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I am testing this post to see if it works. First time from my new phone! :-)

The Story

At 38 weeks, Carey and I went to the doctor for our 38 week check up. When we got to the doctor, my blood pressure was a little bit too high, I had swollen ankles, my protein was a little too high, and I had seen "stars" the day before so they sent us over to labor and delivery for observation. That was on Tuesday, September 6 and we were released that night at 9:00 pm. We were very curious while we were there if we were going to have our little girl soon! I worked Wednesday but had another doctor's appointment Thursday so they could recheck all the pre-eclampsia signs so I did not work that day. Everything turned out to be better than on Tuesday, so that was a wonderful praise! I worked Friday and was told to rest all weekend. The doctor told me on Thursday that they would most likely put me on bed rest the next week to be on the safe side. :/ We really did not want to waste a week of my maternity leave sitting around and waiting on baby to arrive so we were a little unsure how we were going to handle what we were told on Monday at our next doctor's appointment.

Monday morning, Carey did not have to be in to work until later so I got up with him. As soon as I got up I started having contractions, but they felt like some very intense cramps. They were not very strong, but they were different than anything I had felt before. I asked Carey to see if he could get off work and come be with me because I had a feeling that we would be having a baby soon. He got to work and told his manager what was going on so they sent him home to be with me. We talked on the phone and I told him that the pain was getting stronger and that he needed to call our families and let them know it was time to head to North Carolina. I called my doctor just to make sure that these pains were normal and she said they were the beginning of labor, but to see if I could make it until my doctor's appointment at 10:40. The pain continued to get worse and it took some concentration to get through them, but they were not horrible. Definitely managable. We got to the doctor's office for our appointment and were getting excited thinking that this could be it! We definitely were not excited after my doctor checked me and I was only about 1 centimeter dilated. :/ UGH! She sent us away for about an hour and then we came back for her to check me again. I was then only 1 1/2 centimeters this time. Unfortunately, she said since we wanted to have a natural birth with little intervention, she recommended we go home until the contractions got to the point that they were unbareable. A little discouraged, we headed home. I definitely was not excited to think that the pain was going to get worse. :/ We got home about 2:00 that afternoon and just waited. I laid on the couch and just waited for the pain to get worse. And it did. The pain continually got worse and it was getting harder and harder to relax through it. Carey was a wonderful coach being encouraging and supportive. I was crying for some pain medication pretty early on and Carey was being strong for me. The pain got to the point of being completely unbareable for me so we called the doctor around 5:30ish and headed to labor and delivery. The car ride to the hospital was probably the worst part of the whole experience. The 45 minute drive was a constant contraction of pain with the motion of the car. We finally arrived at the hospital and got checked into triage until they got us a room. My nurse's name was Betsy and she was amazing. As soon as she found out that I wanted to be as natural as possible, she was SO helpful! She helped Carey coach me through each contraction and really was supportive. When I arrived at the hospital I was only about 3 centimeters dilated. I could not believe that this was going to so much more painful and I had 7 more centimeters to go! I was having a real hard time relaxing and my blood pressure was staying high. A few hours later they decided to check me again to see how much more I had dilated since I seemed to be in so much pain and I was having plenty of contractions. I was only 3 1/2!! Oh the frustration! We then discussed and I decided to have an epidural to help me relax so my body could do what it needed to. So at 10:30 that night, I got an epidural. Right before the epidural arrived, my water broke on its own. It was such a weird feeling! The only thing that then became difficult was that contractions get stronger after your water breaks. :/ As soon as I got the epidural it put me in a completely different mood. It also helped my high blood pressure go down and become somewhat normal, but Claira-lynn did not like that at all. They had to give me oxygen to help get more to her because she was having a hard time with the adjustment. I got to sleep a little bit, then I started feeling the contractions again. After multiple tries to fix the issue, they decided to take the epidural out and replace it with another one because the first one did not take correctly. So they did. I do not remember what time this took place but it was sometime in the middle of the night. Once they replaced it, the epidural took how it was supposed to and I was more comfortable. While I was sleeping, Betsy came in and told me that she was going to give me some pitosin (sp?) because the epidural had relaxed my body so much, that my contractions virtually stopped. Which was not good. As soon as I got the pitosin, things started to move a little more quickly. I finally got to the point where I felt the urge to push so they started checking to make sure I was dilating. They checked me when I felt like I needed to push and I was 9 cm. I REALLY felt the urge to push very soon after and I was 10 cm! Betsy called Dr. Watson and she started getting everything ready to start pushing. Betsy started coaching me through some pushes with my contractions, but Claira-lynn was not enjoying the pushing process too much. To help her out they gave me the oxygen mask again and I could only push every other contraction instead of with every one. That was VERY difficult. Having the urge to push and not being able to was a little painful. :/ Around this time was shift change for our nurse. Sadly, Betsy, who was with us the entire time, was not there for the birth of our sweet baby. BUT we ended up with Rachel, who was our nurse on our visit the week before. :) So Rachel got there and it was the home stretch. We started really pushing around 7:00 (after we had been pushing and skipping a contraction since about 6:25.). 25 minutes later, Claira-lynn was out! The cord was wrapped around her neck when she came out, but they quickly fixed that. When they lifted her up to see me, she was a little blue and was not making any noise. I was a little nervous but her big, beautiful eyes were looking all over the place. Carey was asked to cut the cord quickly and they moved her quickly over to the "french fry warmer" and stuck a tube down her to suck out whatever she inhaled on her way out. As soon as they did, we heard our sweet little girl's BIG girl cry. As soon as they got her crying, they brought her over to me for some skin to skin mommy time. :) They did all of the necessary things after that. She weighed 7 pounds exactly and was 20 inches long born at 7And:25 am on September 13, 2011. After that, our life with Claira-lynn began. :)