Lily's Birth Story

On Thursday, January 24th I had to go to the hospital to get some blood work done. I noticed that the hospital had warning signs about enter at your own risk due to the Influenza A virus and that they had confirmed cases of it. I thought no big deal. Well Thursday night I was really tired and slept horribly. I ended up only going into work for a total of 2 hours on Friday because I was still tired and very achy sore (typical start of flu systems huh!). I slept off and on all day Friday and Friday night. Friday night I was very uncomfortable with achy legs.

Around 1am I started to notice that the contractions were involving my back and they were starting to hurt. I was up with Mikayla from 1am to about 3:30 and then I did not go back to bed until around 4am. From 4am to 7am I slept off and on waking to some contractions and probably sleeping though others.

All day on Saturday my contractions were anywhere from 5 to 10 minutes apart. I was able to get the house cleaned like I normally do on Saturday which made me feel better. I knew I would come home to a clean house after giving birth. I called my mom and she managed to get cheap airfare into Gunnison.


We picked up my mom at the airport at 6:30pm and my mom was surprised that I came into the airport as well. Mom was worried that I was not actually going to have the baby because my labor was still manageable at this point. We all headed to the hospital to get me checked in. While I checked into the hospital, Joe, Mikayla and mom headed home.


I was at the hospital about an hour by myself and at this point my contractions started to come every 5 minutes and become harder as well. The doctor came in and tried to break my water the first try was unsuccessfully but the second one worked. At the point my contractions increased to every 2 to 3 minutes. I asked for the epidural around 9ish and it took a while to get it going and stronger enough. Around 10:30pm I finally had relief. I am just not the type of person to give birth without drugs. I was also getting pretty tired by this time and was napping a bit.


I started pushing around 12:15pm and I pushed for 1 1/2 hours without getting anywhere. The doctor said she would be willing to use the manual vacuum if I wanted. I said let me try one more time. With each push I really was not getting anywhere. I had the doctor use the manual vacuum and Lily arrived two contractions later. She came out totally sideways and that is also why I was not not making any progress with each push. I did have one small tear this time and needed stitches.




Lily never left my room from the moment she was born and she is a great nurser. The family came to see her the next morning around 9am and Mikayla was soo excited to see her.

We left the hospital around 2:30pm. I was ready for my own comfy bed.