City Girl to Rancher's Wife: Olivia's Exciting Birth

Here is Olivia's birth story. I just want to say that this is a birth story, so if you don't like hearing about these things you might want to skip over this one. That's all. Thanks and happy reading :)

A brand new Olivia Kate - January 31, 2016

I've always had a gut feeling that I was going to have Baby #3 the first week in February. I just wanted this baby to make it to February so that each of my babies could have a birthday in a different month. Well #3 had other plans in mind...

I had been passively timing my contractions starting during the week of January 24th. They were still just braxton hicks contractions, but they were getting more common, so I figured why not "time" them. By the end of the week they were about 20-30 minutes apart. I was just thinking we're making progress for sure.

On the morning of January 31st, I woke up at 3:00 am just very uncomfortable. I just knew something was different; just like I did with my other two pregnancies. So, I got up and went to the living room to watch a bit of TV while I timed my contractions. By about 4:30 am, my contractions were about 8-10 minutes apart. I decided that I would wake up Brett and go take a shower. Both of my previous pregnancies have also started out early in the morning, so I'm fairly familiar with this whole set up. When I was done taking a shower I started to time my contractions again, and they were about 5-8 minutes apart. At this point we decide to give our family friend a call to make her way over as soon as she can. She did not waste any time. Brett jumped in the shower and pretty much by the time he was done she was here and ready to send us off. The kids ended up waking up just as we were about to leave, so I got to tell them that their baby was coming!

Brett and I got in the car and headed out at about 6:00 am. When we got to the hospital my contractions were 3 minutes apart. Just a bit of back story, but I wanted to make sure that I got to the hospital in enough time because this time around I was Group B Strep positive, so I wanted to be able to get the antibiotics necessary before baby was born. Anyway...so we get to Labor and Delivery and they're always a bit slow, and it doesn't help that we tend to get to the hospital when they are changing shifts. They check me and I was 3-4 cm dilated, so the nurse told us that she was going to talk to the on call doctor to see if they'd want to admit me or not. I was thinking you're going to want to admit me. My second came pretty quickly.

She came back and said that she wasn't sure, but she was going to hook me up to the monitors in a room. We moved to a room, and she hooked me up to the monitors. My contractions were getting kind of wonky and #3's heart rate was dropping. She got me to switch positions and said that after that they'd definitely be admitting me. Just a bit later the on call doctor came in to introduce herself and ask me if I wanted an epidural. I said YES absolutely as soon as possible! Thankfully the anesthesiologist was in the area because my pain level was becoming more and more unbearable with every contraction.

Before the anesthesiologist arrived, the nurses arrived and put in my IV to get my antibiotics started. Once that was all going, my friend the anesthesiologist arrived. He told me to sit on the edge of the bed and boy was I dreading that. When you're in labor like I was, it's really hard to sit like that through contractions. My whole body was shacking, but I was so relieved that he was in my room already. At the very end of the procedure, I was feeling a TON of pressure down in that area. Then all of a sudden my water broke. My water has never broken on it's own, so I was actually kind of excited about this. I scooched back into my bed and definitely knew that it was my water that broke. So I told my nurse and she, only for the second time since I arrived, checked to see how far along I was. She was shocked but I was already at a 10 and ready to go! I think I was just as shocked as she was!

She ran to get the doctor and nurses to get in my room quickly. Everyone started running in and getting ready. The doctor told me to push when I needed to, which I was SO thankful for because I knew this baby was coming. I pushed through one contraction and our little Olivia Kate was born.

Olivia at one day old.

Olivia was born at 8:02 am, weighing 6 lbs 5.7 oz and was 19.5 inches long. I couldn't believe that after being at the hospital for two hours we already had a baby. I was in such shock and filled with so much happiness.

The downfalls of having a quick labor were that they weren't able to get in the antibiotics that they wanted to before she was born, and the epidural that they gave me didn't kick in until after she was born. So it was kind of lame to sit in my hospital bed with numb legs once my baby was already here. Needless to say, I felt everything during labor. It wasn't as bad as I thought it would be though.

Because of the fact that we didn't get in enough antibiotics, we had to stay in the hospital for two nights. I have never had to do that before, so it was kind of hard. Especially with two kids at home that wanted to see Mom and new baby sister. They did come and visit, but it wasn't the same as having Mom at home. In some ways it was really nice to have that initial bonding time with Olivia in the hospital. It's hard being that third kid :)

Overall, I thought it was a really great labor and delivery. It was by far my easiest I think. I can't believe we are a family of five now, but it really has been so wonderful so far. I am so excited about my complete little family.

And here are a bunch of pictures for reading the whole story!