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Before I get ahead of myself, I should probably start at the beginning. It was 3 am on October 18, 2015. I started to experience contractions. They weren't that painful, but they sure were making me excited! This meant that the baby was going to come relatively soon! I would finally not have to be pregnant for many more days. I didn't sleep all that well the last couple weeks of this pregnancy anyway, so being awake through the contractions wasn't all that inconvenient. As I watched the clock, the contractions seemed to be 8-14 minutes apart.
With Brody and Bonnie, I was hooked up to Pitocin in order to get labor going. Therefore, Jeff and I were pretty laid back about these contractions that I was experiencing. "Eh, I don't think it's labor. I wouldn't worry about it," I'd tell Jeff when he asked what I thought. So we didn't worry. I didn't feel well, just kind of sick, and low energy. It was Stake Conference that day, so we stayed home from church, watched the Seahawks lose another game, and spent a lazy day at home as a family of four.
Around 5:00 PM, I called my mom. My contractions still hadn't stopped since that morning. They were 20-30 minutes apart, so Jeff and I really weren't worried at all, but they still were there. My mom told me to call the consulting nurse at the hospital, just to check in and make sure, and then to call her back to let her know if she should start driving out or not. I talked to the nurse and she assured me that since my contractions were 20-30 minutes apart, I was not in labor yet. She advised me to wait until the contractions were 5-6 minutes apart for at least 2 hours straight before I drove into the hospital. She said, "Now I don't mean 5-8 minutes apart, I mean 5-6 minutes apart. Don't drive in until you having timed them that way for 2 hours. Or, if your water breaks, come right away." Okay, that was straight forward enough. I could follow those directions.
I called my mom and we came up with a plan. Since I had been literally laying around all day, taking baths, watching TV on the couch, and letting Jeff take care of me, I was a little worried that my contractions would have been closer already if I was moving around like I would of on a normal day that Jeff wasn't off work. The next day was Monday, and I'd be left with the kids alone. I couldn't possibly take care of 2 kids while experiencing contractions all day long by myself. I needed to figure out if I was about to be in labor or not. So we decided that Jeff, the kids, and I would go on an evening walk, then report back to my mom. If my contractions were closer, then she would come. If I felt no difference, then she would wait until I gave her a call, even if was in the middle of the night.
So we ate dinner, got the kids dressed for bed, and started our walk. We walked, probably a mile and a half around Sunserra, the housing development we are living at. Jeff pushed the double stroller, and they would pause every time I had a contraction and wait. Brody kept asking, "Momma happy?" to make sure I was okay. "Yes, baby, Momma's happy." On the sidewalks, I would walk behind Jeff, and I kept seeing Brody and Bonnie's little heads poke out from the sides of the stroller to check on me and make sure I was still following them. It was getting dark, and it was starting to sprinkle rain, but I remember it just felt so good out there.
Our clothes, the kids pajamas, and our hair were all damp from the misty rain after we returned home. It was almost bedtime for Brody and Bonnie now, so we picked up the house, and I vacuumed. Now I was getting a little stressed. My house was NOT ready for company. "Jeff, we have to clean the bathrooms. We need to get the laundry done. We have so much to do." Annoyed, Jeff responded, "Karli, your mom isn't coming here for a vacation. She knows you are about to have a baby." That didn't make me feel any better.
I got Bonnie ready for bed, kissed Brody goodnight, and took her up to her bed. As she was sitting on my lap, I started to sing to her our regular bedtime songs. However, a contraction suddenly hit, and it was hard and painful. "Jeff! Jeff!" Jeff ran upstairs and opened the door. I just started crying. Jeff took Bonnie out of my arms. I really wanted to rock my Bonnie to sleep though. I kept thinking about how this was the probably the last time that I could put Bonnie to bed while she was still the baby of our family. "Do you want me to put her to bed?" Jeff asked. "No, I can do it. But give her to me now so I can get her down before the next contraction."
He set her in my arms and Bonnie gave me the biggest around-the-neck hug. She kept giving me kisses and it was making me cry more. Oh how I love my little Bonbon so much. Before too long, I could feel another contraction coming on. So I set her in her bed, even though normally we usually sing songs together a little longer. She somehow understood though. "Bye Momma. Love you!" "Love you, baby. Sleep good."
So to the bath I went. But first, I took one last pregnancy picture. I had the feeling that this pregnancy wasn't going to last much longer.
As you can see from the picture, I was worn out already. After making it through a day of contractions, I was just not feeling quite like myself. A bath though, that'd make me feel better.
This is when I found out that I really wasn't the water birth type of girl. Contractions felt pretty awful in the bath. There wasn't anything to bury my face in on the most painful ones. It's hard to explain, but I definitely wasn't comfortable. As I tried to allow myself to relax, I just started to sweat and become extra uncomfortable. So I just got out.
I just laid on the bed, with my damp towel around me, feeling like I was dying. Contractions are no joke. They suck.
The contractions were close now, but I knew I need to wait those two hours to be sure. It had been about 30 minutes of contractions that were 5 minutes apart at this point, some even less than 3 minutes apart. (Jeff was timing and he the closer they became, the more stressed he grew.) But they were so painful that each contraction made me more and more sure that this was the real deal. I called my mom and told her to start on her way. I called my Nana and asked her if she could come stay with the kids until my mom arrived. It was a little before 8:00 PM at this point. My Nana said she just had to get ready, put some things in a bag, and would be over as soon as she could. She lived an hour away, so I thought, Okay, that'll be good. Then I'll get to my 2 hours of close contractions and be able to go to the hospital. Everything is going to be fine.
Jeff was relieved when I told him that everyone was on their way. As I listed all the things he needed to add to my bag, he ran around the house and gathered my odds and ends.
I mustered enough energy together to start getting myself dressed. I pulled on a pair of Jeff's sweats, got my bra on, and bam, another horrible contraction. I was down again. I just needed to lay down. That was all I could do to get through these at this point. I just laid on the bed, quiet, but suffering through these horrible pains.
As another one hit, there was a burst of warm liquid. (Yep, you guessed right.) "Jeff!! Oh my gosh, I think my water just broke!" Jeff looked at the bed, and confirmed what I had felt. Jeff was now on the phone with my Nana asking how far away she was. I got up, and I was now determined to get ready to leave now. I changed into a different pair of sweatpants, pulled on a shirt, told Jeff to grab some towels for the seat of the car, and laid on the bed again.
"Come on, Karli, let's at least go downstairs."
"No, I just want to lay here. No one is here yet. So I'm going to lay in my bed as long as I can."
No response. All I could hear was Jeff bustling around the room. Opening and closing our bags and double checking that we had everything.
Since my water had broke, my thoughts became a lot more stressful. I knew we needed to get to the hospital quickly. Not only because the baby was coming soon, but because I had tested Strep-B positive, and I needed to get hooked up to an IV as soon as possible. I knew that this was important, and it stressed me out thinking of all of the things I read online that could happen if I didn't get that medicine.
I hadn't told Jeff about the Strep-B thing. He worries a lot, so I didn't think there was a need. I knew we would go to the hospital if my water broke anyway, so it wasn't worth causing him more stress.
Jeff called my Nana around 9:15 PM and she said she was almost at our house. "Okay, Karli, your Nana is almost here, let's go get in the car and wait for her."
He had the car all set, waiting in front of our house. Thankfully we also had a full tank of gas. I sat on top of the folded towels, buckled my seat belt, and thought about how uncomfortable I was at that moment. I wasn't going to last. The contractions were so bad. I felt like I was literally on my deathbed. I remember that through every contraction I would just grab onto the shoulder strap of the seatbelt with both hands and just hold it, while putting my head to the right and closing my eyes. Then, between contractions, I felt pretty okay, but just braced myself for the next one that came just a couple minutes later.
The worst thing though was what I was feeling in my pelvic region. SO MUCH PRESSURE. It was like nothing I had felt before. The front of my pelvis just felt like it was on fire. This baby was for sure coming tonight. "Jeff, we need to go. Seriously."
At 9:27 PM, I sent a text to my sister-in-law and mother-in-law, in response to many questions they were asking me. I didn't have enough energy to respond to everything, so I just texted:
"Pray hard. I don't think we are going to make it."
I'm sure that must have made them freak out. But my phone fell down the side of the seat after that, I didn't text back any more than that. (Sorry guys.)
Jeff called the hospital and let them know that we were on our way there. He called my Nana and she was coming down the hill on the way to our house. That would have to do. We needed to leave now. With the kids sound asleep, we left them in the house, and drove off. We saw my Nana on our way out, and Jeff picked up the speed.
Experiencing contractions in the passenger seat of a parked car was not fun. But experiencing contractions in the passenger seat of a speeding, jerking, bumping car is awful. AWFUL, I TELL YOU. Jeff put the hospital into his GPS and we had a 38 minute drive ahead of us. I could tell, Jeff was ready to make that shorter though.
Side Note: Jeff is annoying to ride with when you are late to something. He DOES NOT speed, ever. He is a VERY safe driver and ALWAYS stops at yellow lights.
Jeff drove fast. Like seriously, so fast. At one point we were driving behind a guy with a trailer. I was certain that guy was going slow, I mean he was pulling a trailer, so I said, "Jeff, pass him!" So Jeff did. (Later, I found out that that guy was actually driving 80 already and we had to drive like 100 to get by him. Whoops.)
Jeff held my hand majority of the way there until I DIDN'T WANT HIM TO TOUCH ME AT ALL. The contractions were just crazy and I was feel so nauseous and feeling like this was the last day of my life. I kept quiet most of the way there. Well, aside from telling Jeff to drive faster, and the occasional moan to get through some really tough contractions, I was very very quiet. I just wanted to get to that dang hospital and end this nightmare of a trip.
"How are you feeling?" Jeff kept asking me, over and over and over through the trip. Finally, I replied, "Not good! Don't ask me that again."
So the drive was painful, the contractions were awful, the waiting to get to the hospital was unbearable, but the thing that was the worse was me feeling like I had to push. The baby was coming, and I could FEEL her coming. I tried to keep these details to myself. Jeff was already so stressed and I knew he was driving. I didn't want to get in a wreck. But near the end of the trip, I couldn't help myself. "Jeff, I can feel the baby coming."
"Keep your legs together, babe, you're doing good."
Yeah, right, my legs. Just keep them together. Why didn't I think of that? Ummm, NO! HE DOES NOT UNDERSTAND!!!!!!!! I thought, as I panicked to myself. I could feel the baby's head descending, and I was SURE of what was going on down there. I was terrified. I just kept thinking about the YouTube video I had watched with my sister. The girl is driving to the hospital, just as I was, and she literally delivers the baby herself. She grabs the baby and is HOLDING the baby in the passenger seat. I was convinced at this point that this would be me. These things happen in REAL LIFE.
"Jeff, really, the baby is coming. What are we going to do??"
Jeff sees the hospital signs at this point. However, every time we have driven to the hospital in the past, has been from the opposite direction, from my clinic. Since we were driving directly there this time, Jeff was a little turned around, and the Emergency Entrance signs were not very clear either. So we are spinning around hospital parking lot after hospital parking lot, until we finally make it to my clinic, and Jeff knows where we are again. He turns into the Emergency drop-off area, jumps out of the car, and says, "I'll be right back!"
Before I know it, a nurse pops her head into the car and asks how I'm doing. I have nothing to say except, "The baby is coming out right now!" She yells that we need a stretcher and starts pulling down my pants and underwear. Thank goodness pregnancy diminishes all sense of modesty that you might have tried to have before. My naked butt is now breezing in the wind of the outdoors and this young ER doctor is checking to see how much time is left. They tell Jeff to lean the seat of the car back, and I scream. That did NOT feel good, and if anything it was making the baby come even FASTER! The doctor says something like, "We are close, but we have a couple minutes left."
I somehow make it to the stretcher between contractions, and I need to tell you- that stretcher was AMAZING!! It literally felt like heaven to lay down on that thing.
We flew. We flew through the hospital halls, through doors, and to an elevator. A different nurse introduced herself to me. "My name is Mandy. I'll be taking care of you." As I looked up at her, I asked, "Is it too late to get an epidural?" With a look of surprise, she replied, "Uh, yeah. Your baby is on it's way right now." Oh, yeah, duh. That's right. Wait. That means I'm having this baby natural. What does this MEAN? Ahhh!!!
Mandy told me to do short little breaths during each contraction and not to think about what was going on "down there." I definitely didn't follow her second instruction, but I was pretty good at the short breaths. I was wishing I had known about the short breath thing in the car. I was definitely taking huge breaths through the contractions on the way there. The short breaths was definitely a better way to go.
As I worked through 2 contractions while a group of people (nurses, doctors, Jeff, people... I had no idea who or how many were running around me), I just closed my eyes, trying to avoid throwing up. I remember at one point one person was trying to push me head first, while the other person tried to push me feet first and they had to work out what way they were going to push me, and I was feeling so frantic. Just push me there already!!!!
"I'm so scared. I'm so scared. I'm so scared. Jeff, I'm so scared," I repeated as we entered into a room.
They slid me onto a different bed, and someone said, "You don't need to be scared. Your doctor is here. You can push now."
A contraction came. And I pushed. I didn't have a choice. It wasn't like a "One, Two, Three" push thing like I was used to with an epidural. It was more a "Lean Back and Brace Yourself" push thing that my body just basically took over and pushed with all it's might, whether I wanted that to happen or not. "Babe! You're done! I see the baby!" Jeff exclaimed to my relief.
And that was that.
One push, our baby girl was here. I was in shock. At 10:05 PM, 38 minutes after we left for our hospital that was supposedly 38 minutes away, our baby was here. We did it. Barely.
Somehow someone had removed my shirt and laid my baby on me for skin to skin. I remember she was crying and she was just in a tiny little ball, and all I could get myself to do was just hold her little sticky body with both of my hands on each side of her. I just held her and the nurses placed warmed blankets on top of us. My body was just shaking, but I felt such a sense of relief. It was the most overwhelming feeling I have ever experienced, and probably ever will experience. The rush of the trip, the stress of the time, and then to end up with a brand new baby in your arms? What the heck? Why is this real life?
Eventually I pulled it together though, and I loved on that baby like I should. Oh man, she is perfect. My little Blair Iris.
This picture was taken by a nurse in the room that I delivered the baby in, just a little after everything happened. We were one happy couple at that moment, let me tell you.
