Gigantic me a few days before

Katelyn Elise Lind was born on April 18th, 2011 at 12:22pm. Labor with her was a lot different than it was with Keira. Keira's hit pretty fast and hard, while this time I kept wondering if I was even really in labor up until the last hour or 2.

Here's the story:

At week 36 the doctor said I was 1cm and 30%. I was happy to hear this since I had been feeling soooo uncomfortable with this pregnancy and was really hoping for her to come early. The last couple months I had Braxton Hicks contractions anytime I went on a walk or exerted myself.

At almost 37 weeks I was now 2cm and 75% effaced, but Katelyn was going to wait another week and a half to arrive. I had a few nights where I woke with contractions but they always went away, sadly. Then on Monday, April 18th early early.. 12am, the same thing happened where I started to get contractions. I got up and got the heating pad like I had on other nights and tried to go to sleep. Unfortunately, I don't think I fell back to sleep until 4am, and woke sometime after 6am and figured I wasn't in labor, and went back to sleep again. I sort of woke up when Kyle got up for work but didn't feel the need to tell him about my contractions since I thought they had gone away... so I drifted back to sleep again until Keira woke me up, probably close to 7:00am. I got up and had a normal morning, but then realized the contractions were still there. I decided to call Kyle at work and just let him know that maybe I was in labor, but just to keep his phone nearby in case. I timed my contractions and they were a couple minutes apart, but didn't seem strong. I decided to have Lynn (Kyle's mom) come over so she could help with Keira in case things picked up. Kyle had planned to come home at 11 and take the rest of the day off anyways, so I figured that would be fine. But I finally decided to call him and have him come home early since the contractions were getting a little stronger. I think he got home at 10:45. I really wanted to get to the hospital early this time around so that it wouldn't be as stressful and so that I could get the 4 hours of antibiotics that I was supposed to have before the baby was born. I am not sure when I realized I was actually in labor, but probably about the time Kyle got home. (My water had not broken, so I still felt unsure of it all). We get to the hospital and thankfully I basically walked right in and to a bed. The nurse asked if I was here to "see if I was in labor" and we said "yes". Well, lo and behold at 11:17am I was 8cm and fully effaced. Oh!! The nurse said I would be having the baby very soon and that she better call the doctor. For some reason the contractions were a lot more bearable this time. Even when I got to the point of being fully dilated and ready to go I did not feel like I needed pain meds, which was great. Don't get me wrong, they were still painful, but bearable. The delivery doctor mosied on in about the time I was feeling urges to push. (He was not my doctor, mine was off work that day). This doctor is actually quite infamous around these parts, so I was a bit worried about him. But, all in all he was a pretty nice man. My main complaints are that he seemed to be really taking his time getting things ready for the delivery. He made small talked, joked around.. all this while I was 10cm and ready to push! My water still had not broken, so he broke it. That was pretty crazy, and even surprised the doctor. It was a huge pop and water gushed out. I pushed through 5 or 6 contractions and she was here (12:22pm)!! I have to say though, that the actual delivery was insanely painful.... I don't know if anything in the world could ever hurt that bad! I guess that made up for the contractions being not so bad! So I am very glad we went to the hospital when

we did!