Kevin's Birth Story

Kevin Michael. Born on February 15, 2011. 8:47 am. 6 pounds 6 oz. 20 inches long. Born at 36 weeks 1 day and he is absolutely perfect. Kevin shocked us all by coming so early and with pretty much no warning. Here is is his birth story:

February 14th, 2011. Normal day. I woke up went to work came home had dinner and Rob and I were watching TV. Around 8:00 pm we put on that Lifetime reality show 'One born Every Minute'. It's real life story's of people in the labor/delivery unit of a hospital. As we are watching it I had 2 back spasms. I wondered for a whole second if it was labor related. I decided no, that was all in my head because of the show I was watching.

Around 9:00 pm the show ended and I went to the bathroom. I stood up and my water broke! It was just falling out of me. I was in shock and yelled to Rob to come to the bathroom. I am standing in a puddle of water and I look at him and say I think my water broke. He agreed and we kinda stood there for a second in complete terror. I was scared shitless. I still had 4 weeks to go of pregnancy. Also the water was now turning pink so blood was becoming involved in this and I had no idea if that was supposed to happen or not. (turns out it's fine).

I paged my doctor. I hadn't yet had the Group B strep test so my doctor told me I was to come to labor and delivery and I needed to be induced and given antibiotics to be safe. She said I had time to pack a bag and wasn't concerned about the bleeding as I could still feel Kevin moving. I could not believe this was happening. I wasn't ready. I still had a month left!

Rob packed up a bag and we just left and went to the hospital with not too much in that bag. We remembered phones and computers and season 2 of House on DVD. We didn't stress over this as we live 12 blocks from the hospital. (Rob ended up going back and forth a few times).

We got to the hospital and it was a pretty crowded night in L&D and I had to wait in the waiting room for them to get a triage bed cleaned up. It was here while we were talking to some new grandparents that my contractions started. Like my water breaking, they came out of nowhere and came every 5 minutes, then every 3 minutes and stayed there for awhile. It was about 11:00 pm now and I was hooked up to the monitors and checked out. I was 3 centimeters dilated and contracting every 3 minutes without being induced. I was admitted. Kevin was coming!

The contractions were painful and coming so frequently I asked for an epidural around 12:30 am. I was all set by 1:00 am and FINALLY this had become dealable. I highly recommend the epidural. It changed my night and I could now stop focusing on the pain and get excited to meet Kevin. I was dilated to 7 cm by this point.

However my labor started to stall over the next couple of hours and at 5:00 am they gave me some pitocin *(sp) to speed things up. By 7:00 am the contractions were just coming one after the other and the epidural wasn't really helping much any more. It was almost time. The doctor came in and set up to push. I did some practices pushes and they told me they had to call the pediatricians just in case to check him out right away. He was 4 weeks early and it was a precaution.

My doctor also told me if I had carried Kevin to term I could not have delivered vaginally as my pelvis was on the small side and she believed Kevin was already about 6 pounds and would have been around 9 pounds in another 4 weeks.

I can't remember the exact time I started pushing but this part actually went fairly quickly. I pushed 3 times with 3 contractions and at 8:47 am he was here! He was screaming before he was completely out. The doctor put him right on my chest and I hugged my baby boy.

The pediatricians took him to be cleaned and checked out right there next to my bed and he was declared perfect and weighed 6 pounds 6 oz! They cleaned him up and gave him back to me and we had skin to skin time.

I had no warning signs of labor. It came on suddenly. No Braxton Hicks or contractions of any kind. I hadn't had my Group B strep test or the last u/s to check on weight. I was never checked for dilation. The baby did not drop before labor. I was more bloated in the face then usual and I did have 2 back spasms the hour before my water broke but I didn't think anything of it at the time.

We are home now and could not be happier. Kevin is amazing!!!