Kara Mae's Birth Story

On Tuesday, May 22nd, I had one of my usual doctor’s appointments. I was 37 weeks and 3 days – exactly three weeks longer than I carried Jana. It had been a busy day; Mom, Jana and I had gone to Costoc, Winco (warehouse-type grocery store), cleaned out the fridge and cleaned out most of the pantry. I had felt kind of yucky all day, but just figured it was one of my not-so-good days.

I had a doctor’s appointment at 3:50, so I headed off while my mom stayed at the house because Jana was napping. I was 3 cm dilated, which wasn’t much more than I was the week before, so I was a little disappointed. She said that my water sac was bulging from contractions, so she ordered me to the hospital for a Non-stress Test.

I went home to get J, who had ridden to work that day and we headed to the hospital, with bags packed, just to be hopeful. They observed me for an hour and a half and my contractions were between 6 and 7 minutes apart and only mildly painful. So, they sent us home.

It was nice to come home. My mom had fixed us dinner and we were able to put Jana to bed. At 2:00 am, in my dream, I had a contraction that hurt. I immediately woke and realized that was a real contraction and I wasn’t dreaming. I felt a little trickle, trickle and had an “oh crap” moment. I was on the couch, which wouldn’t react too well to my water breaking while I was on it. I ran to the bathroom and whoosh! There went my water, and boy-howdy, they weren’t joking when they said I had extra fluid.

I grabbed the towels from the half bathroom downstairs and ran upstairs to wake Jeremy, leaking more fluid all the way. I tried not to scare him, and wanted to gently wake him up, so I gently shook him. I told him that my water broke as he was waking up. He jumped up, saying “Oh yeah!” He quickly flipped on the light and started emailing off his lesson plans for the day, while I changed my clothes and continued to make a mess.

The contractions started soon after and were immediately two minutes apart and quite painful. About five or six contractions later, I got this heavy feeling and knew the need to push was not far away. This was about the time that J figured out that we needed to leave NOW.

After a quick stop into the guestroom to give my mom the news and a monitor for Jana, we were off on our 20 minute drive to the hospital. My contractions were wildly erratic; one would be 90 seconds apart and lasting 30 seconds and another would be three minutes apart, lasting 90 seconds. I knew that pushing was not far away. I desperately wanted to scream at J to hurry up, but I knew if he was speeding, we’d get pulled over.

We arrived at the hospital a few minutes before three. Frighteningly enough, a car pulled in after us and two of my students got out. Anyway, J dropped me off because he saw a parking spot about 100 feet away. She buzzed me in and asked what she could do for me. I replied, “My water broke and my contractions are two minutes apart. I’m going to have this baby soon.” She looked a little panicked and started asking my name and for me to sign forms. She quickly sent us upstairs. We got upstairs and had to wait for a nurse to come get us. I was starting to freak out because I was in some serious pain. We skipped triage (again) and did the patient history as we walked down the hall, stopping twice when I couldn’t walk anymore because of a contraction.

We got into a room and I got changed. She asked for a urine sample and I told her, “No way. If I try to pee, I’m going to end up pushing.” I immediately told them that I wanted an epidural and they told me they would see what they could do because the anesthesiologist was in an emergency C –section. I got on the bed and within a few minutes, I was complaining that I needed to push. They immediately got an IV nurse in there when I told them in took them 2 ½ hours to get an IV in with Jana. I was only at 6 cm at this time. They kept telling me not to push, but I couldn’t help it. She told me that pushing wouldn’t do any good because I wasn’t dilated yet… unless I quickly skipped ahead. She decided to check me again and I was already 9+ cm. She quickly started calling for help as with the next contraction, I felt the head crown. (Side note: I quickly realized that I did have some of the epidural with Jana because I could feel EVERYTHING!) She was trying to get me to not push and had J press the call button and tell them we needed someone now and that they needed a NICU nurse for an unassisted delivery. With the next contraction, I had to push again and I could tell that the head was out. (TMI: Holy cow, that kid was flailing about – apparently unhappy about being half-way out.) I couldn’t wait for the next contraction because of all the kicking and with two more pushes, the baby arrived. They put her on my chest and I couldn’t believe it was over. J finally had to ask, “What do we have here?” and they told us a girl. J’s first thought was, “Oh shoot, we don’t have a name.” Next thing I know (which was apparently about 10 minutes later), an ER doctor arrived to deliver the placenta and all that glorious stuff. By the way, I was shocked that the contractions continued after she was born; I don’t remember that from last time.

At 3:28 am, she was born, weighing 8 lbs, 3 ounces and 19 ½ inches long. I was shocked to see how big she was because she seems so small.

So after about an hour of being very distracted, we narrowed it down to Allison Kathleen, Kara Kathleen, and Kara Mae. We both agreed that we liked Kara Mae the best.

It was a wild ride and I sure would have loved to enjoy an epidural.