Caitlin Birth Story

I thought I had some possible contractions Monday night, but they were short and weak so I wasn't really sure.

When I woke up on Tuesday, I was having some pain so I had Shawn take Megan to daycare. 

By 8 am I was thinking that contractions had started but I figured it couldn't really be labor since it wasn't quite painful enough yet.  By 10:00 it was a little more painful and frequent.  I wasn't feeling anything in my back like I thought I was suppose to so I still wasn't sure.  I had only timed a few and they were around 6 minutes apart.  I called Shawn to come home and decided to get out paper and pencil to do some actual timing.

Shawn came home and we were finalizing a few things.  Contractions were 3-4 minutes apart but they were only lasting 20 seconds and still were not very painful so I called doctor's office to see if I should go to the hospital.  The hospital is 30 minutes away so I didn't want to go and then be sent home.  The nurse had a brilliant idea, how about I run over to the clinic and have the doctor check me.  It is only 5 minutes away so we grabbed our stuff and headed over around 11:30.  Poor Shawn didn't even get to finish his lunch! 

When I left the clinic around noon I was 4 cm and headed to the hospital.  I was so glad that I had seen the doctor because she said she would let the hospital know that I was coming and go ahead and place the order for pain medication! 

Although the contractions started to hurt a little while I was at the clinic,  by the time we got to the hospital around 1:00, I was really in pain.  Note that no trip to the hospital is complete with a quick stop to pick up a slurpee!!

At 2:00 I was 5-6 cm and 90%.

At 2:25, I finally had IV pain medication.  I was really needing it by that point!

At 3:15, the epidural was in.  There was a period of time where it stopped working and I was very miserable.  Luckily they got it working again!

At 3:40, I was 8 cm and 100%.  The doctor manually broke my water to hurry things along.
 
At 4:50 I was 10 cm

At 5:24 pm, my beautiful baby girl Caitlin Elizabeth was born

She weighed 8 lbs, 13 oz and was 20 1/2 inches long