birth story

Well, we did it! After 9 long months, baby Kallie finally made her grand debut and joined our family. It’s hard to believe! After all the waiting and anticipation, in the blink of an eye it was all over and our lives were changed forever. The last few days have been an absolute whirlwind and now we’re just hunkered down at home—just in awe of how much we love this little baby.

Here’s the story!

My induction was scheduled for Monday morning, but after little progression on my own in the weeks leading up to it, my doctor decided to have me go in the night before to start with a cervix softener to prep for the Pitocin the next day.  As much as I was hoping to go into labor on my own, it was so nice to be able to plan and go in on Sunday night, eager and ready. We got there around 6:30pm, got settled and situated, then I’d assumed they’d just give me my little dose, we’d go to bed, then wake up the next morning and have a baby! But of course, there was a little more to it than that.  When I got my first dose of Cytotec around 9:00pm, I was dilated to a 1 and was 70% effaced. 4 hours later when they checked me, nothing had changed. They would have just given me another dose, but since I was already having pretty frequent contractions (still super mild and relatively painless), they wanted to give my cervix a chance to catch up. They didn’t want to intensify my contractions if I still wasn’t dilating- there would be nowhere for baby to go! They checked me every hour from there, and still no progress. Pretty discouraging to hear. At this point, I kind of started to panic—why did we do this? It's too early, my body’s not ready, this is not going to end well… After checking me a few more times, they decided to just go ahead and put me on Pitocin. WHAT?! I thought the whole concern was that my body was NOT ready to induce labor! I was already having contractions, I didn’t need that to increase! Wasn’t that the whole point of holding off on more Cytotec? What I wish they had told me was that intensifying my labor with Pitocin would help me dilate. (Side note- As much as I loved all of my nurses throughout my delivery and recovery…this particular nurse I had during my induction could have been a little more open about what was going on… It would have been really nice to have a nurse coaching me through all this instead of letting my mind jump to the worst-case scenario… I later learned that this was all fine and normal. Thanks for the panic). 

So, they started me on a small dose of Pitocin at 4:30am.  After a long night of tossing and turning, feeling crampy and anxious, I woke up around 8:00am feeling super uncomfortable. They measured me at a 2 and shortly thereafter my water broke! Success! Such a relief to see some progress, but still somewhat discouraging considering how long it took me to go from just a 1 to a 2…even with drugs. Oh well, progress is progress, but I figured we still had a LONG way to go. From there, I started feeling more and more painful contractions. I felt a little silly asking for my epidural so soon (in my mind, I’m thinking I’m still only at a 2…), but they went ahead and called the anesthesiologist, and with only one patient ahead of me, he would be there in about 10 minutes. Luckily I asked for my epidural when I did, because all of the sudden my contractions escalated like crazy. We’re talking super intense, super painful, super close together. They were coming about every minute and lasting about 30 seconds each…talk about zero recovery time in between! I was dying. And starting to panic. If I’m only at a TWO…how much WORSE is this going to get? Where is the epidural guy? What happened to “10 minutes?” And even once he gets here, how long will it take for the epidural it to kick in? With the pain, I had to constantly be rocking and swaying and squirming…how on earth would I be able to hold still? Total panic mode. (By the way, Ryan was amazing during all of this and stayed super strong for me, which was of course highly appreciated during my time of desperate need!) After about 45 minutes of this 1-minute-apart-contraction-business, my doctor came in and witnessed me in the peak of my misery and offered me some pain meds through my IV while I waited for the epidural. YES PLEASE. This literally saved my life. The meds kicked in right away, and I immediately felt super relaxed and drowsy. It reduced the pain about 50%, which was a huge relief at the time. The contractions were still painful, but manageable. Luckily it was only about 10 minutes from there until the anesthesiologist arrived, but having those meds get me through even those last 10 minutes was a total game changer. Not to mention, it helped SO MUCH to be so relaxed through the whole epidural process, especially with how impossible it would have been for me to hold still without. I was literally dozing off as he was placing it—that’s how great this stuff was. The epidural kicked in within a few minutes and it immediately relieved of the other 50% of the pain. AH-MAZING. Now that all that was behind us, they checked me again, and I was all the way to an 8! Then less than 5 minutes later, completed to a 10! Wow! That happened fast! I went from a 2-10 in less than an hour. No WONDER I was in so much pain... 

At that point, they had me wait about an hour to let the baby descend on her own before I started pushing. During that time I felt totally relaxed, took a little snooze, and woke up completely energized. It was now 11:00am and it was time to start pushing. Even with the epidural, I could feel the whole thing—everything except the pain. Have I mentioned how much I loved my epidural? For me, it was just this miracle drug that allowed my body to feel absolutely everything that was going on except for the pain. How was it able to “pick and choose” like that? It was incredible. After pushing about an hour and making good progress, my doctor came in to finish things up. Throughout the labor process, the baby’s heart rate would drop a little during contractions. It would pick up in between, but as she got closer and closer, her heart rate stopped going back up. My doctor decided they needed to do a little intervention in order to get her out in time, so during my next contraction he used a vacuum device to pull on her while I pushed. With just a few slight tugs with the suction, she was completely out! That was that! It was incredible. So surreal. I still look back on that moment and have no idea how to put my thoughts and feelings into words. She was perfect. 6 pounds, 14 ounces, 19 inches of perfection. And more than that, this tiny little perfect angel baby was ours. Absolutely indescribable. The next 48 hours were a blur, but I do know there was a lot of the two of us just staring at her teary-eyed, just smitten. We are so attached already and just adore this little baby more than we ever knew possible. We feel so blessed to have this sweet baby girl in our lives and are just taking in every moment. We are so in love! Stay posted for more updates!

Kallie Michelle Bench

December 29, 2014

12:40pm

6 lbs, 14 oz, 19 in

Could she be any more precious?