Kaiya's birth day

On our way to the hospital we were joking about making this day of labor and delivery like an episode of 24 thinking that it would be a long drawn out process. Little did we know the plan for our day would be completely the opposite of that!!


My doctor had kindly scheduled me for an induction, I say that because after 6 weeks of being in the first stage of labor I was ready to move on. All the walks, teas, jumping jacks and running around the baseball infield was not making labor happen any faster. She wanted us to be prepared though, that even though I was going to be induced we could still be sent home after 24 hrs. if nothing was changing.


We arrived a little late..around 6:10, which was fine as it is the night shift that checks you in and then the day shift (7 am) that gets things started. The nice thing about having a set time was that we were rested (somewhat, someone was setting off fireworks in the park until midnight) and we had eaten breakfast. Compared to my first labor this was already a huge plus. The plan was to start the pitocin at 2 mL/hr and up it every half hour in order to get the contractions stronger and consistent at 5 min apart. And so we began.





At 8 am the pitocin was started along with saline which as it turns out, gave Kaiya and me a nice round puffy look for the next few days...:O)





At 8:30 am the dose was upped to 4 mL/hr. Not much change and these were the same strength as I had been feeling at home. Not really painful, just a bit uncomfortable.








The bottom black line shows the strength and length of contractions. The red line on top is trying to keep track of Kaiya's heartbeat and movement.


At 9:00 am I was going to ask the RN to keep the pitocin at that level to see if the contractions would keep going without much help, but my water broke! So then the painful, horrible, real contractions kicked in.


This is the part I thought would be long and drawn out. But, at 10:18 am Kaiya was born!




She was very blue at first, apparently she had been a little stressed flying out so fast, but gave a big hearty cry and by 1 min her first APGAR score was 9! At 5 min it was a 10. There was a baby team in there initially to help with her entrance into this world in case she had inhaled the meconium, but they must not have stayed there long because I never even saw them. She was doing great!




We had been praying for a safe and smooth labor and delivery and God definitely granted us that! I had energy after and was just amazed all day that it was over and done with so quickly. According to the RN I wasn't really induced, just nudged, since we only had to turn it up once. :O)