Melissa's Delivery Story - The arrival of Kayla Marie

So I officially got that call at 12:34am on 1/22/11 that Melissa’s water had broke and they were heading to the hospital.  I flew like lightening down the beltway to make the 45 minute trip as quick as possible.  After dealing with a half-hearted security guard, I made it to the triage area where they had Melissa hooked up to the monitors. 

3:00am

Melissa is moved back to the delivery room.  It’s freezing in here, though I am sure it is really comfortable for Melissa.  She is nervous and in pain.  It’s tough to see her in pain.  As the contractions get worse and worse, Melissa continues to struggle through whether to get an epidural or not.  Justin sits next to her and holds her hand through the contractions.  Melissa tears up during each contraction and looks to my mom for guidance.  We both are internally whispering to her that she can do it.  Justin is super supportive, not that I expected anything less from him.  He is always supportive and this time is no different.  My mom steps to the other side of the bed to comfort her during contractions.

The room is pretty quiet.  I try when I can to add a little humor to the situation, but nobody really seems into it.  Instead I will just document.  I’m writing this in word so I can accurately update.  I tried to take a picture and got yelled at by the momma...  No pictures right now.   Or at least not right in the middle of a contraction.  Oops.

She’s feeling nauseous when she has contractions which I sure don’t help with the pain.  Contractions come rapidly.  So fast that she doesn’t really have time to recover much.  We’ve been in the room for 30 minutes now and no one has come to check on her yet.  I’m irritated for her.

3:30am

I must’ve jinxed it because as soon as I typed that last sentence, the midwife came in to visit her.  Melissa wants to move around, change positions, so they get a nurse in the fix all her tubes and straps and stuff. (what the heck is all this stuff for anyways?)

4:00am

Melissa asks for an epidural.  The pain is too much for her back and she is exhausted already.   They are pumping her full of fluids, hooking her up to more machines.  My mom and I will have to step out for the procedure.  While we are waiting for the fluids to finish the midwife comes in to check her progress… she says about 5 cm along. 

4:50am

God is good.  We love drugs.  All is right with the world.  (side note:  I’m exhausted.  It’s going on 24 hours of being up and I don’t do will without sleep.  That baby better hurry up.)

5:15am

The nurses come in to check Melissa.  They say she is moving really fast, 7-8cm and they start prepping the room for the delivery.  I’m going to get my camera(s) ready…

6:45am

Still no baby.  WTF, Baby!!!  Apparently she is 9cm dilated, so we are just waiting.

8:40am
Still no baby.  We are all sitting here waiting; Justin, mom, Dave, Jill and I.  Hopefully we will see some action soon since she's beginning to notice when there are contractions.

9:25am
Still no baby. We were waiting for a midwife and she was side tracked to a woman that came in a couple hours ago. Guess when you come in fully dilated you get priority.  Hopefully we'll meet this baby soon.

10:16am

Little Kayla Marie Hales was born.  7 pounds 8 ounces standing a tall 21.5 inches!  She has huge feet! J  Melissa did great and Kayla is beautiful!