Today my little monkey turns two years old. I can't believe it has gone by that quickly! It amazes me that he has been with us for two whole years now and I can't imagine what my life would be like without him.
I wanted to take the opportunity to write down the story of his birth in honor of his day today.
On Saturday, June 20th, 2009 Jess and I spent the afternoon at family's house for a birthday party for his Grandma Dudley. Surprisingly though the sunny skies turned dark and a huge rainstorm caused us all to dash inside and bring the picnic in with us. At this stage, I was huge and was scheduled for an induction the coming Thursday.
One of Jesse's cousins jokingly said to me "You better be ready tonight because they say that thunderstorms and the pressure change from the weather turning can cause you to go into labor."
Whatever, I thought. I haven't even felt a single contraction so I doubt that's happening.
We had to stop at Wal-Mart on the way home because we had a friend and his wife spending the night at our house and we wanted to buy more pillows to make sure we had plenty for everyone.
Then, we went home and hung out with Courtney Roper and his wife, Britney. Courtney had rented a movie from Redbox called Fireproof and we were all groaning because it looked so cheesy. But we put it in around 10 pm and started to watch. Britney was the first to fall asleep and went in to bed soon after…..Then about 30 minutes later, Jesse fell asleep and went to bed also. So, it was just Courtney and I left watching the movie until about 12:30 that night.
As soon as it was over, I went to bed as usual.
The next thing I knew it was 7:00 am and I was waking in bed with very painful contractions. I told Jesse that I thought I was in labor and we needed to pay attention for the next contraction to see how far apart they were. Only two minutes later, another contraction came on suddenly.
Jesse called his mom to ask if she thought we needed to go to the hospital right away, (even though I already knew we should). She said TWO minutes?! Yes, go to the hospital. Even if it ends up being nothing, you're better off safe than sorry.
We hurriedly brushed our teeth and threw on some clothes. Jesse went and knocked on the guest bedroom door and told his friend Courtney that we needed to go to the hospital because I was having contractions. But I said to them not to worry because I was sure it was going to be false labor and they would just send us home. Ha!
We went to the car, our black Honda, and started the ten minute drive from our house to Mountain View Hospital in Payson. While we drove, I called my parents and let them know that we were on the way to the hospital and that my contractions were very strong. My mom assured us that she and my dad would hop in the car and head our direction right away.
When we arrived at the hospital, Jesse parked in the first row of the lot and we walked into the building. I was waddling a bit, but for the most part I was walking just fine under my own power.
When we got up to the labor and delivery ward, there were a few nurses at the desk just getting started for the day. It was only 7:45-ish by this time. We said to the nurses "I need someone to come and take a look at me because I think I am the early stages of labor…." The nurse looked at me standing there on my own and asked a few questions. They sent Jesse back downstairs to the registration desk to check us in while they took me into one of the delivery rooms to see how I was progressing.
After the first nurse came and took a look at me, she walked out to the other nurse and I heard them whispering and then the other nurse came in as well and took a look at me. I wasn't sure what was going on at this point but another contraction was coming on strong.
Finally, Jesse got back up to the room and when he arrived the nurses told us that I was fully dilated and effaced and ready to start pushing any time. They couldn't believe that I had walked into the hospital, up the elevator, and into the labor and delivery department on my own that way. They thought I must have an extremely high pain tolerance and had probably slept through much of my labor.
At this point, we'd only been at the hospital about ten minutes. Our doctor had been paged but was doing an emergency c-section at another hospital 20 minutes away. It was a Sunday, so the anesthesiologist was just on call and not on-site. He had also been paged, but so far he hadn't responded to the pages.
So, that's when I started getting scared……really scared. I had always planned for a slower labor using an epidural with my doctor standing by…But suddenly I was faced with the reality that this little baby was coming soon and my doctor was nowhere in sight and neither was the epidural. I started hyperventilating because I was so scared and the nurses put me on an oxygen mask to get me to calm down. They continued to call the doctor and anesthesiologist to get their status while they tried to keep me calm as best they could.
Suddenly (and thankfully) the anesthesiologist came rushing into the room. He apologized and said he had been in the shower when his pager went off the first time. Luckily he lived close by and dashed over as soon as he saw the page. He said that since I was so close to delivering that the epidural may not even have time to kick in before, so he gave me a local anesthetic along with the regular epidural. At that moment, he was my favorite person in this whole world, and Jesse says that I kept telling him that….repeatedly.
At the same time I was receiving the epidural, my doctor also came rushing into the room. He had finished his c-section in Provo and had driven straight to Mountain View to help with my delivery. So, now all the important pieces were in place and I relaxed a little bit.
Within five minutes of arriving, my doctor put on his gown and told me to push. Four pushes later, and our son, Kien Edward, was here.
They quickly checked him over and cleaned him up and declared him perfectly healthy weighing 6 pounds 14 ounces and 21 inches long.
He was born at 8:50 am on Sunday June 21st, 2009-Father's Day. So from the time I woke up to the time he was born was one hour and fifty minutes. I had arrived at the hospital and delivered him all in time to still eat the breakfast that the nurse brought in.
