Flowers Family Blog: The Best Day of Our Lives

It had been a long hot summer of swollen ankles, a vastly growing waistline, and I was still working 40 hours a week at PAi. It was Wednesday August 22nd, and I had had another long day at work. A couple of girlfriends and I were going to go to lunch that day and I offered to drive, but my car wouldn't start. I called Kurt right away and luckily he was on his way home from Appleton and could meet me in the parking lot to see if he could get the car started or give me a ride home. My friends all offered to drive me home, but I said no, I only live a mile away from work and I knew Kurt would be along soon. They swore I'd go into labor if I tried to walk home so I promised I wouldn't walk and luckily Kurt got there soon after I finished work and got my car started for me.

When we got home Kurt and I got some ice for my huge ankles, we ate dinner and then we were off to bed. I must tell you before I go on that, as sort of a side affect of pregnancy, I snored so horribly that Kurt often had to go sleep in our spare bedroom to get any actual sleep. It was so bad that I would wake myself up sometimes thinking that someone was breaking into the house. This night was no exception.

I woke up around midnight for one of my very frequent bathroom visits. I apologize in advance from this point on as you will probably get way more information than you care to know. As I rolled out of bed and began walking to the bathroom, I found myself peeing. I thought "Oh my god I have lost all bladder control!", I ran to the bathroom and continued what I thought was a normal nightly restroom break. As I finished I got up and began to pee again, I thought "what the heck I just emptied my bladder and didn't feel like I had to go again" so I sat back down and wondered if my water could be breaking?

I had already noticed that Kurt wasn't in bed with me and knew exactly where he was. I got some protection and waddled downstairs to find Kurt. I had to call his name a couple of times before he woke up. He had no idea what was going on and he looked startled. I told him that I thought my water had just broke, and he was like "WHAT!, are you sure? What do we do now?". I told him I didn't know and that maybe we should page the doctor to see what to do. I hadn't had a single contraction as of yet throughout my entire pregnancy, so I wasn't sure how urgent this was, but I do remember hearing in Lamaze that if your water breaks to go to the hospital right away.

Just to be sure we paged the doctor on call. As we went upstairs the fluid kept coming so I decided it would be best for me to stay put in the bathroom. As I waited for the doctor to call back, I called my mom. My stepdad Steve answered and I informed him that I thought my water had just broke and that we called the doctor to see if he wanted us to go to the hospital, I told him that I would call them back to let them know if I was going to be admitted. I was allowed to have two people in the delivery room with me and I couldn't think of any two people I wanted there more than Kurt and my mom.

I hadn't packed my hospital bag yet so I had Kurt running around like a chicken with his head cut off trying to pack a bag for all three of us in about 10 minutes when the doctor called back and told us to get to the hospital right away. At this point I still hadn't had any contractions. Then I got up to help Kurt get our things together and they began. We managed to get to the hospital by 1am. It had only been an hour since my water broke and I began timing the contractions in the car on the way to the hospital, they were already 5 minutes apart, everything was happening so fast. They were mostly through my lower back, not pleasant at all.

When we arrived at Bellin Memorial Hospital in Green Bay like I said around 1am, we were escorted directly to Labor and Delivery. The first nurse that took care of us was awesome, her name was Mollie and she was of course wearing Green Bay Packer scrubs, which is quite funny because Kurt and I are huge Bears fans. She was so sweet we absolutely loved her. She had Kurt fill out paperwork and worked on verifying whether or not it was in fact my water that had broken. After a quick exam, it was confirmed I was in labor and Payton was on her way.

We called my mom back right away to let her know to get going, but Steve told us she had already left after our first call. That made us giggle, she was so excited and thought if it was my water breaking they for sure would be admitting me that night. She ended up getting there around 2:30am.

My contractions were getting closer together and I was dilated 2 or 3 centimeters.

We discussed pain management options right away before my mom even got there. I knew for sure that I wanted to have an epidural, but the nurse encouraged me to try to wait as long as possible. She did advise me though to have the anesthesiologist come in and put the catheter in right away while my contractions were still half way mild. Then he could come back later when I decided to have the epidural and they would administer it through the catheter that was already in place. This was definitely a great decision.

At about 5 am, I couldn't take it anymore and needed something for the pain so she gave me a medication to help me relax so I could possibly take a nap. It helped tremendously I was having such bad back labor I couldn't get out of bed or move to try any other positions that we learned in our Lamaze classes. At around 7am the medication started to wear off and the contractions were coming about every 3 minutes so I asked for the epidural. It took about 20 minutes but it helped me tremendously. I couldn't feel the contractions any longer, YEAH, just the pressure from them which was perfect.

The contractions started to slow to about every 15 minutes, which I was glad for because I had at this time only had about 2 hours of sleep since Tuesday night and it was Thursday morning. Anyways the nurses decided to give me Patocin to speed things back up which was fine with me. After that the contractions came back strong and I was dilating at a regular pace. At about 8:30am, I was 10 centimeters dilated and ready to start pushing. I couldn't feel the pain, just the pressure so the epidural was working perfectly. I pushed for about an hour and Payton was born at 9:46am Thursday August 23rd, 2007.

Kurt cut the umbilical cord and they placed her on my chest on some blankets, she was perfect. For a vaginal birth she had the most perfectly round head. She was so beautiful, I don't think I have ever seen anything so amazing in my life. Kurt helped the nurses give her her first bath. The doctor asked him to guess how much she weighed and he guessed 7 lbs. He was so close she weighed 6 lbs 15 ounces and was 20 1/2 inches tall, good guess Kurt.

Mommy and Payton's first picture together.

This is Doctor O'Toole, he's awesome. He's definitley one of the reasons that I will miss Green Bay when we move, if I could have him deliver all of our children I would in a heartbeat.

First Bath

Payton and Nana

I was purely exhausted and was shaking so badly after the delivery. I was freezing and the hormones were making me shake uncontrolably. They put about a million blankets over me and gave me heat packs for my back which was pretty sore. The epidural was wearing off by now. I wanted to enjoy my little girl, but could barely keep my eyes open. Mom and Kurt were great, I don't know what I would have done without them. My sister got there before noon and they all looked after her so I could get some much needed rest. They let Kurt get in a quick nap as well, but I think he was too excited to sleep much at this point.

Payton and Daddy

First family photo.

We had already called Kurt's family and his Mom and sister were already on there way to the hospital, we were expecting them around 10 or 11pm that night. His dad and brother were coming Saturday to see our newest family member as well.

Aunt Niki and Payton

Payton and Grandma

The hospital staff were just awesome, every nurse that took over with each shift change was just wonderful. The visiting hours were very flexible as well, they allowed Kurt's family to come up and see Payton in the nursery when they got into town that night. We let her sleep in the nursery because we knew we wouldn't be getting much sleep for the next couple of months and were well advised to take advantage of the nurses at the hospital. We were able to stay in the hospital until Saturday which was also great.

Well that's pretty much the story of Payton's birth. I'll make a post for her homecoming as soon as I can as well. Here are some more pictures from this amazing day, enjoy.

Daddy admiring his baby girl.