The Details of Delivery

Family and friends were gathering the weekend of Liam's unknown arrival for my baby shower hosted by my mom and two sisters. On Friday the 7th, the four of us chopped, separated, designed, organized, prepped, decorated (and any other word you can think of for a baby shower) for my perfect shower that was to be occurring promptly at 11:00 am on Saturday the 8th!

Friday evening, my parents, Tadd and I, Katie, Dennis and Jill all went out to a yummy Italian dinner at Viscontis! We totally pigged out on salad, pasta, garlic bread, and dessert, then headed home and relaxed and spent time catching up. Then, I headed home to get prepped for my big day on Saturday. I took a bath, painted my toenails (which i could hardly reach), organized my hospital bag for some reason...then hit the sack to get some much needed zzz's! (p.s. Tadd went over to a friend's house and before he went I had mentioned that maybe we should put the pak n' play together and he said that we could do it on Saturday-now of course this is ironic and funny because who would have thought that we really did need the pak n' play put together?!)

*WARNING* This is the beginning of my labor and delivery story...so beware. Around 2:00am Saturday morning, I went to the bathroom and something was a little off with the amount of fluid. But with sleep on the brain, I returned to bed. Then at 7:45am, I awoke and went to the bathroom again, like a normal pregnant person and once again...too much fluid?!? So, I called my Mom and then called the hospital to see if I should stop by and have them check it out. So, Tadd and I took our time getting ready and headed to the hospital in separate cars as we had separate plans that day. We checked in and were put in a delivery room and I changed into hospital garb and met our lovely nurse Amy! She asked lots of questions and explained a few things to us. Then she did the exam. Most likely a ruptured water is what she said, but then she said the Dr. would come check and just to hang out. So we continue to chat with her, and before she left the room to get the Dr., Tadd asked her if we would be leaving the hospital at which point she said, NO. When you leave the hospital you will have your newborn baby with you!!!!! Insert big eyes and dropped jaws on Tadd and Kelly's face here! And maybe some panicked tears from me! I called my mom and told here that I was going to be having in baby in the next 24-48 hours and that I would not be leaving the hospital which meant that I would not be attending my very own shower that was to occur in roughly 2 hours. So...my mom and sisters went into OCD Oddo mode and took care of business. They contacted all invited guests and told them the news. They took down the beautiful decorations and packed up the food and other goodies. Then they came to visit us in the hospital and brought with them some flowers, balloons and snacks to have a semi shower in the hospital.

Before my family arrived the Dr. on call was Dr. Scates and he had confirmed that my water had ruptured and that we would start pitocin at 12:00 noon as I was only a 1cm and hardly effaced. As the day continued, I was pretty comfortable and lots of friends visited which was super nice! Around 4pm I started to feel some contractions more, even though it was bearable. Then around 8pm I got my epidural! The night continued, I ate lots of jello, chicken broth and pudding! Slept, relaxed, chilled and just sat in my hospital bed waiting for our nugget to arrive! Around 12:15 am three nurses came in and I woke up. I guess babies heart rate had dropped because I had had a series of contractions and the baby was not able to recover properly. I was taken off pitocin and given oxygen to relax and let the baby recover. Around 12:45 am I was then put back on pitocin and the plan went back to normal, waiting for baby Barnett to arrive. At 12:30 I was only 2cm so we figured it would be quite a while, so I went back to sleep....UNTIL, 4am, when I awoke with some serious pain in my lower right abdomen. I paged the nurse and she said that I can push the epidural button multiple times as long as they are 15 minutes apart. Two times later, I paged the nurse again and she paged the anesthesiologist. He gave me some more medication and then I was a happy girl, no more contraction pain! Then she checked me again and much to our surprise 9.5 cm!!!! Baby was ready, and so was I. Everything go situated and my nurse Erin taught me how to push. With her guiding me, I began to push...then she told me to stop and told us to call the family! Our baby was not going to wait around for much longer! About 15 minutes later, after everyone arrived, Dr. was in place, family was in place, and roughly 6 pushes later, our perfect baby boy was welcomed into the world! Tadd cut the umbilical cord and they placed him on my chest and he quietly stared into my eyes and he was perfect!!! All his stats were perfect and he was just a tiny little guy but just as healthy as can be. We are so happy to have Liam in our family!