Labor Story

*For those of you inquiring, our 20 week ultrasound said that our baby would be a girl. This is just a side view picture of our baby from the ultrasound. We never had any other ultrasound to verify the sex of the baby. Our ultrasound technician had been doing ultrasounds for 15 years and had never been wrong. He was very confidant our baby was female, so we believed that our baby was a girl. We DID have a lot of girl clothes. Cecily's mom and sister exchanged about half of the items for boy things. We have a few boxes set aside for when our baby girl does end up coming to our little family.

Thursday, June 4th: Cecily finished up her Medical Assisting "externship" (yeah that's really what it's called). It was such a blessing that she was able to get it done before the baby came.

Monday, June 15th

Afternoon: Cecily has always wanted to own a set of tennis rackets so we could go play whenever we wanted so while I was at work, she went shopping. She picked up a cheap set of rackets (we're beginners), some tennis balls, and some DVDs to take to the hospital in a couple of weeks.

5:00-ish PM: Cecily picked me up from work and showed me the tennis stuff she'd bought. We decided we'd go home, eat some dinner, and then go find a place to "play tennis" (as much as you can when you're pregnant).

6:45 PM: After a quick dinner, we headed down to Lehi High School, found an empty court, and started hitting around. It was actually pretty fun. Neither of us is very good, (or maybe I should say "I'm not very good, and Cecily was very pregnant,") but it was fun.

8:00 PM: Our friends the Bakers had invited us to come over for Family Home Evening at their house. We chatted for quite a while, had a brief lesson, and a treat.

10:30-ish PM: We went back home (across the walkway) and commenced with our normal evening activities (e.g. checking email, reading, whatever).

Tuesday, June 16th

Midnight: After doing family scriptures and prayer, we finally climbed into bed just after midnight (yes, we weren't very good at getting to bed early). I was sitting in bed finishing up some emails on the laptop, and Cecily zonked right out. About 30 minutes later, Cecily sat up in bed. "My water broke!" What?! Even though Cecily wasn't due for another 2 weeks, she had been expecting to go into labor for days already so I thought, "Honey, I'm pretty sure you were dreaming. Go back to sleep."

Then she stood up and said, "No, I'm sure. My water definitely broke." "Here we go!" I replied. We threw our last minute supplies into a couple of duffel bags, and headed out the door.

1:00 AM: Arrived at the hospital and got "triaged". That basically means they verified that Cecily was-indeed pregnant, and that her water had-indeed broken. Both were true. They also determined that she was dilated to 4 cm (if you don't know what that means... ask your wife). They asked if Cecily had been having many contractions.

"No."

"Interesting. Are you feeling anything right now?"

"No."

"Interesting. Well, you're having a contraction."

"Oh, really?"

"Yep."

Then they moved us (and by 'us' I mean 'Cecily') into a Labor and Delivery room and started hooking her up to sensors and gizmos. (It took me another minute to get there because I was now carrying ALL of our stuff... poor me.) When they tried to put the IV into the back of Cecily's hand, she started bleeding everywhere. It took a minute to get the IV at just the right angle, but as soon as they did, Cecily could feel the cold antibiotic/saline mixture flowing through her arm.

They asked Cecily if she wanted an epidural. The answer was a confident "Yes," so they called the anesthesiologist and got him on his way. Once the epidural was in place, we were able to take some time and relax. I made myself "comfortable" on a little couch while Cecily made herself "comfortable" on the hospital bed. Cecily wanted to watch one of the movies she bought (Twilight) while she was waiting for the baby to arrive. That lasted about 30 minutes before she was too tired to keep watching. We actually were able to sleep for a couple of hours after that.

6:00 AM: Cecily had been on Pitosin for a few hours at this point since her contractions needed a little help along. Now she was measuring about 6 cm. Now we were just waiting for her to dilate a bit more.

7:00 AM: Suddenly, Cecily was dilated to 9 cm and her contractions were pretty strong. Pretty soon she'd be able to start pushing.

7:30 AM: Fully dilated, Cecily was able to start pushing. Her contractions were strong and regular (even though she couldn't really feel them). Hopefully, she'd be ready to deliver before 9:00 so her doctor would be able to deliver her (her O.B. office is a partnership of 4 doctors, and they trade delivery days, so you never know which one you'll get). Cecily kept having contractions every 3-4 minutes. It was a long, painful process.

8:30 AM: Still pushing.

9:30 AM: Still pushing.

10:00 AM: Pushing some more. The baby was sideways in the birth canal so things weren't moving along as quickly as usual. The nurses tried a few times to turn 'her' but it didn't seem to be working.

Just before 11:00 AM
Eventually, the delivering doctor arrived (not ours, darn) and started getting ready to deliver our baby. She wanted to turn the baby, but since the baby's head was so swollen the only way she would attempt was by hand. She was able to turn the baby a small amount, but not enough to keep Cecily from having a 4th degree tear (after an episiotomy). Yes, his head was that swollen.

11:02 AM:
Our baby was born and the nurses started cleaning up the baby. Everyone knew we were having a girl, so nobody thought to check closely to make sure.

About a minute or so after "she" was born:
A nurse attending to Cecily looked at the nurses (who were cleaning up the baby about 6 feet away) and noticed a certain attribute that girls don't have. She said "I'm not sure that that's a little girl." Sure enough, the doctor double checked and announced "You have a BABY BOY!"

Cecily had to look at him just to make sure they were telling the truth. She said, "I thought I was having a boy at the beginning!" Cecily started laughing and so did I. We were just so happy to have a healthy baby and the surprise boy just made our experience that much more memorable.