It was a Sunday – so it began with church. We attended worship and Sunday School as normal and returned home for lunch. Martin took Dylan and Levi to Dylan’s Cub Scout den meeting – a visit to a nature center along with a hike. I took Lydia to her choir performance at the nursing home. I was thinking it was good that I saw this performance because I might miss the performance at the church the next Saturday. I usually dread going to that performance because I'm often wrangling younger children but I really got to enjoy it this time. I remember thinking I should sit down as much as I could. The parking situation at the nursing home isn't that great so I made sure we got a ride with some friends so that I wouldn't have to walk far to the car. Nathan and Christine Chi brought Lydia and I home, but shortly after that I went back to church for the BOW training that I was doing that afternoon. I had someone lined up to do it in case I couldn't but I was really hoping that I could make it. Knowing what I crazy day I had been having, I made sure to put my feet up as much as I could at the meeting.
Meanwhile, Martin took the three children to Dylan’s makeup baseball game. Since I hadn't eaten dinner yet, I stayed at church after the training for the missions dinner and then headed straight to Dylan's game. I got there in time to see Dylan’s amazing pitching and his walk off hit that propelled his team to victory. Martin took the other kids home and I stayed till the end with Dylan. The time stamp on one of the pictures I took at the game said 9:05pm so it was probably 9:30 before we were home and Dylan was in bed. I went downstairs and watched Netflix with Martin for a little while and then decided to go up to bed around 10pm. I went to the bathroom and it was then that I lost the mucus plug and knew it was time for labor to start. However, we didn't realize it really was time for the baby to come. I called my parents because I wanted to catch them before they went to bed to tell them things were progressing. I didn't tell them to come immediately because I had no idea how long labor would be. I left it up to them to decide if they wanted to drive now or in the morning. They of course came immediately knowing they couldn't sleep anyway and good thing they did.
After getting off the phone with them, I started doing all the things that I HAD to do before baby came that I hadn't finished - packing my bag for the hospital and cleaning the spare bed room and getting the bed ready for my parents to come. After that my water broke and we knew it REALLY was time. We called the doctor and our friend and neighbor Katie Cubba, who had repeatedly asked us to be the one we call in the middle of the night to watch the kids if the baby was coming until my parents arrived. Contractions had started by the time we were giving instructions to Katie. By 10:45 we were on our way to the hospital. In the car, we noticed the contractions were coming fast – every three minutes.
At the ER registration desk, we happen upon this very young male receptionist who persisted in all the required paperwork that you have to sign about not being blind or needing special accommodations while I'm hunched over the desk writhing in pain. Finally, a mature woman comes out from the back office and says "I think she'll be more comfortable doing this upstairs," and then gets me wheelchair and off we go to Labor & Delivery. The nurses and my midwife figured out pretty quickly that this baby was coming quick. There was no triage necessary – we were immediately assigned to delivery room 2 and I remember my midwife standing there waiting for me to get undressed so she could check how far dilated I was. It was about 11:20pm. I remember looking at the clock because I knew it was close to midnight and I thought oh, her birthday will be the 3rd because surely it will take longer than 40 minutes. There wasn't even a question about an epidural - "oh honey, this will be over so fast, you won't need one." I remember them trying to get some information into the computer so they could start ordering things like bloodwork and oh, the baby's needs. My midwife asked, can you wait to push through one more contraction so we can draw your blood. Okay, one more contraction, I can do that. They got my blood and then the next contraction I was pushing. Kayla was out after only a couple pushes. The time was 11:39pm, April 2nd. 1139 is Dylan's cub scout pack number and Martin was wearing his cub scout pack shirt so we will always remember that time. I couldn't believe it was only 19 minutes after we got into the room and that she was born before midnight. Kayla weighed 7 lbs 1 oz (bigger than Dylan and Lydia, but smaller than Levi). I had to push again after she was born to deliver the placenta (first time I had to do that). It wasn’t until after she was born that we completed the check-in for the hospital. We took some pictures and had a few quiet moments with Kayla, who just wanted to sleep. Without the epidural, I was able to get moved to the recovery room fairly quickly. But I also had more pain to deal with. Or maybe it's just because I'm older. I took the stronger stuff for much longer than I had to with other deliveries.
In the morning, my parents brought Levi to meet his new sister. Levi was very uncertain and timid in approaching her. But he really wanted her to have the balloon he brought her and kept trying to get her to take it. Dylan and Lydia came after school and were very eager to meet her. They all wanted to hold her and kept wanting to take turns. We had a few more visitors, got a special Nats/Inova gift from the hospital (blanket and hat), and came home on Tuesday after one more night at the hospital.
