{This is Part II of Baby Z's birth story. You can read Part I HERE.}We arrived at triage around 1:00 am and Micah quickly realized how tired he was. While I had slept in until 10:00am the previous morning, Micah was coming off a long and busy work week. His poor eyes were red, and he leaned against the wall in our little room and tried to sleep. At this point, the monitor indicated I was having contractions every two to three minutes and I was starting to feel them, but I was still only dilated to a 2. We're having a baby! // Final shot of the basketball // Snoozing in triage // 12 hours later post-epidural   When we finally got checked into our delivery room, I had the nurse turn down the lights and I tried to let Micah catch some sleep while I labored through the night. The contractions started to become more intense but I could get through them by taking deep breaths and counting slowly to ten. I liked that I could still get up and move around, which I did at least once an hour. At 6:30am, a resident came to check me, and after a whole night of contractions 2-3 minutes apart, I was dilated to a… 3. However, during the check, the baby moved, and this last little burst of amniotic fluid gushed out. Seriously, how could there be any more after the downpour in the kitchen? With this little pocket of fluid gone, the resident said he could literally feel the baby drop down an inch suddenly. After the doctor left, my contractions got much more intense. I tried to keep counting and breathing through them, but suddenly ten breaths became eleven, twelve, thirteen, fourteen, fifteen. By this time Micah was awake and helping me. We tried the exercise ball, which I thought I would love but hated. We tried a rocking chair, which I thought I would hate, but it ended up being my favorite aid. We tried Micah applying pressure to my back, and I quickly decided I am in the “don’t touch me” labor camp. Micah suggested walking around in the hallway, but by this time my contractions were so intense that I burst into tears and begged, “Please don’t make me walk.” Since my water was broken, taking a bath was never an option and the thought of standing in the shower and getting wet just sounded gross to me. Finally at 9am, as I was approaching 24 hours of being awake, I decided it was time for an epidural. I always assumed I would get an epidural unless I had one of those crazy fast labors where the baby is literally falling out of me on the way to the hospital, but I also had a goal to labor naturally for as long as possible and hopefully get dilated to at least a 5 before I took any drugs. Clearly, my cervix was not on board with my plan. The resident had already indicated that I probably had six or more hours of labor left, and I knew I had to rest so I didn't wind up in one of those overly fatigued, need an emergency C-section situations. After my epidural was complete {God bless that anesthesiologist}, I was able to sleep for about two hours. When I woke up, my mom, Micah’s mom {who had arrived from Seattle that morning}, and Micah’s sister came in to visit us for a while. Then a resident came to check me at 12:30pm and I was dilated to a… 4. At this point, my contractions had slowed to one or two every ten minutes, so I had already surrendered to being hooked up to Pitocin to speed things along. I was fighting the clock, because there was increased concern of infection since my water had been broken for so long. After the 12:30 check, I was able to sleep for two more hours. I woke up around 2:30, and for the next two hours my contractions became more intense. Even with an epidural, I could feel every single contraction as the baby dropped lower and lower into my pelvis. Eventually, I even had to breathe through them a bit, but I consoled myself by remembering I was probably only feeling 10-20% of the pain that was actually there… At 4:45pm, when my water had been broken for 18 hours, I was hooked up to an antibiotic to prevent infection, and at 5pm a new resident came to check me. This doctor was the sweetest woman from Minnesota, and I liked her instantly. I liked her even more when she checked me and announced “You are complete!” Suddenly, after such a slow labor, things started to move quickly. The resident and the nurse had me do some practice pushes, and they taught Micah how to hold my leg during them. When they deemed my pushing acceptable, we took a break so they could prepare everything for delivery. Right at this time, my mom and Micah’s mom arrived at our door for a visit, so Micah stepped out to tell them we were about to start pushing. At the same moment, the resident left to update my OB and the nurse left to get delivery supplies. I was suddenly in my room alone for the very first time, and as I sat there, a wave of emotion rushed over me and I started crying… I don’t really know why, but all the adrenaline of knowing I was about to push out my first child combined with the suspense of not knowing if it was a boy or a girl, somehow resulted in me bawling my eyes out. Micah was back in the room within two minutes to find me in tears. “I’m just really emotional!” I exclaimed, and after a minute or two of crying, I was perfectly fine and ready to experience the next stage in this adventure. The delivery part of labor went really smoothly for the most part, although my temperature spiked a little bit during the process and they had to add a second antibiotic to ward off infection. I started pushing around 5:30pm, and Zianne arrived at 6:45pm. The whole time I kept asking if I could do anything better or more efficiently, but everyone kept saying I was pushing perfectly and actually moving faster than many first-time moms do. I had good control of my legs and could feel my contractions coming each time. As the baby was crowning, I could also feel them applying mineral oil and I could faintly tell why they were adding it… yikes! I don't remember this photo being taken, but the time stamp on it is 6:35pm... ten minutes before Z was born.   I will never forget the feeling of Zianne’s head emerging. Never have I felt such a release of pressure in all my life. It honestly felt like her head exploded from my crotch, and Micah, who was watching intently, confirms that’s pretty much what happened. Let’s just say I got plenty of skin-to-skin contact time with the baby as they stitched me up afterward, and my doctor almost missed her next delivery… They pulled the baby out, held her over my stomach, and asked Micah “What is it, dad?” He announced excitedly that it was girl, and I got to watch as he cut the cord right in front of me. After this, she was laid on my chest and we spent a good 20-30 minutes this way, which included her peeing on me twice, which simply made me laugh.   The next two hours were a whirlwind, mainly because the nursing staff switched over at 7pm right after Zianne was born. Our room was filled with people… our first nurse, two new nurses because one was shadowing the other, a nurse for the baby, and a roving nurse to help our first nurse transition off her shift. My doctor finished her task and hastily leaned over Micah and the nurses to pat my head before she literally ran off to her next delivery. Then things got more complicated because the nurses had to do a full blood draw on Zianne to test for infection, since my water had been broken for twenty hours and I got a fever during delivery. Z had a tourniquet wrapped around her little arm and eventually they had to get out a flashlight to find one of her baby veins. Next, we tried breastfeeding for the first time, which thankfully went really well, and we wrote down all the variations of how to spell Zianne’s name, because we actually hadn't agreed on the spelling before I went into labor. Before we knew it, it was almost 9pm, and we still hadn't announced Z’s arrival to the grandmas and aunt in the waiting room. We were going to invite them in the room, but the nurses told us we were about to move to our recovery room, so it would be better to wait. At this point, my mom was outside our door worried, so we had to send a nurse out to tell her there was good news, but she had to wait a few more minutes to find out. Finally, they wheeled us out to the waiting room where we announced to our family that we had a baby GIRL!   The rest of our time in the hospital went really smoothly. All the nurses in the recovery ward were fantastic to work with. They taught Micah how to change a diaper; they taught me how to go to the bathroom in my postpartum condition, and they gave Zianne her first sponge bath and wrapped her up afterward like she was enjoying a day at the spa. Our second day at the hospital was filled with visitors, little girl clothes, a few newborn photos, and a Thanksgiving feast from Boston Market for dinner. Our second night was filled with cluster feedings and not much sleep. And finally on Monday, after waiting on the lab results from Z’s blood draw, the pediatrician came in and announced we could go home. We put on real clothes, wrapped up our little baby bundle, and took her home sweet home to begin our adventure as parents. It’s been a sweet journey so far, and I know it will only get better as each day passes by.       Looking back on our labor and delivery story, I can see God’s hand in all of it. Whether he simply answered my ongoing prayer for “natural labor by Friday” {and a huge thank you to all my friends who were praying this with me} or whether he used that nasty tea to bring about His will, I might never know. But I do know our baby girl is here, right on time, as I always knew she would be. Oh, and if you are wondering... after a few quick emails in my recovery room, my dad ended up getting the house, which means I will get commission for the sale. I like to think I got paid to push out a baby… ... Read more