My labor was so long, and then really fast at the end. I had been having contractions for 10 days before she was born. Over a week before she came they were every 3-5 minutes for about 8 hours one day. They were painful, but not quite strong enough to go to the hospital. Sunday night (Jan. 10) I started having very strong painful contractions. They woke me up in the night and continued all throughout the day. They were definitely real labor contractions- very strong, and I couldn't walk or talk through them. The problem was that they were very irregular. Sometimes they were 10 minutes apart, or 15 minutes, or more. I did my best to clean the house and stay busy to distract my mind from the pain. By 11pm that night I was completely exhausted. We had gone to the ice castles that evening and I had struggled to get sleep for most of the week because of all the contractions. Nathan gave me a blessing, which really helped me relax. I was able to sleep very well from 11pm to about 4am when I was woken up by more intense contractions. This time they seemed to be more regular, coming every 5 to 10 minutes. Around 5am I had a huge contraction and heard and felt a very loud "pop". It took me a minute to realize what had happened. My water broke! At least I thought it did. I got up to go to the bathroom and no fluid came out. I was confused and went to lay back down in bed. Now the contractions were even more intense and very regular. After a few more I felt a few drops of fluid and I decided that my water did break but her head was probably too far down to let very much amniotic fluid out.
Nathan called Katelyn to come and stay with our sleeping boys. Luckily, she arrived at our house very quickly. I wanted to stay and explain a few things to Katelyn about how to get the children to school. Nathan (who had a better understanding of the urgency of the situation than I did) encouraged me to get in the car and we could call Katelyn with the instructions. He was very wise and could see how much pain I was in and knew we needed to be at the hospital quickly.
We got to the hospital around 6am. They didn't have any patients when we got there, so we were lucky to have lots of help quickly. I was so worried that they would send me to triage and I would have the baby there. The nurses were amazing and said that since it was my fourth baby and I told them my water had broken, they believed me that the baby was coming soon. I was dilated to 6cm when we arrived. I knew that I didn't have time for an epidural. The nurse called anesthesia right away. He started to prep me for the epidural around 6:30 and I told my nurse that I thought I was in transition and the epidural wouldn't have time to kick in. She was such a wonderful nurse to listen to me and read the situation. I was talking so quietly, as I was trying to relax and breathe through the pain. She checked me again and I was 8-9cm with contractions every 2 minutes. The nurse mentioned that I could have a spinal which would kick in right away. I made the split second decision to go that route. The spinal took the edge off of the pain, but the baby was posterior (like William and Carter) so I could feel a lot of pain in my back still. Eventually, Sophie turned and the pain relief was wonderful! My doctor walked in for the delivery. He looked so tired! He had done 5 c-sections that night and was off duty in about 10 minutes. I was so numb from the spinal that I had to push for what felt like several contractions. Sophie made her appearance a little after 7am! She was born at 38 weeks (2 weeks early exactly) with a loose nuchal cord.
I love this picture!
She looks very similar to her brothers! We've decided she looks the most like Henry.
William held her for close to 30 minutes. He couldn't get enough of her!
Ready to go home
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