Birth Story continued.......

So I went home and decided to call my mom and my work. Then I felt the rush of excitement that YAY! Kelsie is coming! Kelsie is coming!!! Her daddy and I had waited and waited to see what this girl looked like after soooooo many months of kneeing me in my stomach on the left side. Same spot. Always. And daddy could get her to do it even more. Oy! Stop the madness I say!

So daddy rushed home an hour away from Honda, and was super excited to get his time with his girls and meet his new baby Kelsie. (named after his former 2 favorite girls, me and his mom, aka Elsie) I think we both got bumped out of the number one spot in his heart, but that's ok, lots of room to share.

Daddy and I got all of our stuff together and I decided to eat a snack on the way. I had no idea how long it would be til I got to eat again, and with the excitement of my water breaking, I really hadn't had anything all day except eggs and toast for breakfast. I think I may have ate Teddy Grahams and a drink in the car....I'll have to see if daddy remembers, probably not, so Teddy Grahams it is!

We parked and went up to Labor and Delivery to sign in and try not to shout down the hallways, "We are having a baby!" because really, nobody cares. Happens all the time at a hospital. y'know?

So we get admitted in this little closet of an office right outside the labor and delivery desk, and the guy is super nice, but slow, and even though you fill out all of that pre-admission paperwork that they send you in the mail, there is still a lot they make you sit and wait for. Someone takes us back through the "official" labor and delivery doors into our room where she gives me gown and tells me to go into the bathroom and undress leaving all of my own stuff in a clear plastic bag. Okay, no problem, but how do I tie the darn thing in the back when I can't reach back there? Oh well. So I set up shop in the bed and the nurse, who I liked, did all of the initial checking, and everything was hunky dory. No problem. But since my water had broken about 6 hours ago, they wanted things moving along, so they inserted some monitor for baby's heart rate inside my vajajay, and checked me for dialation every so often, then started ptosin. The nurse I liked went home when her shift was up and another nurse that I DID NOT like came in and was not the nurturing type of nurse at all. More of a drill sargeant. Do this. Not this. Not my style at all. She's the one that wanted me to sit on the infamous "birthing ball" to get Kelsie to travel further down the canal to be born, I think they refer to them as "stations". Kelsie's NaNa won't ever let me forget sitting on that darn ball that looks like you are getting ready to exercise with Denise Austin. I don't think it did anything, and soon after the doctor came in to check me that was filling in for my Dr. Beth since it was after hours. I think her name was Tiffany, but I'm not sure. She was nice, not very feminine, but nice, and pretty much laid it out there for me, get your epidural. If you want it eventually, just do it now. It will change nothing, as we have been inducing you anyways. So they pumped me up with fluid(making problems later), and called in the anesthisiologist for the epidural. It seemed like it took forever and it did. The lady stuck me 3 freaking times in the spine, and the 1st time was no biggie, but the 2nd I could fell a zinger down my right leg, and I looked at daddy like oh baby, this could be the end for using my leg, and he was scared for me I know. The stupid nurse that I didn't like anyways was supposed to be helping me focus through the contractions and not move, but she was busy answering the anesthesiologist's cell phone for cryin out loud! I should have spoken up, but I was just focused on holding still. So the 3rd time was the charm, and by 9pm, about 3-4 hours into our baby experience, things were looking bright! No pain. Oh, and the contractions felt like really bad menstrual cramps, nothing more, so I was quite underwhelmed. I read that a lot of women have "back labor", but I can't describe that because I obviously didn't have it, and I suppose that's a good thing. I'll never know.
So after the long ordeal with getting the epidural, time started to crawl. Everyone was tired from the exciting afternoon, and it was just a waiting game for Kelsie to decide to "Come On Down" the birth canal. My mom and dad were there and Doug too, and my patience challenged mom says, "Oh, come on Kelsie, hurry it up!" I suppose Kelsie heard the voice and went to the light! Before I knew anything had really changed, the nurse said, "It's time to give some pushes, and don't be discouraged because very often a first delivery takes a few hours of pushing." I looked at my mom and thought, oh hell no, not here, not me, not today sista nurse friend! So she asked me if I had taken any birthing classes on vaginal delivery, and we didn't, mainly because I just felt ignorance was bliss in that area, and I didn't want to not sleep worrying about the watermelon coming out of my vajayjay. So she basically summed it up and I gave it a whirl......... totally flunked the first try, and needed to close my mouth and push for 10 seconds like the biggest, baddest bowel movement was trying to find the toilet. I was a quick study though, and I could tell from the others in the room that we were making quick progress and felt elated that I wasn't going to push for hours. In a matter of 15 minutes, they called to get the doctor. Not Dr. Beth unfortunately, but with Kelsie ready to be born, and her head of dark hair sticking out, I didn't care if the janitor came in to catch. I was ready to meet her, and honestly as we hung out waiting for the doctor to come in, I thought, really, now come on, that's all there is to this? One more push and I'm a mom? I'll have a brand new baby to show for this? It's so unbelievable, that until the moment actually happens, you just don't even believe it. It's like when the pregnancy test says PREGNANT, and you don't feel pregnant, but you just say, hey, I guess I am, now what next? And then one week leads into the next week of "what next"? and so on and so on, until on week 37 and 5 days, I had to stop asking what next, and go to "Now what the heck do I do?" LOL!!!!

So I got off track, shocking, I know.

The doctor came in and what seemed like 5 seconds later, but was probably actually 5 minutes, Kelsie Makena Clouser was born at 2:42am on September 13, 2007. I had her on my belly for a few seconds so our eyes could meet for the very first time, and it was like, "Well there you are girl! Where have you been all of my life? I've been waiting for you!" And she looked back at me, like "Here I am momma! I've been looking for you too!" ***pause for being all ferklempt**

They took her away after Doug cut the umbilical cord which to me, since I didn't watch the birth, was more gross than what I did, but hey, who am I to judge? They weighed her in at 7lbs, 2oz. and when we watched her 1 year birthday video, I realized in a picture that my dad took, that she was technically 7lbs, 1.8oz. And since I'm an over-the-top detailed person, (some call that anal, but that's gross) I was shocked to find that out. She also measured 18.5 inches long, which I thought was short, but really how do you measure of slimy, squiggly, squealing little newborn's length? Her apgar scores were perfect, both 9s. I do remember being a little torked off that they didn't let me have any skin to skin time, and they really tooted their own horn about that in the tour we took beforehand. Anyways, my mom and dad left after some time for pics, and I was exhausted, I hadn't been up that late since college days. The nurse came back, who was really great, but made me choose whether to leave Kelsie in the nursery for her first bath and sprucin up, or to have her in our postpartum room with us. My first choice was to have her in the room. I had barely spent 1 minute with her yet, and wanted her back, but the nurse said since the floor was slow, that they sent people home, and didn't really have the staff to send someone to our room to clean her up there for a good while. Boy, I was really torn, and really pissed that I had to make that decision. Since it was already close to 4am, and they promised to bring her in to me in about an hour or so, I chose that. Well, 3 freaking hours later and no baby, and at the shift change, I asked my nurse where in the heck my baby was, and she thought I was nuts. I told her what the nurse had promised, and she was like, oh no honey, we don't ever do that. Uhhh. okay.

That's it in a nutshell. I'll add more as tidbits pop into my head.