Wenthold Family: "Birth" Day

So we have to go way back to my last OB appointment (seems like so long ago already!) Tuesday, September 28--it was our last scheduled appointment, but we had induction scheduled for the next day (don't worry, we purposefully didn't tell anyone because we didn't know if it would happen--we could be 'bumped'--and we, or I, was really hoping that we wouldn't get to that and I would go into labor on my own). She had dropped a little more, I was still 3-4cm dilated and now 70% effaced, but the new development was that my blood pressure was higher than normal. I was told to go home and rest and the doctor would see us for induction the next morning as long as we weren't "bumped," but we shouldn't be because now I was borderline pre-eclamptic.

Perfect! We were going to have our baby soon!

Wednesday morning--on our way to the hospital

Wednesday morning we woke up early to call the Birthplace at Southdale to see if there was room for us and yep, we had a room! We quickly got ready and headed for the hospital! And thanks to the flooding and wonderful traffic across the bridge, we were a little late, but no worries! We got to the hospital by 7:45 and got checked into our room. We had the best labor nurse, Denise assigned to us--she truly was the best and made our experience wonderful!

Our last picture as a family of two! (Man, I am huge!! It looks like pre-eclampsia had really set in!)

Denise was working 12 hours that day and told us we would have a baby before the end of her shift--perfect! We'll come back to this statement later. Denise got my IV started and pitocin running. Dr. Baker was right there to break my water which broke very easily and both agreed that we would have been in that night or the next morning if we weren't being induced!

Pretty much immediately I started to feel contractions. Pitocin can bring them on hard and fast--boy was I happy for my epidural! That's what we did next! Denise hooked us up with the best anesthesiologist and I got the best epidural! Then I felt great! I smiled through it all (labor AND delivery)!

After the epidural and many contractions, Denise checked me and, sure enough, more dilating! She said that by 3pm we would have a baby! So Dave and I just hung out and watched tv, the whole time I was having huge long contractions (Unbeknownst to me! Like I said, I felt nothing!)! Denise checked me a few more times and every time the "birth" time moved up! The next time was 2pm then it was 1:30pm! Crazy--we were really going to have a baby!

I started pushing at 12:40pm with Dave right there by my side as my coach. At one point Denise told me that I had to skip a contraction (no pushing) because Dr. Baker would think she hadn't paged her in time! I guess our little girl wanted out! So after 29 minutes of pushing (1:09pm), Maggie Sue Wenthold entered the world! When she was placed on my chest, it felt like I was looking at baby pictures of myself! She was perfect! 8 pounds, 2 ounces and 21 inches long with black hair and grey-blue eyes!

We had my friend Alison as our photographer throughout labor and delivery. She got some great pictures so here are a few of our favorites of the day!

Seeing our daughter for the first time