Labor & Delivery

October 2nd:

I was laying in bed around 6:30 in the morning and felt 3 pretty intense contractions in a row, which I hadn't felt before and I thought to myself, "I think my water is going to break." I'm not sure how I knew, but I was right. At 7am, my water broke in bed. I woke Mark up to tell him and of course he asked if I was sure I didn't just pee the bed. I was pretty positive I didn't cause the waterworks weren't just a one time thing. Mark wasn't so convinced obviously because he rolled over and went back to sleep for a little bit. I got up to shower and get ready. We already had things packed for the hospital so we weren't in a panic or rush to get out of the house. We left for the hospital about an hour after my water broke. When we pulled up to the hospital ER entrance, we were stopped and asked if we were there for the car show. There was a car show going on in the hospital parking lot. Weird, I know. We were told to go to the second entrance, so we did and were stopped again and asked about the car show. We told them we were going to the ER and finally made it into the parking lot where we were stopped yet again. I was getting a little impatient by this time so when the guy asked who we were with for the car show, I sort of snapped that we were there to have a baby, not see the car show.

We registered in the ER and were sent up to Labor & Delivery triage to make sure my water did break and to see how far along I was. The nurse confirmed my water broke and that I was between 3 and 4 cm dilated. They set us up in our room and gave me a Cytotech to keep my contractions progressing. I wasn't feeling much pain at this point.
My nurse wanted me to walk around for an hour before they hooked me up to the monitors. The walking got my contractions going and I started to feel some pain, but not too bad.
After we walked for an hour, we went back to the room and got hooked up to the monitors and I was given an IV. Then we waited. I tried to sleep, but didn't have much luck. Mark just hung out and did some homework. My contractions slowly started to get worse. A few hours later, the nurse came to check my progress and I was at 6cm. Not too long after that, the contractions got really bad. Up until then, I'd been able to breathe through them pretty well, but they started coming really close together and were super painful. I called the nurse and asked if I was able to get the epidural yet. She said I could've had it whenever I wanted, which would've been nice to know sooner...lol. She called the anesthesiologist and he came pretty quickly. Getting the epidural was the worst part of the whole labor because I had to sit perfectly still in a really uncomfortable position while my contractions were still coming. It didn't take too long for the epidural to kick in. Life was pretty good after that. My body felt really strange because I would touch my legs or my stomach but wouldn't be able to feel them.

Around 9pm, the nurse checked my progress and I was at 10cm, so we decided I could start pushing. I did a few pushes with the nurse and then we waited a little bit for my doctor to come in. Pushing was a little difficult with the epidural because I couldn't feel if I was doing anything or not. The nurse would say, "Just like that or keep doing that" and I would have no idea what she was talking about. I must've been doing something right because I pushed for about 20 minutes after my doctor came in the room and then Cannon was born at 9:49pm. I didn't feel any pain with the pushing which was nice. I did end up having to have an episiotomy, which I was dreading, but the recovery from that hasn't been too bad. The moment when he was born and they put him up on my chest was so amazing. Instant love. We all cried of course. I just couldn't believe how tiny he was and how much hair he had.

Cannon Charles Gabriella

Weight: 6lbs, 11oz

Length: 19inches

Cannon did great. He was 10 days early, but was perfectly healthy.

Mark holding Cannon for the first time

Dr. Kale

My labor and delivery went almost exactly as I had hoped. My water broke, which I was hoping to experience, I made it through some pretty good pain on my own and then had the epidural and all was smooth sailing after that. I was so happy to have my mom there with Mark and I too. I couldn't have asked for a better experience and a sweeter baby.