I wrote Will’s story down, so I wanted to do the same for Kendall’s. Here it is!
Kendall’s entire pregnancy was pretty low key. Other than the first few months when I was extremely nauseous, the rest went very smoothly. I never showed any problems and everything was smooth sailing. I never really swelled much with Kendall like I did with Will. I wore my wedding rings the entire time – I was excited about that. :)
Towards the end of my pregnancy, my doctor let me know that she was going to be out of town June 30th – July 9th. I was due July 8th. Bummer. She predicted that I would go full-term like I did with Will. So she had me go see one of the doctors that would be on call if I did deliver while she was out. I met him and really loved him. She had me do several sonograms towards the end of my pregnancy to make sure everything looked good and to see if there was any reason to induce. She said she would induce me on June 29th the day before she left if I wanted her to. Well – that was my nephew Miles’ first birthday and I just wasn’t sure I wanted to do that. Will was not a big baby, so I feared inducing and having a really small baby. It seemed unnecessary since there was absolutely no telling reason to induce. She then asked – ok what if you are still pregnant when I get back? Do you want to induce? At this point I say yes. If I am still pregnant on July 10th – heck yes. Get the kid out. She’ll have been in long enough!
She goes out of town and I go in a week before my due date to see the nurse just to have my urine/blood pressure/heart beat checked. She did the regular stuff and then she was checking Kendall’s heart beat. It seems to be taking awhile and finally she says – I think I want you to see the on-call doctor. The heartbeat seems too slow. What?!? Everything has been perfect to this point and now we are one week away from my due date and now something is wrong? She says – don’t worry, I am just a nurse and I would rather be safe than sorry. Ha. Don’t worry. Really? What 39 week pregnant woman with raging hormones isn’t going to worry when the nurse says the heartbeat is too slow?? Ugh. So she leaves me in there and I of course start crying. She had gone to call the other office and it was taking forever. I call Kevin crying and he is attempting to calm me down. Long story short the other doctor sends me up to the specialist for a sonogram (because the regular stenographer is also out of town) at 1:30. It was like 11 at this point – so I have time to kill. Kevin leaves work and we go have lunch. Then we go to the appointment. To avoid drawing this out – the specialist says (and I quote) “You are too healthy to be here. I am sorry they upset you.” Yep – nothing at all was wrong, the nurse just didn’t know what she was doing! Whew. While I was relieved to hear that, I was more than ready to get her out. It just seemed safer at that point!
Fast forward to Sunday – my due date, July 8th. I didn’t sleep at all Saturday night for some reason and everyone at my house woke up grumpy. Not sure why. We didn’t go to church (I just couldn’t go and have everyone say – you’re still pregnant??) and we went to lunch to get out of the house. We all 3 came back and took marathon naps. We needed them. I blogged that afternoon about still being pregnant – boo. It looked like I would be inducing Tuesday morning. If I did, I would have to go in Monday night – I wasn’t real excited about this, but I was ready to have the baby. I put Will to bed around 8:30. Kevin was in the office working and I was sitting on the couch and at about 9pm, I felt my first contraction. Could it be? I was rather pumped. I waited a bit before saying anything to Kevin to make sure there were more. And there were. But – really they were pretty far apart and not consistent. I went ahead and told Kevin I was having contractions and thought we should see if his sister, Kayse, would come over to stay the night in case we did need to leave in the middle of the night. I didn’t want to drag Will out of bed. So Kayse came over and hung out. Around 11 I decided to call my mom. I hated to wake her but figured she’s be mad if I didn’t. I called her and she hopped in the shower. She called me after and I told her to come on over. She was awake, so we could have a contraction party! So me, Kayse, and mom sat and watched tv and I timed my contractions. I had also showered by this point and Kevin had told his work he wouldn’t be in the next morning.
Around 2:30, we decided to head to the hospital. The contractions were getting stronger and more consistent. I definitely wanted to get there in time to get the epidural much earlier in the process than I did with Will. I am glad we went when we did. We got checked in around 3am and went to triage. I got undressed and they monitored my contractions for awhile. I waited for quite awhile for the nurse to be available to check me. My contractions were very consistent – only 3-4 min apart at that point. However, when she checked me I was only dilated to a 3. I told her how quickly things went with my first one and she went ahead and called the on-call doctor since my contractions were so close. They wheeled me to my delivery room and started getting all the paperwork, etc. done. The on-call doctor came in and he was so nice. He got them to get the anesthesiologist in there. At this point the contractions were pretty intense and I was more than ready for the drugs. I got the epidural – which was much more painful than I had remembered with Will. I think I was in such intense pain with Will and such intense labor that the epi pain didn’t matter. Anyway, I got the drugs and a few minutes later I was oblivious to the contractions. Bliss. The doctor said it was good I got them when I did because the contractions really picked up.
I was thinking I would be progressing quickly but for some reason things really slowed down. The next time they checked me they said I was at a 3.5. Oh wow – a whole 1/2 centimeter progress. So I rested for awhile. She said let’s see how things go and we’ll see if we need to add pitocin. I was able to nap a bit. Our parents arrived at the hospital as they were too ancy waiting at home. The nurse checked me at 7am and I was dilated to a 6. Now we were making progress. She said she would check me again at 8am. Closer to 8, I thought my water might have broken. I was fairly numb, so I wasn’t sure what was going on down there. I had to lay on my right side and the epidural had kind of heavily numbed my right side and I was starting to feel things on my left. I couldn’t lay on my left side because Kendall didn’t like that apparently. They increased my dosage a bit and it wasn’t too unpleasant.
A little after 8am, the nurse checks me. Mom and Daneille were in the room at the time and I guess Kevin had dozed off in the chair. The nurse took one look and said – whoa – there she is! It is go time! Let me get the doctor! Whoo hoo! I was ready to meet her! I say something to Kevin and he doesn’t respond. Mom and Daneille wake him up and my mom tells him she’s ready to go. He looks at Daneille and says – is she kidding? Ha. Mom and Kevin tease each other quite a lot. This was no joke though!
The doctor comes in and gets dressed and very quickly I start pushing. Three pushes and she comes right out! She came out so much easier than Will did, thankfully. At 8:26am – we met our little girl. Our daughter. She was perfect. She looked like a girl. So sweet – so amazing.
The whole experience was so much easier than Will’s delivery. Being our 2nd time, things progressing a little slower, better nurses, her not getting stuck – it all added up to a very smooth delivery. It also meant an easier recovery. I was up and about very quickly that day (once I got the feeling back in my legs).
I think it is a little funny how similar Will and Kendall were, though. I clearly can perfectly cook a baby. Will was born the day before his due date and I went into labor on Kendall’s due date (officially born the day after). Will weighed 7 lbs 2 oz, Kendall 7 lbs 3 oz. Will was born at 8:50am, Kendall was born at 8:26am. However, their temperaments seem very different. Kendall already seems a lot more laid back than Will. We’ll see if that sticks.
We had lots of family at the hospital, which was so special. We were so proud to introduce her to the world. Will was such a good big brother and while he was a little over-whelmed, he did so much better than I expected. And that’s how we met our Kendall Elizabeth!
