Life changing...

3 years ago today, my (our) life changed forever...

Due date had arrived and passed, another day passed, a third day passed and on the fourth day around 1:45AM... was something really starting to happen? Yep I think so... laying in front of the TV timing contractions it seemed to be pretty consistent and was pretty sure this was the real thing. By the time Marc got up at 5:00, I told him I think that today is the day.

Really? Do you think this is the real thing?

I do. You should call Jason and tell him you aren't gonna be at work.

I bit more time passed. 6AM, we called the doctor. Contractions are a couple minutes apart consistently. He told us to wait for another 30 minutes and call back.

7AM we were in the car for what was a very LONG drive to the hospital. You see the hospital is a good 25-30 minutes away... now lets add in rush hour, a mom in extreme pain every 3 minutes and a very nervous daddy.

Got to the hospital and checked in. By this time, the pain was ridiculous and there was no break between contractions... they were coming on top of eachother. I vaguely remember the doctor checking me and telling me that I was only a couple centimeters... I then remember him telling me that we were gonna break my water. At this point, I had a contraction, was grabbing the top of the hospital bed and in such pain that I literally kicked his hand away and told him NO WAY are you doing that to me right now.

Fast forward a couple LONG painful hours (I don't remember much.) But the one thing I do remember before the epidural arrived was Marc trying to do something with a switch on my hospital bed and the radio started to blare. All I could say was turn that f'ing thing off. He scrambled and couldn't figure out how. It probably didn't help that I was NOT a happy camper at this point so he finally pulled the plug. Thank God that terrible noise was over. Oops... in pulling the plug we (he) set the alarm off at the nurses station.

Finally, the epidural had arrived. Ahhh... the instantaneous relief. I can't believe I had to wait so long, but it was pure heaven when it did arrive. Once the epi was in... I was able to nap, watch TV, hold a coherent conversation with my husband and wait anxiously for the next step in this process that we'd never been through before.

After the doctors knew the epidural had taken effect, they broke my water. No problems this time... do whatever you need to. At this point, they figured out a couple things, I had minimal fluid left and the baby had pooped in me already. Because of these two things, they calmly explained to us there were going to be a couple extra NICU nurses in the room at delivery and it may be a little chaotic.

2:05 the nurse came in and woke me out of a dead sleep to check me (dad was sleeping too). It's time to call the doctor.

Are you serious? Okay. (and the tears started flowing. Why? I don't know, I suppose the hormones and being petrified of what was about to happen).

2:25 doctor arrived. As she put her scrubs on, I did a couple 'practice' pushes. Not having a clue what I was doing, the nurse just told me to push like I had to poop. Okay... that's fine, but I cannot feel a thing with the epidural. At this time, the doctor also explained to us that when the baby comes out, they are going to 'plug her' so she isn't able to breathe right away. They wanted to make sure the babies poop didn't end up in the lungs.

After a couple pushes, and now realizing the cord was wrapped around the neck, and knowing the baby had pooped... the doctor pulled the vacuum out. She didn't want that baby in any more distress than it needed to be in.

2:45PM life had changed forever.

What is it?

It's a girl!!! Kailee Denise was born into this world a whopping 5lbs 13 oz and I think there were three immediate reactions when seeing her, oh my gosh its a girl AND she's SO tiny AND is everything with her okay?!

13 hour labor from first contraction (that I felt) until the time she arrived. 20 minutes of pushing, the doctors preparing for the worst, but everything was perfect. Mom, dad, doctor and nurses were all in the room as Nece had arrived...

Why did I write this post? Well... to capture the birth day of Nece. I don't think I've ever written it down because you believe the details will stay with you forever. They don't and I found myself going back multiple times adding to this post as I remembered different things I had forgotten about that day. If another year had passed, more details would have been forgotten, unintentially.