am and realized that contractions weren't just in my dreams. I was having contractions! Real, strong ones. I timed a couple and found them to be about 4 minutes apart. We took a birthing class before Parker was born where we learned that you should head to the hospital when contractions come every 5 minutes, they last for at least a minute and you have them for an hour. I was too excited to sleep, so I went downstairs, ate some fruit and then took a shower. Justin woke up to me having contractions in the shower. He asked if he should call my parents to come watch Parker. I said to wait. He ignored me and called them anyways. This was a good call! By the time my parents arrived, I wasn't able to talk through my contractions and was getting pretty uncomfortable. This showed me that this labor was going to be much faster than Parker's. For Parker, I was able to talk through contractions for several hours before they got too intense. We had just enough time to pack up. I tiptoed into Parker's room and said a prayer for him. It was a surreal moment to realize this was the last time I'd spend with him as an only child.
We arrived at the hospital at 4:30 and were admitted to a triage room by 5am. They checked the baby's heart rate, timed my contractions and found that I was 4-5centimeters dilated. They moved me to the labor/delivery room at 5:15. At this point, I was fairly uncomfortable and the nurse offered me to get an epidural. My goal was to be on my feet to help things progress as long as I could, so I turned down the epidural but accepted a narcotic to "take the edge off". This was very helpful lasted about an hour. Hadley was pushing on my tail bone causing back labor. Justin had to hold and press my hips inward during contractions to take some of the pressure off. His arms were burning pretty quickly! The narcotic wore off by 6:00 and I was in pain but pushed through. By 7:40 I was in a great deal of pain. When I cried during a contraction, Justin told the nurse to ask the anesthesiologist for the epidural. I'm glad he did! I was 7cm when I got the epidural at 8:15. I was able to calm down and relax in bed to prepare to push.
The nurse told us that Dr. Nelson, our OB was not officially on call today, but that she found out it was us and wanted to deliver our baby. We were so grateful to her! We really wanted her to be the one to deliver Hadley since we felt so comfortable with her and she delivered Parker. She came in and broke my water at 9am when I was 8cm dilated. At 10:00 I was 10cm dilated. The epidural relaxed my body so much that they slowed my contractions. Dr. Nelson gave me pitocin to make the contractions stronger. At 11:45 I started pushing. We could see the top of Hadley's head fairly quickly. I heard the doctor and nurse discussing which part of the head it was. That's when they realized Hadley was face up, rather than the normal face down entry. This is what had caused the back labor. 15 minutes in, I started to feel a lot of pain. The nurse confessed to the doctor that she thought the baby would be out by now, so she turned off the epidural. The medication was locked up and we didn't have time to get the anesthesiologist. This meant I had to deliver the baby rest of the way with pain. I ended up getting a 2nd degree episiotomy (I did get a local anesthetic for this). I had my eyes closed to manage a contraction when Dr. Nelson and Justin told me to open my eyes. Hadley's head and shoulders were out! Since she was face up, we got a wonderful view of our daughter for the first time. Dr. Nelson told me to deliver her myself. I grabbed my girl and pulled her to my chest. Justin and I were immediately overcome with emotion. Our baby had arrived!
We welcomed Hadley Jean at 12:16pm on Friday, June 7th 2013. She weighed 7 pounds 4 ounces and was 20 inches long. She's perfectly healthy and gorgeous with a head of dark brown hair and deep blue eyes.
Later that afternoon, we started to have family visit. We were extremely excited for Parker to meet his sister. He arrived with a balloon and pink teddy bear for Hadley. He was really excited about the yellow balloon that Grandpa and Grandma got him. Parker also was excited about the buttons and tv in the hospital room. He sat with me on the bed before Justin brought him over to the bassinet that Hadley was sleeping in. Parker said, "Baby, night night" then, "pet". He wanted to pet and tickle his sister. He did but was done about 20 seconds later. After exploring the room and cuddling with me, he wanted to hold the baby. We helped him hold Hadley on my lap. Parker gave his sister a kiss and then was done. The attention span of a toddler!
