Kayleigh Virginia Well, what a surprise! I woke up this morning expecting everything to be like every other day I’ve had nearly these last 3 weeks in the hospital. But there were already other plans in the works.

It was about 10:30 am I think when I first said to my nurse, “I feel weird.” I was having tightening and such in my lower abdomen and I was thinking, “contractions??” But the monitor was showing nothing, absolutely nothing, as far as contractions go. So I was really confused, and so were my nurses.

They sent for a resident doctor and ran blood and urine tests on me. I was pretty aggravated, neither test was fun. And when the first chick tried to get my blood she missed the vein completely and that is never fun. The second one got it first try though. The tests came back normal, no infections. The resident doctor said she thought that if I was having contractions, the pain or pressure would also be up higher, at the top of my uterus. So they just kinda backed off and said we’ll watch it.

I got a shower about 2pm, finally, and it was while in there that it started to become painful. At this point, I’m thinking I must have the worst gas in the history of gas or something since they’re thinking no contractions. When I got out and got ready to get back on the monitor another nurse came in who had never seen me before and didn’t know my situation. I had some pain when getting back on my bed and I told her what was up and she said she didn’t agree at all with the resident doctor’s statement that the pain should be higher too, she said, “I think you’re in labor.”

They called the doctor on call who’s from the specialists’ office I’ve been seeing. He said, “you’re in labor, you’d better call your family now.” So I drug Steve out of work a half an hour early (but I don’t think he minded lol). I got an ultrasound then with the portable machine and I tell you what, the kid they said they didn’t think could move from breech to vertex (head down) position with so little fluid has now moved THREE TIMES. She’s gone from breech to vertex then to transverse (sideways) last weekend and then with this ultrasound I was so relieved to find she was vertex again. He told me that as long as she tolerated it, they’d let labor progress naturally. But it was clear that with every contraction, her heartbeat would drop.

So they moved me across the hall to a birthing room and I got a surprise. The whole time before they moved me, I was SO close to freaking out because I’m going… I’m all alone. But then, my aunt was there! By “chance” she and my cousin had come to visit and showed up at exactly the right time and I was so thankful for that familiar face. She helped me with my breathing because apparently, even though I’ve been through this before, I forgot everything in the heat of the moment.

From the moment I was aware of the contractions, before they were painful even, they were about 5 to 10 minutes apart. I was already dilated to 3 cm before moving over and a half an hour later was 5 cm.

Since the monitor still wasn’t picking up anything they actually put one in my uterus. Strange, and sounds painful but I didn’t even know they did it until it was done. They also put in a tube to give the baby fluid. It’s not something they can do all the time because eventually it will introduce infection but they can do it for a few hours. It was so freaking weird. I could feel her pushing on the tube. Not to mention when he checked me and I was 3 cm, he said then that he felt her head.

So they were telling me, if you’re going to get an epidural you’d better do it now before it’s too late. And I kept saying I wanted Steve to get there. But then they said, no, now. Thankfully he showed up just in time and I’m so glad because the epidural really really freaking sucked.

It took a half an hour and three tries. Yes, three. I’ve seen the spots on my back. Ugh.

The first guy took 20 minutes with his two tries. I was getting so mentally freaked out. I kept apologizing and saying I didn’t know what I was feeling and I was getting really upset. When he was done with his 2 tries, I said, “just forget it!!” And that I wanted to go home LOL. They sent another woman in and she got it on the first try. Good thing too because if she failed I probably would have started snapping people’s necks.

They laid me back down and everyone but one nurse left. That nurse started walking over across the room to the bathroom. Steve was at my right holding my hand.

I started yelling. And, lol, of course, this was at the moment my mom was at the door so she probably thought I was dying. But I’m yelling, “pressure, lots of pressure!” because they’d told me to tell them. And then, “NOW, SHE’S COMING NOW!!!”

And that she did. I am not delusional!

Technically, no one delivered that baby!

She just came right out on her own, no pushing nothing (heck, I was trying to keep her in there), right onto the bed. So yeah, I’m freaking out, going, “she’s out, she’s out!”

It all happened SO fast. Steve didn’t think even a minute had passed since they’d laid me back down. The nurse turned and started running and people started pouring in the door. I heard Kayleigh squeak a bit which was a great noise to hear and I started to cry. They started checking her and they took blood from her cord for testing and they took her to the bassinet thing to immediately get to work cleaning her and getting her a breathing tube.

After what seemed like forever, they let Steve come over and see her which is where those clearer pictures are from. Then they brought her by and I got to see her face (the rest of her bundled) for a little bit before they took her to the NICU.

She’s been here for several hours now and I’m alone in my room and wide awake and she’s down at the NICU and stable. We got to go in and see her for a little bit, even Elijah did. They explained some stuff but it’s so overwhelming. No matter how prepared you think you are, the NICU is pretty darn scary. But since we were even down there, they said that they’ve been able to reduce her oxygen percentage some. They are trying to wean her down to “real” air which is 21%. Last I heard she was at 38%, down from the 40’s when we were down there. So from what I know and am told, she’s doing really good. I expect her to be in there until about the end of June, though, more around her due date.

She’s 2 pounds and 8 ounces (not 6 like I accidentally told some people) and 14 inches long. Born at 4:29pm.

Shew!