McKenna's BIRTH Story: Part 1

In honor of McKenna's first birthday, I am FINALLY sharing her Birth story!!  I was never intending to withhold it, but as I wrote it last year I spent so much time re-reading it that I just never shared it. I am as detailed as I possibly could be, so this isn't your quick read. Here is Our Story, in all of its Glory.
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As these sorts of stories always start out, it was just another Saturday. I was 38 weeks 6 days, just a week and a day from my due date, and my doctor was not on call this weekend so I wanted to at least make it to Monday. MY plan was to spend the weekend literally doing nothing, maybe some minor cleaning, in an effort to keep Baby incubating through the weekend.  Though Kevin had wanted me up and walking around because he wanted that baby out!

 

Kevin had just finished trimming and bathing Chief Osceola. He continued to coax me to go to Target to do laps, but all I wanted to do was lay down and take a nap. I am not a napper. I have an unquiet mind that requires a significant amount of time to turn off to sleep so when I actually want to lie down it means I’m super tired.  Kevin, on the other hand, can fall asleep anytime, anywhere, which actually gives me anxiety about getting to sleep because my brain for some reason makes it a race.  Lying in bed I told Kevin to join me, to which he replied, “but I’m not tired.”  He proceeded to lie down and pass out the moment his head hit the pillow.  Amusingly during this nap break, I was staring up at the pregnancy chalkboard on the wall wondering what fruit we would be drawing tomorrow for our week 39 update. This is the only picture on my phone from that day.  The boys were so pissed they were exiled to the patio that I guess I felt the need to document it??

 

 

This was about 2:15PM. Within moments of his snoring, a simultaneous reaction occurred.  With the Chiefs resting in the front room, Chief (Black Bear) went crazy barking at something (which was nothing, a rarity for him to bark at nothing). At that exact same moment there was an extremely strange sensation and noise that came from my belly. I jumped up and yelped, “Kevin, did you hear that?? Did you hear that cracking noise?” Suddenly awakening from a clearly deep sleep he replied, “huh?”  Using the word “cracking” to describe the noise freaked me out so I adjusted, “Did you hear that popping noise? It came from my belly.”  It sounded like when you crack your fingers.  We were both tongue-tied as we agreed I should try to use the bathroom (??? Not sure what that would do ???) as we anticipated what the significance of this sensation was. All I could think of is “not now, not now, not now, my Doctor is not on call.”

 

I went Pee and was certain that it was not just Pee, don’t ask me how I know. As I got up to go lay back down in bed our suspicions were confirmed. On the tile floor. Repeatedly. Yup, whatever that is wouldn’t stop no matter how hard I tried and it was persistent. My water broke. We were both in disbelief, “is this really happening?!” I was prepared to eventually start recognizing persistent and strengthening contractions, but was not prepared for my water to break, the sure sign that Labor is eminent.

 

Now, I may be crazy, but they say dogs sense things. Chief and I have that bond. I honestly couldn’t tell you what happened first, Chief barking or my water breaking.  Was he reacting to my water breaking or did his barking startle me enough to break my water? Interesting question to ponder.

Anyway. So the weekend before when we decided to go into OB Triage, Kevin was cool, calm, and collected as he gathered our things and packed up the car (You can read about the "False Start" here).  This was a bit different. Knowing for certain this was it changed things quite a bit. He was composed, but somehow still running around like a chicken with its head cut off.  The dogs were going crazy as he ran back and forth seemingly for no reason, since our bags were pretty much already prepared.

Here's a small, embarrassing video I shot of myself while Kevin got everything ready.  You can hear Chief going crazy on the porch in the background.
 

 

 

I think Kevin felt a bit more at ease when I decided I wanted to take a shower before we left. Since this moment was eminent, I knew this would be a final moment of peace.  I also had a gigantic bowl of cereal knowing that the hospital doesn’t allow you to eat after you have been admitted (I figured cereal was bland?).



 

 

Luckily my parents were able to come over and pick Chief and Chief Osceola up since they were visibly on edge feeding off of Kevin.  At this point I still hadn’t felt any major contractions, just Braxton Hicks-type contractions that I was able to talk through.  

With the car loaded up, we began the journey to the hospital.