Stella Cate's birth story

Around 2:30 am, I woke up to use the restroom. After I laid back down, I felt a small leak. I thought that was weird and wondered if I just maybe peed my pants a little? I hadn't had any problems with it all pregnancy, but who knows what your body is doing. I tried to back to sleep, but it kept happening, so I would just go to the bathroom each time, because I figured surely I must just be peeing my pants!

From about 2:30 am to 6:30 am I had about 4 more random gushes.  When Matt woke up around 3:30 to get ready for work, I told him either my water broke or I'm peeing myself. I figured if it was actually my water breaking (I was mega in denial) that I had some time.  I hadn't started contracting at all, so I figured we would be ok.  So, he went ahead in for PT.  They had a PT test scheduled for that morning that I didn't want him to miss!

At about 6:30, Matt came home from PT and  went ahead and let his sgt know we were going to the hospital. I slept until about 830 and then took a shower and started getting ready. I was still not having any contractions at this point. We got Sophia up, I showered, we packed bags and brought up some stuff from the basement we might need. I still wasn't convinced I was in labor because I was only 36 weeks and 3 days along.

I called my OB and talked to the nurse.  She advised me to go ahead and head to the hospital so that they could check to see if I had ruptured or not.  So, around 1030 am we got to the hospital and got checked in at triage.

The double checked and sure enough, my water had broke! They started the paperwork and getting my medical history, etc. because I hadn't preregistered, thinking I still had plenty of time! Tthey called my dr who said to go ahead and admit me. I was still in denial. I even asked if they were going to admit me or if they were going to tell me to walk it off. Lol We called our parents and let them know what was going on.  Matt's mom had just arrived in Savannah that day for a Mother's Day weekend with her mom! Matt left with Sophia around 12 to get her home for lunch and nap.  We had a friend come over to the house while she was napping and wait until Matt's dad was able to get there.  I got set up in a L&D room around 1230.

When I got into my room, they hooked me up for monitoring and since my contractions still hadn't started 10 hrs after my water had broken, they started pitocin. I was nervous about pitocin because I didn't know how my body would react to it and I was worried that I would end up having a C section or that Stella wouldn't tolerate it well.  But it wasn't bad at all and both myself and baby handled it fine.

They started at a 2.5 and slowly turned it up about every 15 mins. For a while, I still wasn't really feeling anything even though the contractions were showing up on the machine. They checked me and I was still only 1 cm dilated. They kept turning the pitocin up and we just waited.

Matt came back to the hospital around 2:30.  I had him sneak me in some peanut butter crackers and hard candies. SHHHhhh! The hospital even had huge chunks of Sonic Ice!

Around 6:30 the contractions were beginning to get more intense, so I went ahead and opted to the the epidural. They checked me after it was placed and I was only 2-3 cms. It didn't sound like a lot to me, but the nurse sounded really excited when she checked me and said that it was good that my body was making progress and it would be slow to start. They said they would check me again at 10:30.

Around 10, I started feeling pressure and felt like I needed to poop. Because my epidural with Sophia was so wonky, I never had that feeling. So when I told the nurse, she checked me and realized I was ready to push soon! She called my dr and they started prepping the room and around 10:30 I started pushing. I pushed maybe 6-7 times and she here at 10:57 pm! So much quicker than the first time around!

She sounded great as soon as she came out.  She was a tiny little nugget at 5 lb 6 oz, but came out as healthy as a horse. I was worried that because she was early, she would have to stay in the NICU, but that was never even mentioned.  She was truly ready to grace us with her presence.  :)