Welcome Kinnick!!

Well he finally made it. And thank goodness. I was definitely done with that whole pregnancy thing. Like I said in my last post, this one was pretty rough on me, and I got out of it 10 days early!

Well I am sure you are all wondering about the details. So here they are. It all started Friday the 7th. I had a doctor appointment, just a normal check up. And he decided that because he was the doctor on call for the weekend, he would strip my membranes (for those who don't know what that is, it can sometimes encourage labor, look it up if you want more details). I wasn't very hopeful. We had done this a few times with my last pregnancy and it didn't ever do anything. So I went about my business like usual, not expecting anything.

Saturday Cory decided to go golfing. It was a beautiful warm day and Ace and I decided to go visit my parents for a couple hours to get out of the house. A little after noon, while at my parents house, I started getting sporadic contractions. Nothing very painful or consistent, so I didn't pay much attention. I mean, I had had Braxton Hicks contractions before and really didn't think this was anything unusual... Until a little later that is.

We went home in time for Ace to nap and meet back up at the house with Cory. I was still having sporadic contractions, but they were anywhere from 10 minutes to 50 minutes apart and anywhere from a 1 on a pain scale to a 3. Not very convincing that a hospital trip was in order. Also, my water broke at home last time, so I was kind of waiting for a pretty serious sign. The last thing I wanted was to go to the hospital and be sent home without a baby.

So I didn't say much, and figured resting would eventually make them stop. Around dinner time, things got a little more interesting. I started timing the contractions and they had gotten more consistent. About 10 minutes apart. But only for an hour, then they stopped. Another hour past and they started up again. Another hour and they stopped. This continued for several hours. Although I thought this was a little odd, I still wasn't convinced it was time to go. So I waited. We went to bed, and I think Cory secretly knew we would end up at the hospital, we got into bed where we would normally look at funny youtube videos or talk about funny things that had happened that day, and instead, he rolled over and went straight to bed.

I, however, was not so lucky. I couldn't sleep. I was still contracting and although not very painful, annoying enough to make it impossible to sleep. So I played some mind numbing phone games for an hour or so until the contractions stopped. I finally drifted off to sleep around 12 or so. 2 glorious hours later, I woke up to use the bathroom and the contractions were back, this time with a vengeance.

Again, being as stubborn as I was, I didn't want to wake the family up and head to the hospital for no reason, and since my water hadn't broken yet, I was thinking this was still just my body practicing. So I waited and timed and cringed. After about an hour and contractions consistently 5-10 minutes apart and getting more painful as it went, I woke Cory. If nothing else, maybe the hospital would give me some pain meds or something that would ease the contractions.

So we got up and got a few things packed, just in case, and headed to the hospital. We decided to keep Ace with us rather than dropping him at my parents. At least this way if we got sent home with nothing, no one else would have gotten excited for nothing. In we went. Upon arrival I was put in a triage room, hooked up to the monitors, and checked. I was definitely contracting, my water definitely had not broke, and I was dilated to a 4. They decided to observe me for an hour and see if anything changed. If nothing happened, the plan was to get some pain killers and head home.

A little over an hour later (now a little after 5am) the nurses came back in to check on me. I was definitely still contracting, my water still hadn't broke, but I was now dilated to a 5. They called the doctor and the anesthesiologist, it was a very slow night and both were away from the hospital on-call. I was staying, and probably going home with a baby! Wahoo, no useless trips to the hospital this go around. So I called me dad to come get Ace and told him we still had some time so he should go get some rest and try and get Ace to rest too. It had certainly been a long night for him.

A little over an hour later, Cory decided it was time for some breakfast. I'm sure he was starving and exhausted and so he headed out to go find himself some food. While he was gone, I got my epidural, finally. By this point the contractions were quite taxing and I was looking forward to the reprieve I would get from the epidural, and the rest that came with it. Cory made it back with his breakfast and I was just getting comfortable. A little too comfortable, and then, lots uncomfortable in the other direction. An alarm started beeping loudly, and I had to get Cory to get me a nausea bag.

The nurse came in and explained that sometimes an epidural can lower your blood pressure too much, which is what was happening. She pushed some drugs into my IV to help bring it back up. After a few minutes I was feeling better. Still very tired though, so Cory and I both decided to try and get some sleep while waiting for the right time.

Unfortunately that didn't last too long. Roughly another hour passed, making it near 8am and my blood pressure dropped again. Same ritual, my body tried to throw up, but it was empty from last time, and the nurse came in to help bring it back up. By now the doctor had also arrived and had come in to say hi and check things out. Since my water hadn't broken on it's own yet, the doctor needed to do it. Easy enough, and I didn't even feel a thing, well, a gush is all. I was still at a 5 and the doctor and nurse talked about using Pitocin to help induce steadier contractions to get the ball rolling. We decided to wait a little longer to see how things looked. The doctor and nurse left and Cory fell asleep almost instantly. I fell half asleep. I was too close to the noise making monitors for any real sleep.

The nurse came back to check periodically and because I was making progress on my own, we decided to still hold off on the Pitocin. A little after 10:30am the nurse came back in to check again. She asked if I had to push the button on my epidural yet, and I told her I just had minutes before she walked in. The contractions were starting to get a lot stronger, and because I am a wuss when it comes to them, I wanted to feel as little of them as I could. She nodded as she went about her checks. "Looks like you're ready," she said, "Let's try a couple practice pushes." So we did. One. To which she exclaimed, "Don't do that again, I'm going to go grab the doctor." Ah ha. That usually means things will be moving rather quickly.

It took a few minutes to get the doctor and get all the things in the room ready to go. Then it was game on. Literally 6 pushes later, and we had a(nother) healthy baby boy. I was so thrilled that it went so smoothly, not only because that meant less work for me, but I was already exhausted from being up all night, and a little woozy from the blood pressure stuff. But all was well, and this was done! Kinnick Emerson Junck was born 10:54am, March 9, 2014.

Because it all happened so fast, no one had arrived at the hospital yet. The nurses handed me the baby and after a quick clean up, they all left. It was nice to just have a little time just the three of us (Ace was with my dad). Cory made a comment about how Kinnick didn't look as "alien" as Aceson had. Which was to be expected. 6 pushes vs. 2 and a half hours of pushing. Poor Ace did look like an alien.

It wasn't too long before we were moved into our other room and family started arriving to say hi. Most of them giving me a very hard time because I suggested not rushing based on our previous birth experience. All were still very excited, particularly my little brothers who actually timed how long the other held the baby and got upset when they didn't get the same amount of time.

We couldn't be happier with Kinnick. And we couldn't be more proud of how Aceson has handled the situation. With the exception of small outbursts brought on by lack of sleep and/or food, he has done a remarkable job adjusting. And he certainly cannot stop giving his brother kisses.