I want to record the story here so that I don't forget the details of the day.
Around 11:00 on Sunday night, October 23 I started having some painful contractions. They were sporadic in nature and I thought, "Oh well! I'm being induced in the morning, I might as well try and get a good night's sleep." And that's what I tried to do. The alarm was set for 5:00 so that we could get to the hospital by 7:00. However, JUST like with Cait, I started having some contractions that could not be ignored at 3:00am. I woke Paul up and he timed and coached. They were close together and painful. All kind of out of the blue. Well, whatever! I was 41 weeks at this point, so not really out of the blue. More like, ABOUT time!! Anyway, by 5:00 we called in and told them we were on our way, as my contractions were already less than 2 minutes apart.
We arrived at the hospital at 6:00am and they took forever to check me in. I was having to sign papers and answer dumb questions while working through contractions. Well pretty much any question seemed dumb at the time. Finally, I got in a room and all settled in. I was ready to labor and meet my baby girl!!! But things never go like you planned, which is okay. My labor kind of slowed down to a crawl while they had me on the monitor. Bummer. So my doctor, Dr. Wood decides to break my water. Okay, never had that done before. HURT, hurt bad!! Seriously coming off the table on that one. When she broke my water, this was the news that sealed the deal in messing up my plan. There was miconium in my water. That meant no walking around. That meant being monitored constantly. That meant I'm freaking out because my plan to go natural and walk the halls, rock and bounce on the ball are all out the window and I just can't seem to cope with the change and the pain. Oh, did I mention she added a little pitocin? So....at this point I am grabbing my sweet husband's arm begging him to help me!!! His response, "What do you want me to do?" And my reply? "Get me some drugs!!!!"
So they called for the anesthesiologist and he was there in .5 seconds. Grateful! He asked Paul to leave his writhing in pain wife only to come back to a smiling, relaxed wife 15 minutes later. It was sweet relief! This was at about....not sure what time. Maybe 12:30 or 1:00? I had labored quite a while with it really going nowhere. I wasn't dilating anymore. I wasn't progressing and the contractions were sporadic in spacing and in intensity. So once I got the pitocin and the epidural I sat back and tried to rest. The kids came in, mom and dad came to say hi. Our photographer, Taylor, was there and ready. Paul's family was there, ready and waiting. Everybody was just chilling and waiting for the long stretch. I was just sitting back talking to mom and Paul when Taylor came in and wanted to get a little video clip. She asked if I wanted to leave a sweet little message for Molly...and my answer was, "No." She looked surprised, as did everyone else, but I had one thing on the brain. All of the sudden I realized that I needed to push! I asked them to go get the nurse but the nurse didn't even want to check me because she just had. After insisting, she told me that I was ready, and in fact, don't move a muscle. Don't even cough until she got my doctor. Molly was right there, trying to be born all by herself!
Long story short, after the doctor and nurses scurried to get everything ready, she finally told me to get in position to push. As I'm getting in position (aka sitting up a little), Molly just slipped right out. Seriously, I never even pushed. She was just here. Ah, and the look on Paul's face was priceless! Tears, disbelief that she was perfect and whole and healthy and finally HERE!
What a sweet little blessing she has been from the first second of her birth!
Molly Mae Lewis
7lbs. 8ozs.
21 inches
Born at 2:45pm
It was a great day!!
