Evelyn's Arrival

DECEMBER 29th, 2015

5:00am - I woke up with some Braxton hicks and wasn't able to go back to sleep. They were strong enough where I had to stand and walk through them. They weren't painful, just uncomfortable. 

I continued to have BH all day long. 1-2 every hour. They didn't seem to get stronger or even increase so I didn't think too much of it. (We were two weeks out from her due date)

5:30pm - We went to Costa Vida for dinner. At one point I left the table mid conversation to sway through a contraction in the bathroom. I had another as we were leaving, still nothing too painful, but they were getting a little closer.

Afterwards we went to Walmart and grabbed some last minute things, ya know,in case baby girl came that weekend or something...haha

7:00pm - The doula we were planning on going with gave us the assignment to pre register at the hospital before our next meeting so we did that before heading home. 

We did our normal bedtime routine. I took a bath to see if the BH would go away, they didn't. We finished packing our hospital bags and watched some Office episodes.

10:30pm - When we got into bed my BH started wrapping around my back and getting more intense. I was worried the contractions were going to keep me up all night and I wouldn't have enough energy for the next day with Weston so I asked Chris for a blessing of comfort. See how I still wasn't convinced I was in LABOR?! 

11:00pm - I walked back and forth through our kitchen and living room. I told Chris we might need to call someone to watch Wes tonight just in case I was in labor. The third family we called answered and so kindly agreed to let Wes spend the night last minute. They saved our booties. 

DECEMBER 30th, 2015

12:30am - I was (very) vocal at this point and contractions were about 4 1/2 minutes apart. I realized that they progressively got closer while I walked so I knelt on the ground and let my upper body lay on the couch..... Because I thought that would slow labor to a stop and I could get back into bed and go to sleep.  I stayed in that position for about 10-15 minutes and had to stand up. Chris asked if he needed to call the doula (we were pretty late in the doula game and had only had one consutation with her) but I couldn't think about anything so the question was just left unanswered...

12:50am - Chris left to drop Wes off. 

During the 10-15 minutes Chris was gone my contractions went from 4 1/2 minutes apart to 1 1/2. I started to semi panick that I would have a car baby. I drug(literally) our hospital bags to the garage door so right when Chris walked in we could leave. 

1:00am - We were on the road to the hospital! When we got into the car I could hardly speak through the contractions but I said to Chris "no lights" trying to communicate that I wanted him to not stop for any red lights.... I should have said something like "no stop" because Chris took me very literal and avoided all the stop lights to get us to the hospital, haha. Luckily Rexburg is tiny and it was the middle of the night so we still made it there quickly.

When we pulled up I had one contraction between the car door and the hospital doors. 

Aka: we stood in the -10 degree night air for a minute while I screamed through a contraction. 

1:20ish - The first question we were asked was "Are you wanting an epidural?" I said a confident " YES." With Weston's birth I didn't plan on getting an epidural, but I did. The break was REALLY nice but I didn't like how I felt overall. So for Evelyn's birth I had the no epidural goal again, but the break from contractions was sounding really nice. 

The nurse checked me and announced I was at a 7. She said by the time the epidural kicked in we would already have a baby. So it looked like I was getting the labor I wanted whether I wanted it or not, haha. I was in the strangest haze/mindset. Even though the contractions were extremely strong(the nurse told me to stop yelling at one point) and I was obviously in labor, I still thought in the back of my mind that the labor would slow down enough for us to be sent back home. I was delirious. Clearly.

Since we were the only ones there that night we had four nurses all to ourselves. They were AMAZING. After they got the IV all hooked up they helped me labor on the ground in the shower with the yoga ball, it might sound strange but it helped a great deal. The night called on a lot of involvement from Chris and he was the bomb. He stayed calm and did what I needed. He was even nice to me when I was bratty and in pain. The man has patience. I love him.

2:20ish - Chris and the nurses helped me back in bed, Dr. Codd arrived and it was time to push.

2:52am - Evelyn was born. 5 pounds 7 ounces. Our itty bitty baby was here!

I'm so glad we had the experience we did. I'm also glad we got there too late for the epidural, the recovery was much more forgiving this time around.