A long, but Beautiful story! (Re-Post due to Error)

I am typically a lurker, but I wanted to give you all something to prepare you for what's to come. 

Teyla has made her way into the world all on her own! She was born at the Camp Pendleton Naval Hospital on September 14th, 2009 at 12:34 pm. She weighed 8 lbs and 7 oz. and 19.75 inches long! She was 9 days early! The day came and went so quickly, as did the rest of the week following her debut. Just to give everyone a cut and dry version of how the exciting day went down, here you go:

Sunday was typical, except I was somewhat having some awkward leaking not common for me around 6:00pm. But, I decided to wait since I was having an OB appointment on the 14th in the afternoon. I started to worry when the small leaking became a small gush around 11:00 pm. I called Labor and Delivery just for some guidance. They said if it continued to the point that I was filling a pad in an hour, call back. Well by midnight, it had filled that pad and was starting to have a red tint to it. Of course they insisted we come in to be evaluated, but not to rush, and take our time. Well we live 45 minutes away, so that was easy to do. Mick had just come to bed 30 minutes before I made the call, so he was groggy at first when I gave him the wake up call.

I took a shower and Mick loaded up the car, just in case they wanted to admit us for whatever reasons, going into labor definitely did not cross my mind as one of the top reasons. Well, since this whole experience was new to me, I was unsure if I was experiencing any contractions, but as we we driving to the hospital, I thought I might have been contracting every 6 minutes or so, and just to be safe, I watched the clock. We arrived at the hospital at around 2:00am, and they set us up in the triage room and monitored me and Teyla and the contractions (which were indeed contractions). After the initial assessment, the doc came in and did an exam. Now keep in mind, I came in for leaking fluid. We he did his exam and needless to say, my water broke on its own and I was already 4 cm dilated!!!! Can you believe that! I thought, wow, you would have thought that I might have notice contractions that had me dilate to 4 cm already, but I didn't until after midnight. We definitely were having a baby!

We lucked out this night because there was only one other women that was being monitored and she had been there for awhile. The nurses were happy to have us since I was showing progression already and I just got there. Our first nurse was awesome! She got us all set up and informed of what was going on. Gave us options for pain meds since I was already 4 cm and that was the special number to get meds. I was feeling great at the time, so I denied them, but kept the window open. Of course, once we were all hooked up, talked too and waiting, the phone calls were made. It was 3:00am by this time and everyone was excited! Everyone thought I was so calm for being in labor, but hey what can I say, I'm a laid back kinda lady.

Around 5:00am the contractions were coming 3 minutes apart and pretty intense. I thought to myself that I would rather be comfortable and less stressed out if I have some pain meds. I asked the nurse for the epidural and she said the anesthesiologist was in surgery and would be awhile. I said that was fine because I was doing OK on my own, but knew eventually it would be needed. I waited and waited for about 45 minutes and no epidural yet. I was becoming a bit of a whiner as Mick put it so I asked for some IV pain meds, just to take the edge off. I had it within 10 minutes and once it kicked in, I was able to have a break in between contractions which I was having pretty bad back labor. But the IV meds did not take away the pain from the contractions. The nurses said that I was progressing wonderfully on my own at this point and could see that I would not need any Pitocin to get my contractions to come more frequently.

By 6:00am the shift change came and the Fentyal IV pain meds had worn off. I asked my nurse if the epidural was going to happen soon since they said he would be an hour and it had come and gone. She said that he was just called into an emergency C-Section and would be another hour. I asked if I could get another dose of the IV pain meds, which was given to me by the new nurse that replaced the night nurse I had.

I was Ok once it kicked in, but was kinda ready for the epidural. Once that wore off, Adrianne, a co-worker, stopped by to say good morning. I had sent her a text message telling her I wouldn't be coming in to work. She made the hour go by quickly chatting with us. They Fentyal wore off an hour later, no epidural yet, and poor Adrianne had to sit there watching me through contractions, breathing funny and everything. She left and it was just Mick and I again.

I asked the nurse how much longer the anesthesiologist was going to be, and she said another 30 minutes or so, I said Ok. We finally had the epidural around 8:30 am or so, and I was having really strong contractions by this time, that holding still was almost impossible, but the doctor managed to get the little guy in. Everything kicked in around 9:00 am, my nurse had the doctor check me to see how I was progressing, and can you believe it, I was 9 cm, + 1 and 100% efface! Wow, that went fast!

The epidural made everything so much nicer. I couldn't feel anything except the peak of my contractions. But, I had enough feeling in my legs that I could lift them up with ease, and still feel the pressure that gave me feeling to push when ready too. This is the ideal feeling you want to have with an epidural because you can tell when to push. 3 hours later, the nurse and the doctor check me and Teyla hadn't moved from the last check, but they had me do a trial push to see if there was any movement. Well, when the next contraction came, I pushed and the doctor liked the movement. Time for some active pushing to commence.

The labor nurse was awesome, since I hadn't any birthing classes, she told me how to push and what I needed to feel and focus on. I had the breathing down because that was the most important thing in relaxation during labor. I pushed for 35 minutes and had made good progress, Mick was assisting with one of my legs, while the nurse held the other one. All was going exactly the way they wanted. I could feel her moving down the canal! The nurse went to get the doctor to tell him that Teyla was one her way. The doctor gowned up and the baby nurses came in preparing everything for Teyla's arrival. We pushed through 3 more contractions and by the 4th one, her head finally emerged with the shoulders and everything else to follow. I asked them to take her to the warmer and had Mick go watch her get cleaned up! Everything was so surreal after that! The doctor delivered the placenta no more then two minutes later and had me all stitched up before Teyla was done. I had a minor tear, nothing to bad, but that was it! Everything was great! We were out of labor and delivery by 4:00 pm! 

I hope my story helps some of you new mothers out there, because I know reading the birth stories helped me!! Good luck to all of you!