Delivery Day!

After 3 weeks of discomfort, and what felt like the longest wait, my water broke on Friday morning, October 2 at 3:15am. I wasn't sure what happened, but in my sleep I just thought I had to go to the bathroom and that's when I discovered our baby was soon to arrive! I woke up Bryce and we were both so excited and nervous. We called the hospital to let them know. I felt great, so no contractions yet, but they asked for us to come in to check the baby's heart rate and see that everything was okay. We got there at 4am and were brought into a room where they set me up on a monitor for the baby's heart rate and my contractions. After monitoring me for a couple of hours, they decided to send us home to get some rest. We got home at 7am and went back to sleep. By 8:30 though, I was awake with the start of contractions. By 10:30 they got pretty unbearable, so I called the hospital back and they told us to come back in. From there, things really got started. We arrived at the hospital a little after 11:15 and got settled into a room. A midwife and nurse checked in with us and we learned that it was already a busy time in the maternity ward at OLVG that day. They had 6 beds and already most were full so we were glad to have come when we did. At 12:30, I was 3 cm dialated and the pain was more intense, so of course I was asking for the epidural - and they took us down to anesthesiology to have it administered. It took the better part of an hour to get it and feel the effects of it, but what was really surprising was it numbed my legs and stomach, but did nothing for the back labor I was experiencing. I told the nurse that it wasn't working and something needed to be done, so they gave me more of it, but it didn't change the aching pain in my back that came along with each contraction. Luckily, I was progressing quickly. By 4:30pm, I was fully dialated and ready to start pushing. They actually had to turn off the epidural at this point because I wasn't able to feel enough to push.. ugh! As scary as that was, once the effects of the epidural wore off a bit, I was able to concentrate on having a baby.. and she arrived at 6:05pm - I knew it was a GIRL!! Bryce and I had been discussing names for quite a while, but one thing that we both agreed on was that if she was a girl, Carolyn Bryce would be the perfect name. Carolyn just seemed like a classic name that went well with Cote and it's always reminded me of strong, independent, pretty women, so what name could be more fitting? And we both wanted to use Bryce's name as the middle name just as a sort of tradition. On Bryce's side of the family, his father named his first born with his middle name and Bryce's brother did the same with his first born, so we thought it would be nice to continue. It's amazing though that even though we decided on it, when the time finally came to make it official, it felt overwhelming to us - it's just so permanent - and we hope she likes it. That first night for us was the most amazing time. We just stared at her and aside from having the midwife, doctor and nurse present to observe the delivery, it was pretty peaceful in the room. Once Carolyn was checked, weighed and dressed, they left us alone with her to just hang out. We had something to eat and by 10:30pm, we were all so tired, I wondered if they'd let us go home. Since all three of us were doing well and a nurse would be coming the next day at our house to be with us for the week, they had no problem releasing us when we were ready. We got home around midnight that night and aside from getting up once at 4am with Carolyn, we all slept through until 8am.