The Birth Story

Well, we did it! We welcomed our newest sweet baby girl into our family, and we are so happy! Piper Gene Thelin arrived 4 days early at 9:57pm on Saturday, October 1, 2011. She was 7lb. 11oz. and 20.5" long. She is absolutely perfect, and I fell in love with her the moment I held her. Here's her story:

The last couple weeks of my pregnancy my contractions had been getting stronger and closer together. Friday night they were pretty bad- I actually thought I might be going into labor, but I really had no idea. With Peyton, I was induced at the hospital, and I was not dilated or effaced at all when they induced me. I got my epidural, had my water broken, and then was started on pitocen, so I never felt a single stage of labor [lucky me]. This time was different. Friday night I probably got a total of 3 hours sleep because the contractions were so bad. Saturday by noon they were still irregular (between 3 and 8 minutes apart), but lasting a long time, and excruciatingly painful. I called the on-call doctor around 3, and she told me I was welcome to come in to the hospital, but if I wasn't in real labor, they would just send me home. She said she wouldn't advise me to come in until my contractions were consistently 5 minutes or less apart. Jade was on his way to the Priesthood session of General Conference when I decided that I wasn't able to take care of Peyton through the contractions, so I called him home. About a half hour later (contractions still irregular) I decided that I was just going to go in, and I wouldn't let them send me home unless I was medicated. We dropped off Peyton to my mother-in-law and headed to the hospital, where we checked in just a little after 6pm. I was still only about 80% effaced (same as my appointment on Monday), but I was dilated to a 4. I was having contractions every 3 minutes. Ouch. No offense, but I would NEVER have a natural birth by choice. I was admitted to the labor and delivery ward then, and was given a dose of fentanol to calm me down a little bit while we waited for the anesthesiologist. I felt a little high, but no pain relief. Then, like an angel, the anesthesiologist showed up and gave me my epidural. I needed a lot of the epidural medicine, and we had to combine 2 different medications, but it worked like a charm, and pretty soon I was pain-free. About a half hour later, the on-call doctor, Dr. Johnson, came in and broke my water. Within 45 minutes I went from 4cm to 9cm. Crazy. Jade was watching college football the whole time. We had a little hiccup- Piper's heart rate started to drop with each contraction (the same thing happened with Peyton and I almost had to have an emergency C-section). Luckily, I was progressing really fast and when they turned me on my side, her heart rate stayed in the safe zone. I could feel some pressure, but didn't realize it as a "need to push" sensation, so we tried to push through a contraction, just to see if the timing was right. It was. My nurse called Dr. Johnson and we were ready for action. I pushed through 5 contractions, 3 times each contraction, 10 seconds each push. Dr. Johnson realized pretty quickly that she was a lot bigger than we thought, so he did an episiotomy to enable me to get her out. I heard the snip. Not a good noise, but at least I couldn't feel it. During the break between the last 2 contractions, Dr. Johnson told me to feel her head. It was crazy. It felt so mushy and it was definitely a weird feeling. Right after my last push, she came out and immediately they put her on my bare chest. It's a new thing they're doing- getting back to our mammal-roots. She was still covered in vernix and attached to the cord and everything. I didn't like it because she was still purple and hadn't cried yet. I probably asked 50 times, "is she ok?" Eventually Jade cut the cord, I delivered the placenta, and she went from purple to pink. Seconds after she came out, she was sucking her little fingers, so we knew she wanted to nurse right away, and she got the hang of it within about 5 seconds. Awesome. She got her shots (which she tolerated super well- she didn't even let out a peep) and a sponge bath. We stayed in the delivery room for 2 hours to be monitored, and then we were taken to our room for our first night together. It really was a great experience, and I am so happy our sweet baby girl is here.

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Epidural going= happy momma

He's a good person to have in a delivery room

My momma made it just in time, literally. She came just minutes before I started pushing. It was a miracle- she was able to get on the last flight from Las Vegas to Portland, standby, and Justin was awesome and went to pick her up from the airport, then drove like a maniac to get her to the hospital. I was so glad she was there!

I did it!

I was a little happier in this picture because she wasn't so blue.

That chubby little girl looked like a 2 month old to me!

He makes cute baby girls!

Piper's first bath

(7lb. 11oz. is the 46th percentile for weight. I actually am surprised it's not higher! She seems huge to me.)