The Birth Story

About 1:30 AM on Thursday, July 25 I woke up to go to the bathroom.  About an hour later I woke up feeling like I wet the bed.  I woke Rich up and said, "I either just wet the bed, or my water broke".  We got a few towels and headed to the shower where I stood for a good 15 minutes watching a clear liquid just gush out of me. I asked Rich to call his mom, a nurse, and see what we should do.  Boy was I surprised when she answered at 3:00 AM!  She suggested to call the Labor and Delivery unit and ask what they would like us to do.  Rich called and reported that we should go in because they didn't want to risk infection.

I knew that my water broke, there was no doubt about it and since contractions hadn't started yet I didn't feel an huge urge to race to the hospital so I ate some peach oatmeal [little did I know this would be my last bit of food for the next 13 hours]. I then called my mom and let her know what was going on and that we were headed to the hospital and I knew they would admit me.  We then gathered up all our stuff and Rich brought it all out to the car.  Now Rich was very nervous/anxious this whole time.  It was pretty cute.

Once getting to the Timpangos hospital, about 4:30AM I had to tell each check point that my water broke and they all looked at me like "how are you so calm and cool?".  We were brought to a room and when the nurse checked me I was only dilated at a 2cm but they were very impressed with the severity of my water breaking.  The nurse stuck me twice before she finally succeeded with the IV and we basically just hung out in the room for the next hour and a half- mostly excited and wondering when we would meet our little one.  I had brought a lot of DVDs but too bad they didn't have a player; however I did bring a book and enjoyed reading that while Rich took a nap in a very uncomfortable position in a chair he later upgraded to a cot :)

At 6:00 AM I was barely dilated to a 3cm and contractions were 3-5 minutes apart however, since the baby needed to be born within 24 hours of my water breaking they started me on Piticon at 8:30 AM to insure that would happen.

10:30 AM came and I was still dilated at a 3cm and thirty minutes later I requested Fentanyl which was the only pain medication they offered aside from an Epidural.  Fentanyl was suppose to take the edge off the contractions and cause sleepiness- neither symptom did I experience.  The nurse could only administer it every hour and it was only to last thirty minutes.  I quickly decided it was a waste and kept asking myself who am I trying to prove by going through this pain.  At only 3 cm I knew how much longer labor could be and I really didn't want to remember bringing this baby into the world as the most painful experience.  We were so grateful to have this miracle that I didn't want any bad memories about labor.

Needless to say at 12:15 PM I got the Epidural.  I asked the nurse if it was true that it could slow down my labor and she just looked at me and said, "Honey, nothing can slow down your labor".  That's all it took to convince us!  The anesthesiologist was such a funny guy but I wasn't too thrilled when he had me sitting on the edge of the bed hunched over during a contraction before he started the Epidural.  To be honest it hurt more when the nurse hooked me up to the IV than the Epidural did.  However, it did take longer than I thought for it to kick in and my left leg got numb first and then they had to roll me over to the right side for it to affect it. As the doctor was leaving he said I get a gold star on my forehead for being such a good patient.

At 12:30 PM a catheter was placed to keep my bladder empty, I guess they didn't like me getting up all the time to pee and with my peach flavored ice chips I was doing it a lot :) I was then checked again and was dilated to a 5cm and the nurse said I was a perfect first time mom.  1. My water broke naturally. 2. There was still four days before my due date. 3. I was finally progressing!

1:30 PM I was "a good 5cm" still and a bit discouraged.  Thankfully I had the Food Network channel to entertain me and to make us super hungry! About this time Rich started eating the pizza, grapes and cheez-its that we had packed and with a good pout I convinced him to give me a few crackers. Then 3:00 PM came and I was dilated to a 6cm, fully effaced, and the baby was the in the perfect position.  An oxygen mask was placed on my because the baby was getting tired. 

The magic time was 4:00 PM.  I had dilated from 6 cm to 10 cm in a half an hour and it was time to "practice pushing".  What's funny is that we were never told to stop practicing. Dr. Broberg had come in to check on me and left as soon as we saw him. An hour and forty-five minutes of pushing later and it was showtime! The doctor showed up, got all dressed and with a friendly reminder to Rich to use words to encourage me we were on our way!  

I was so impressed with Rich.  Watching the whole process and seeing the head. I kept asking if the baby had a lot of hair since the ultrasound tech said he did and no one really answered- I took that to mean no. An episitomy was done but with only a few stitches and healed very fast. Rich had told the Doctor he didn't want to cut the umbilical cord...until the time came and Rich practically took the scissors out of the Doctor's hand and cut the cord. 

6:46 PM was when McKay Richard Messerly was born.  Rich saw him coming out and knew from his facial features that he was a boy.  I can still hear the words "It's a boy" coming from Rich's mouth and I saw a change in him I never could have imagined. After the cord was cut McKay was placed on my chest and calmed down immediately.  His Apgar scores were 8 after one minute and 9 after five minutes. The nurses kept saying numbers in the metric system and I was so confused!  After a while they were finally converted and he weighed 7 lbs. 12 oz. and was 19.5 inches long.

What emotion we felt during this experience and there is no doubt that Heavenly Father made this miracle possible.