Labor & Delivery

Delivery of McKay:

Walking into the hospital!  We were so excited...

Waiting for our little guy to arrive.  I have a wonderful husband...

All of our visitors.  They had a little party in our room with pizza and card games!

My last few days of pregnancy went pretty well.  I felt great.  I even worked at my dental office on my due date, Tuesday August 30th.  I woke up on Wednesday August 31st just in time for my 7:30 AM doctor appointment.  Needless to say, I looked really cute; I figured I would go to my appointment, hear the same news (no progression), than I could go home and get ready for the day.  Just as expected the first part of my appointment went as predicted.  I was checked; the baby was great but not ready to come.  We discussed Dr. Lunt leaving out of town for the next week, and he wrote in my chart, “Scheduled to be induced on September 8th”.  All things considered, I was in pretty good spirits.  As I was getting ready to leave, Dr. Lunt asked if I would like to do a “more involved” baby stress test monitoring, just to be thorough.  I was thrilled to have another ultrasound!  As we got started, the ultrasound technician got a concerned look on her face and asked, “So do you have your bags packed for the hospital, because I think your going to be having this baby today.  The doctor needs to come in and verify, but your amniotic fluid is extremely low.”  While waiting for the doctor, I went in the waiting room and called Logan.  He thought I was completely kidding when I told him the news.  I guess I was quite funny to watch during this time.  To my surprise, two of my pregnant girlfriends were in the waiting room for their appointments.  I was so glad they were there.  I kept announcing to everyone, “I’m going to have a baby today!” I was quite excited, but quite surprised. Normally your fluid level should be at a ten and mine was only at a four.  I had an “expired placenta” and the baby wasn’t receiving enough nutrients.  Dr. Lunt told me to quickly go over the hospital.  To Logan’s dislike, I was determined to go home and wash my hair first before going the hospital.  We arrived at the hospital at 11:45 AM.  A nurse walked me straight to my room and waited for me as I put on my ugly gown.  Within minutes I had an IV and Pitocin (a labor inducing drug).  By 12:30, Dr. Lunt broke my water.  It was crazy how quickly everything was going.  I started to feel pretty strong contractions and so I opted for an epidural.  Oh how grateful I am for modern medicine!  Being on Pitocin, I was supposed to dilate one centimeter an hour.  I was quite excited when I got to a five since no one in my family had progressed that far.  However, by 6:00 PM I was still only at a five.  Dr. Lunt said we were at a deciding factor between being able to up the Pitocin levels, or contemplating a possible cesarean section.  Pitocin levels can only be administered at 20 units without an internal monitor (Or else you can possibly risk bursting your uterus).  An internal monitor checks to see how strong your uterus in contracting.  To birth a child, they like your uterus to be contracting at 200.  Good news for me, mine was only contracting at 116.  I was able to up the Pitocin!  It was turned up many times before I finally reached 200.  (Normal amount is 20 units, and I was at 42 units before I finally dilated to a ten!)  To sum it all up, I had a wussy uterus and would have never been able to birth a child without medical intervention…  I am so blessed to live at this time with medical advancements!  At 11:30 PM, I was finally told “You’re baby has hair!”  I was so excited.  Since I didn’t have much hair at birth, I figured he wouldn’t either.  At this moment, I thought the baby was going to be delivered with minutes.  Little did I know, I still had hours of pushing!  I had an amazing doctor, great nurses, and a wonderful husband helping me throughout the process.  At 2:12 AM, McKay was born.  Being so exhausted and not quite thinking straight, Logan was quite surprised to see how big McKay’s head was.  In Logan’s words, “For hours I saw this little head and kept thinking, man it’s small- why doesn’t he just come out.  After he was born and I saw how funnel shaped his head was, I realized why it took so long!”  We love our little boy!