Marc and Amber: The Adventures that are Our Journey: We had a baby!

Continuing this as my journal, I should probably write that we had a baby.

Our little Kendra decided she wasn't in any hurry to come into the world. At a week late we decided we would just go ahead and induce labor. We planned to go in at 7 o'clock in the morning but she decided she wanted to come in her own time. I was finishing some things and didn't go to bed until a little after midnight, and contractions started at 1 a.m. So after three hours of contractions we decided to go into the hospital a little early.

We got to the hospital about 4 in the morning and are wonderful midwife, Annie Overson (DNP), met us there. At the hospital we worked through the contractions and walked and walked but around 10 AM, or maybe noon, I was still only dilated to about a 3. We decided to start an epidural and pitocin. Epidural caused my blood pressure to drop about 75/ 47 ish, which of course, caused me to get very dizzy, throw up and almost pass out. But the team was right there to put stuff in my IV which made life much better. Unfortunately the epidural completely numbed my left side but left some feeling in the right side. I could feel each contraction sharply in the right side of my uterus and back. After what seemed like a couple hours, but I don't remember now how long, the anesthesiologist came back and numbed everything up really well.

At this point they wanted to put a monitor on Kendra's head because her heart rate was spiking. But I asked for a few minutes to just rest before they did that since it was the first time in many hours that I hadn't I had intense pain with each contraction. It was the first time I actually felt comfortable. They gave me 20 minutes, and I had a fantastic nap, and then they came in to add the monitor. In those 20 minutes I had dilated almost from my 3 to a 5. This was really exciting , because I hadn't been dilating. After that we waited a comparably short time and I was dilated to a nine going on 10.

At this point the epidural was starting to wear off again starting at the top of my uterus. The anesthesiologist said he could add more, but it was about time to start pushing and it would be better not to be completely numb. So we just went forward with the pushing. Once again I could feel every contraction, but getting to push with it made it more bearable. I pushed for an hour and a half before Kendra decided to join us. The whole time I was trying to think of ways to give up. But since I really didn't want a c-section, it turns out there was no giving up. Her head came out face up which I guess makes it a little more difficult, but she was healthy and doing great. She had lots of curly dark hair, which is now pretty light and straight.

Annie was fantastic through the whole thing and though it was a very long labor, she stayed upbeat and encouraging the whole time. She even managed to coach during the pushing so that I didn't tear or need any stitches.

(This picture was actually at my two week check-up)

It was so great to meet our little girl! I think Marc was more worn out than I was, but he did a great job to stand by us the whole time and even hold my throw up bag.