Rebekah Kathleen!

Well, I made it to 38 weeks and then Rebekah was born! Part of me thinks she was waiting for her Auntie Amber to get to Idaho. Amber was supposed to get here early Friday morning, but because of bad weather back home she wasn't able to get here until Monday January 6th.  

The day started off just like any other day. School had just started back up, so Andrew and I were getting back into the swing of things. We went out to BK for lunch and then hung out until it was time to pick up Amber from the shuttle bus drop off. Then we helped her unpack her things, took her shopping to get some groceries and then headed home.

We went straight to bed after we got home. It was only 10:30, I know we're old.. I woke up around 12:30 a.m.  to go to the bathroom and my water broke! Luckily I made it to the bathroom, so there wasn't a mess. Andrew didn't believe me at first when I told him my water broke, he thought I just peed myself and since I've never experienced this before I wasn't really sure what was going on. 

We decided we'd better go to the hospital just to be safe. I'm surprised at how calm we were after I told him my water broke. We didn't have our hospital bag packed, but we were able to remain calm and stay level-headed as we gathered the items we needed. 

We got to the hospital around 1 a.m. We filled out some paper work and then we were led to the maternity unit.  

 Waiting anxiously for the nurse to come into the room and see if my water had actually broke AND DRUM-ROLL PLEASE... it did.

Andrew's anticipation of becoming a daddy after he heard my water broke.

 I wasn't dilated or having any contractions yet, so they hooked me up to lots of machines, one monitored the baby's heartbeat and the other monitored my contractions. After I was hooked up to the machines we headed to a different room. I found this part scary because I was laying on the bed and had no idea where we were going.

Around 7:30 I started getting pretty intense contractions that were about a minute apart, but I still wasn't dilated much. They had me on some medicine that helps produce contractions and that was helping some. Around 8:30-9ish I decided that the pain was too much for me to handle and that I really wanted to sleep, so I told the nurse I wanted an epidural.

I was able to get the epidural quickly and then I went straight to sleep. I woke up when one of the nurses came in to check on me and felt pretty well rested. That changed pretty quickly. All of the sudden Dr. Evans and about 5 nurses were in the room. Dr. Evans explained to Andrew and me that Rebekah's heartbeat was dropping, he said this could be due to the umbilical cord wrapping around her head. He took me off the medicine that helps produce contractions and put a tag on Rebekah's head to monitor how she was doing.

Once I was off the medicine Rebekah's heartbeat started to return to normal. Dr. Evans explained that a C-section might be our best option. He didn't want to risk waiting on me to get dilated to a 10 (I was now a 6) and have Rebekah's heartbeat drop again. They decided to keep an eye on us for a while since her heartbeat had returned to normal and then go from there. 

I went back to sleep and woke up around 1ish. Dr. Evans had told one of the nurses to put me back on the contraction producing medicine, but as soon as she did that Rebekah's heartbeat started dropping again. This is where things got scary. 

Dr. Evans came over and talked to Andrew and me. He told us that they were going to do a C-section because Rebekah's heartbeat was dropping again and he didn't want to gamble with her life. He explained that the epidural relaxed my body really well, but because of how relaxed I was Rebekah thought it was time to come out and started pushing which resulted in her heartbeat dropping. 

Dr. Evans and the nurses kept saying ASAP which means "as soon as possible" when talking to the surgical unit and others about preparing for my C-section. 

The urgency in their voices had me worried and the possibliity that Rebekah or I could die during the C-section. As soon as things calmed down for a second I had Andrew give me a blessing that everything would be all right. We headed to the OR and the doctor's went to work. My body was so numb from the epidural and the extra anesthesia I was getting that I could only feel a little pressure.

Andrew came into the OR right before they started cutting and held my hand. He said he watched some of the surgery. Once they got Rebekah out he brought her over to me so I could see her. I was really tired though so I didn't look at her too long. She's a beautiful baby girl though! 

After the surgery was complete we got settled into a new room and I took a nap until Andrew came in with little Rebekah. 

Shortly after that Amber arrived at the hospital, she was coming to visit Andrew and me while I was in labor, she didn't know she'd have a new niece when she got there! Andrew, Amber and I talked for visited for a while and enjoyed Rebekah's arrival. Then I slept a lot. :) 

Welcome baby Rebekah Kathleen! We're very excited to have you in our lives. :)