Bree's Birth Story

I've told this story a few times to people so hopefully I don't leave anything out. I want to remember all the details of the day my sweet girl was born. It really was a special day and I'm amazed at how smoothly everything went.


February 4, 2015.

I had read so many birth stories and hear comments from people in the past nine months that I was pretty scared about delivering the baby that was inside me. I kept hoping that there was some kind of fairy that would come and magically take her out because I am a wimp when it comes to pain. And as far as people had told me there was pain before, during, and after.

I had been having some mild Braxton Hicks contractions for a few days off an on. I kept trying to do whatever I could to see if Bree would want to come join us early, but the contractions usually stopped after about 5-10 minutes. I was a little disappointed.

On Tuesday night, February 3rd, I couldn't fall asleep. Not like it was anything out of the ordinary so I pulled out my phone and started reading, looking through instagram, and Facebook. About 11pm Jake woke up and told me to put my phone away and get some sleep. I knew I wouldn't be able to sleep, but I put it away anyways and eventually fell asleep.

At 4:30 am I woke up with some contractions. At first they felt about the same that they had the past few days. I pulled out my phone and started timing the contractions just to be sure. After an hour Jake woke up and told me to put my phone away again, thinking I hadn't been asleep the whole time. I told him that I had been having contractions and I was timing them. That's when Jake started to freak out a little. "Are you in labor? do we need to go to the hospital?"






























I had no clue! I had been told that when everything really starts to happen, a weird calm comes over you. It was SO true! I laid in bed for a while still timing my contractions when they were 4-5 minutes apart. I called my mom at 6 and asked if I needed to go to the hospital and she told me to call the Labor and Delivery nurse where I was delivering and see when they would want me to come in. I did and they told me that when they got bad enough that I couldn't walk through them, then it was time.


I text my boss and told her that I wouldn't be making it to work that day and that we were going to go to the hospital to get checked in a few hours. I laid in bed watching tv just trying to breath through my contractions. They hurt, but I still didn't feel like they were getting any worse. Jake got up and started cleaning the house and getting our bags ready to go just in case we wouldn't be coming home that night. I got up and started walking around the house just to see if they were getting any worse. As I was climbing the stairs back to my bedroom I had to stop to breath through them. My eyes got big and I turned to tell Jake that it was time!

Jake drew me a bath so I could at least feel clean after my already long morning. When I was clean and dressed we put everything in the truck, locked Sky in the garage, and made our way over to the hospital. I kept telling Jake that if I did have a baby that night, that all I wanted was a cheeseburger! (my whole pregnancy I had serious heartburn. I would get it bad just from drinking water!)

After parking and walking into the hospital we made our way to the Labor and delivery floor. We checked in and they put us in the best room on the floor. There were windows all over and we got to see the view of the whole city. It was nice to be in such a bright room. My nurse came in and hooked me up to the monitors and said they would watch me for an hour and they would see if they would admit me after that. Luckily my doctor was there that day already doing 4 other deliveries. After half an hour (12:30 pm) my nurse came in and told me my doctor was going to admit me. Jake and I looked at each other beaming and a little freaked out! We weren't leaving without a baby!! Our Baby!
They went to grab everything to start my IV. By this point I was still only dialed to a 1, maybe 1.5 but my doctor was keeping me because my contractions were a minute and a half apart. If that.

While my nurse was putting my IV in she popped a vein. So she started again on another vein. All I could think about was Bonnie's birth story and how it took multiple people to get her IV in, and I kept praying the next one would stick. Well that vein popped too. Thank goodness my nurse said she wasn't going to get over confident and keep trying and she was going to go get the master of IV's. In came the next nurse with her gear to try to get that dang thing in. Luckily for Jake, his aunt who works at the hospital came in and grabbed him to take him to lunch. Poor Jake hates needles and he was quite pale at this point.

So here I was alone, but surrounded by nurses waiting to poke me. I held the first nurses hand while nurse #2 worked her magic. She gave me a numbing shot which was magic because that IV stuck.

By the time I had my IV in my doctor came in and checked me to see if I was progressing, which I still wasn't nearly fast enough (about 1/2 an inch per hour). So he ordered the pitocin to give my body the extra push to my contractions. As soon as the pitocin was ordered I asked for the epidural as well! Thank goodness Jake came back just in time to get all this information and hold my hand while I got the epidural.

I had heard from people that the IV hurts worse than the epidural or anything else. So true. The epidural was the best thing ever! As soon as it kicked in I looked at the monitor and my contractions were so strong you couldn't even see the peak of them.

My nurse came in and checked me every hour and was progressing much quicker. An inch per hour. When I got to a four it was about 4pm. Jake kept telling me to try to get some rest, but I couldn't. I was too excited to meet our little girl. I was still calm about it all but I was getting anxious. We were keeping my family updated on everything that was happening. Especially my mom who was going to head up to the hospital as soon as she got off work. At the rate I was going we weren't expecting to start the delivery until 10 pm. Jakes mom, Melanie, was there with us and was getting more and more excited to become a grandma!

The next time my nurse came in and checked me her eyes got huge. She looked at me and said, "you're an 8! And I think thats being pretty conservative!" WHAT!? 4 centimeters in an hour!? that felt like it happened so quickly! Everything was a blur! She went to go get my doctor to have him check.

He came in and said I was a 9! Everyone went out of the room to get everything ready. My doctor came in one last time and checked, he turned to me and said " You're a 10. Lets have a baby!" I just looked at Jake and smiled! I couldn't believe that it was finally time! After 9 months of throwing up, months of bad heartburn, no sleep, body aches, I was going to finally see my baby girl!!!

At 6:00 pm I geared up and started pushing. After 9 minutes of pushing I saw my dark haired, CHUNKY, little girl! I thought for sure that I would start crying as soon as I saw her, but I was just so happy to see her! I did eventually cry as I watched her getting cleaned up while they were stitching me up. I just wanted to hold my little girl. Jake was standing next to her like the amazing dad he is!

Then finally! I got to hold my sweet little girl! I kept looking at her thinking no way is this my baby! No way I made this tiny human! She is mine!