Madeline's Birth Story

A week before Madeline was born, I was in to visit the doctor and he asked me if I wanted to go with an elective induction. I eventually decided to go with the induction, mostly for Katelyn's sake. I wanted to make sure she was around for Madeline's arrival (as she was very concerned she would be gone at her dad's for visitation when she came), so our family as a whole could be a part of it. We set the date for the 15th.

I woke up at 5 a.m. on Saturday and couldn't get back to sleep for another hour (didn't have to be up until 6 a.m.) because I knew the day had come! Nate asked if I just wanted to go ahead and get up, so we did. We showered and got ready to go, and then we called the hospital at 6 a.m. to make sure it was still okay to head in and be there at 7:30 a.m. They said that things were still okay and we were set to go. Since we were all ready to go, Nate and I decided to go grab some breakfast before getting to the hospital. As we were walking out the door, the hospital called back and said a few women had showed up in active labor, so they said they'd call back in an hour to update us on when to come in. We still headed out to breakfast. It was pretty nice to have a little last-minute impromptu date before going to the hospital!

Well, time rolled by and the hospital hadn't called back yet. We called at 8:30 a.m. and although the babies had arrived from the previous baby rush, a couple more had come in to Labor and Delivery just as the others were done (Welcome to Utah, right? Haha!). So, they asked us to call back again at 10. Since we really had no idea what to do to kill time for an hour and a half, we decided to go shoot the breeze at my dad's house until then. We didn't want to go back home because we knew if we walked back in the door and no new baby in our hands, some big sisters would be quite disappointed! So, 10 a.m. rolls around and they finally give us the go ahead to come in at 11 a.m. Yay!

We got there at 11 a.m. and got registered. Although we finally got to get started, things still didn't get to go as quickly as we had hoped! After getting me hooked up to the fetal monitors, they tried for over 2 hours to try and get a good heart tracing on Madeline, but she was flipping about to and fro (not unusual at all for my babies!), they couldn't ever get a good tracing so they could start the Pitocin. So, they tried everything from positioning to oxygen to see what she'd do and they finally got a tracing long enough to go ahead with the Pitocin. Just to double check, they did a quickie ultrasound to make sure she was head down after her gymnastics routine! Once they did that and things looked good, I was finally started on the Pit about 2:30 p.m. After a couple hours, about 4:30 p.m., I decided to get my epidural. I didn't want to wait too long because I just about waited too long with Aiden. I kept having severe contractions with Aiden, so it was a lot harder to get my epidural in. I figured I better be safe and get it while I was still able to hold still! Right as I decided it was time for my epidural, Dr. Kasteler showed up to break my water. Bless his heart, he let me get my epidural in before he broke my water! Woo hoo! Since my water broke on its own with Aiden, Nate got to witness them breaking my water. Needless to say, he was horrified haha! All I could do was laugh at him, since I couldn't feel a thing, which was fabulous! My water was broken at about 5 p.m. Dr. Kasteler headed back home and was going to come back when it was time for lil Madeline to make her appearance. Around 6 p.m., Madeline started having some late decelerations during the contractions and I was only dilated to about a 6 at this point. About 7:15 p.m., I hadn't gone much further and was at a 6.5. From this point, it only took 40 minutes for me to go from 6 cm to 10 cm and we were ready to go! Fortunately, Dr. Kasteler had come back to the hospital before anyone had the chance to call him to tell him I was ready.

Madeline REALLY must have wanted to get into this world quick because it literally took 1-1/2 pushes for her to come out! Frankly, I didn't even think I had tried that hard to push her, so I was so surprised it took so little for her to get here! Madeline Erin was born at 8:06 p.m. at 6 lb 3 oz and 19 inches long. Madeline's late decelerations were explained once she came out because she had a nuchal cord x1. Not only that, she had the cord completely twisted all over her body! Can't say I'm terribly surprised with how squirmy she was inside me haha! She, thank goodness, came out crying immediately, so all concern if she was okay was cleared up immediately. Nate cut the cord and they put her right on me for a few minutes. When the nurses took her to clean her up, Dr. Kasteler and I started chatting a bit. We started talking about his good timing with showing up at the hospital when he did, and he told me that even though no one had called him from the hospital and he had just barely gotten home, something told him that he needed to come right back to the hospital. With Madeline's decelerations and my quick progression, it's a good thing he listened to the Spirit, eh? Hearing that from him just truly added to the special event.

I had very little blood loss and I didn't tear at all either, WOO! Dr. Kasteler told me that in his 17 years of practicing medicine, he's never had anyone lose as little blood as I did, which probably explains a lot of why I have felt so good in the following days since she was born. I ended up staying in the hospital only 24 hours because I feeling so great! Not a ton of pain and my energy was pretty high (not that it will last long haha), so I was almost going stir crazy in the hospital! I would have left sooner if it weren't for getting all of Madeline's tests and what not done before we left. It was nice to come home and sleep in my own bed, for sure!

We've all decided that Madeline looks a lot like Katelyn when she was born. We were expecting Madeline to pop out looking a lot like Aiden, but were surprised when Madeline came out with dark blonde/light brown hair!

As kind of a funny side note, after Madeline arrived and family showed up, the nurse who helped deliver Madeline recognized me. After she saw my SIL, she connected the dots and realized that we had gone to high school together! She graduated the year after I did, but it was more or less a funny moment. It's a small world (just wanted to make sure I got that song stuck in ALL of your heads :D)!

We are so glad that Madeline is here to complete our family! I've got three little princesses running around and couldn't be happier!

Here are a few more pics of Miss Madeline's birthday!