Birth Story #2

For the month of May I am writing out each of my children's birth stories every week. Here is the story of Kaitlyn's birth.

Kaitlyn was born on April 11, 2002 at 2:10 a.m. Eastern time.

My pregnancy with Kaitlyn was anything but uneventful. It started out with morning sickness unlike what I had with Natalie. I eventually started having problems with my blood pressure towards the end. So weekly I was going for non stress tests. At 8 months pregnant my doctor was concerned about my heartbeat so I had to wear a Halter Monitor for 24 hours. Not something I would recommend at 8 months pregnant. All was fine though. As the final weeks approached my doctor had asked me if I was getting uncomfortable enough that I might want to be induced because he wasn't against doing that. I originally had said no because I did not want Pitocin. He offered to try Cervadil if my cervix was favorable for it though. Joe and I had discussed it and knowing that Kaitlyn's due date was just a week before Natalie's birthday I did want to be done with the pregnancy before her birthday. Also we lived about half an hour away from the hospital and knowing how quickly I went into labor with Natalie we didn't want to have her on the way to the hospital. So we called up the doctor and told him we wanted to be induced. He said he'd check me at my next appointment on April 11th.

On April 10th Joe and I had been out all day long shopping and what not. We came home and were just relaxing around the house. We had something to eat and then I was playing Bejeweled on the computer. Joe was sitting there with me and began noticing that I was wincing. He kept asking if I was okay and I was like yeah I'm fine. So he started timing my wincing. It was every five minutes. He was sure I was having contractions. He made me call my doctor. I got the on call doctor though. When I told him how my labor with Natalie was only 2 hours he told me to get to the hospital. So it was 10 p.m. at this point. We packed up and left Natalie with the woman we were living with and headed to the hospital. I wasn't too sure that I was actually in labor though. We got there and they put me on the monitors and sure enough I was contracting hard every 3 minutes. They checked me and I was 5 almost 6 centimeters dilated. I was told that didn't mean I was going to be admitted since this was my second child. However, the doctor arrived and he said she's staying. And again I was walking around feeling nothing in the halls. At midnight the doctor decided to break my water. And yet again that got things going. By 2 a.m. I was fully dilated. I pushed for 10 minutes this time and Kaitlyn was born. Right onto my stomach she went. Again, no pain medicine of any sort. Completely natural. She weighed in at 8 pounds 15 ounces and was 22 inches long. The biggest baby in the hospital. She had about five chins. She was perfect. I did scare some other lady in the hospital who was having her first because I screamed so loud during delivery.

Kaitlyn came in her own time though and not when we had wanted her to come. She was 4 days before her due date.

Come back next week to read about CJ's birth story.

You can read Natalie's birth story here.

Here's CJ's birth story>

Here's Alyssa's birth story