Welcoming Our Baby Girl Into This Crazy World

This is probably the one post that I really wanted to write simply because the day our beautiful daughter was born, was the best day of my life (and I'm sure Josh's, too). Our induction was scheduled for January 25th, 2012 at 9 am. We had to be at the hospital at 8 am so that we could get checked in and so our nurse could get us all set up and ready to go. My birth plan was pretty simple: natural birth, but if there was ANYTHING wrong with the baby, then do whatever was needed. We dropped Zoe off at Ganny and Papaw's and then headed to the hospital. I have to admit, I was SO ridiculously nervous, but I tried to hide it because I didn't want anyone to get worried, especially Josh. I mean, our lives were about to change forever, and that is just a tad bit scary.

We got into our room at about 8:10 am and our nurse Sheila (the BEST L&D nurse EVER) got us caught up on what was going to happen and what we had to look forward to. I changed into my laboring clothes and then she went ahead and put in an IV line port, just in case they needed to give me any type of meds or anything of that nature during the delivery. Once that was good to go, we just hung out with my mom, Ganny and Papaw until Dr. Hunt got there. Around 9:05 am, Dr. Hunt and Amy (our nurse practitioner) came in, examined me (6 cm dilated and 85% effaced), and then broke my water, that was our plan, since I wanted to go natural. We were going to keep our fingers crossed that we would not have to use any pitocin or any drugs to jump start labor. Around 9:15 am, we were heading out the door to take a walk to try to get the contractions going, but once I stood up out of the bed, Baby K dropped and I was in active labor. I had never felt a pain like that. I mean, I had been having contractions off and on for a good 4 weeks, but none of them felt like that, probably because I was feeling contractions and pressure since she dropped so much.

My contractions were definitely tolerable for the first hour, and of course, Josh had a lot to do with that. He was helping me move around, keeping me laughing (when needed), making me drink my water (which made me so nauseous but I knew it was necessary), and just making me feel like I was really in control. Around 10 am, Dr. Hunt and Amy came in to check me and I was 7 am dilated and 90% effaced. I was making progress really quickly, so we were pretty certain we would be able to labor through without any pitocin. My contractions started getting much stronger and much closer together at this point. I was contracting every 2-3 minutes and they were probably an 8.5/10 on the pain scale. I just kept breathing like we learned in baby class and kept focusing on getting Baby K out so I could finally find out if we had a baby girl or baby boy!

At around 11:15 am, I started feeling A LOT of pressure and was in A LOT of pain! I felt like I needed to push, and about 15 minutes later, Amy came in to check on me. Thank goodness she did. I was 10 cm, fully effaced and ready to get Baby K out. Dr. Hunt was actually getting ready to go to the OR for a scheduled C-section for twins, but obviously, I wasn't going to make it much longer, so Amy sent Dr. Hunt a text telling her that we were ready to have this baby. I tried a practice round of pushing and Amy said she could see a big head full of black hair. We waited for Dr. Hunt to get to the room before we continued pushing. She got to the room around 11:40 am and we started right into pushing. Pushing was probably the most intense pain I have EVER in my life felt. It was almost an out of body experience. The funniest thing about the whole delivery was me asking them if my butt was okay. I had them place a mirror so that I could see the delivery and let me tell you, things just look so weird during all of this. They were completely amused by me. I pushed so hard that I busted tons of blood vessels in my face. I think I pushed through 4 contractions and at 12:00 pm on the dot, Miss Kinsley Nicole Spriggs was born. Seven pounds 11 ounces and 21 inches long. She was absolutely beautiful, even with her "cheesy" white skin. I was so overwhelmed with feelings that I honestly cannot describe what exactly I was feeling at that moment. All I remember was Josh telling me "it's a girl" and I immediately started crying and just looking at her in total awe. I felt such a huge feeling of accomplishment because I was able to deliver this beautiful baby girl with no medication, just like I wanted.

I will say that labor and delivery was NOTHING like I had expected. I never knew your body could endure pain like that. It was so worth feeling every little pain and soreness for her though. She was so alert, took to feeding RIGHT away, and I had no problems with recovery at all.

(Josh cutting the cord)

(fighting through a contraction...i think i was crying at this point)

(Josh helping me with the labor pains)

(enjoying my nice popsicle before the labor pains got REALLY painful)

(Dr. Hunt's arrival (: )