Kjell and JC

Launi!

Kasia (pronouced Kasha) Skye has arrived!
She entered this world on Thursday the 22nd at 3:53pm. 6lbs 15oz, and 19.5inches

What an experience this was. Incredible, hard, unreal, amazing, life changing. I now have a little girl whose life depends on me.

I woke up at about 5:45 to use the restroom and noticed that things were a little more moist than usual. It was obvious I lost my mucous plug, and as I go to borrow a pad from my sister, I felt a bit of moisture coming down! My water was breaking. Woo hooo!! It wasn’t a huge amount, and within the next hour or two I could feel it continue to gush out. I didn’t want to go the hospital right away even though my midwives had said to come in within an hour of my water breaking. I just wanted to relax for a bit at home and take it slow. We made the phone calls to family to let them know, and then at 8:15 I called my midwife to let her know we were coming.

We get to Orem Community at about 9. Would have been sooner, but I was hungry so we stopped and got McDonalds! I know, a personal trainer getting this kind of food!! It was a Sausage Egg McMuffin, and it tasted really good. J We get there, they check us in, I slip into the awful hospital gown and then Jana, one of my many nurses, puts the monitors on, checks to see if my water really did break, and then we wait for a room to open up. 23 other women were in labor that same day!

We finally get to a room and then wait. I’m feeling really good at this point, confident, and so ready for this experience. I was contracting, but they were really weak. Somewhere around noon they start telling me that my contractions just weren’t progressing and I wasn’t dilated nearly enough. I was only at a three. We try getting the telemetry monitor going, but lucky me it was broken. They were hoping that but getting up and walking it would help. I got on the ball instead. A little while later they want me to consider Pitosin. YIKES! We convince them to let me go till about 1:00 and then if there were no changes, we could start it on the lowest dosage. 1:00 rolls around and unfortunately…no changes. I’m not happy…in fact, I almost cry. I really, really didn’t want to get on Pitison, but I do and by 1:30 those surges were coming.

The next hour was rough. I really didn’t know if I was going to have the natural birth that I had hoped for. I turn on my music…Bob Marley, and a bunch of other reggae stuff. I also listened to my HynoBirthing instructor, Launi as she is saying birth affirmations. I wanted to stay calm and in control. JC was great! By the way, he wasn’t the only one there. My mother-in-law, Liz, my sister-in-law, Christy, and my own sister, Skye were all present. I didn’t want any of them there initially, but I’m glad I had them stay and be additional cheerleaders. They were so wonderful and very supportive.At about 1:40, I felt mentally defeated when they said I really wasn’t progressing, especially when they said they wanted to up the pitocin!

Thankfully, JC asked if we could wait till the top of the hour, and continued to ask if there were any other options. Luckily there were. They said we could try the internal monitoring to see if my surges were actually strong enough. So we did that, and THEY WERE!! So NO ADDED PITOCIN! I was at 4units, and they wanted to jump it to 20. I returned to the ball for the next while.While JC was holding my hand, talking me through the surges, and reminding me to relax my shoulders and my face, I labored on. My mother-in-law also rubbed my back and pushed on my pressure points in my shoulders. All of that felt great when the surges came. Soon enough, I felt a strong desire to PUSH. My midwife asked if I was feeling that, and I said, Yep! I felt like I had to take a big poop! Hey…just being honest. She had me get in the bed (which next time, I would totally labor in a different position), and the feeling to push just kept on coming. Soon enough they had me pushing.Skye was holding one leg, my mother in law was holding the other, and JC was holding my hand standing right by me. I definitely became closer to those two through this experience. They know me better than they ever did!!

Whew…that was hard work to push that baby down, but finally she arrived. WOoooo hoooo!!! I I was real appreciative of my midwife to focus on the perineum so that it would stretch more. I did end up with a first degree tear. So finally at 3:53pm, Kasia was with us!

In the end, I’m happy with the way things went with my birth experience. I definitely could have done without the pitosin, and wish I would have labored in a different position. Other than that, I feel so powerful that I was able to birth this little girl all naturally. I’m thankful for the support of JC who didn’t give up on me when I was giving up on myself. He was so encouraging and said just the right things. HypnoBirthing also helped me along during this experience. I had to be reminded of the techniques a few times, but it helped me through some of the tough spots. I would recommend this to anyone wanting natural birth. Out of the 23 births that day, 8 had had their babies and only 1 was natural…ME!

This little girl has changed my life in just a week. I look at her and tears come to my eyes. She’s beautiful and so perfect.