A Change In My Life- PART 1 "REYNA'S BIRTH"

Reyna Paige Tolman was born on September 9th, 2013 at 4:52pm. She was 7lbs, 7oz and 21 inches long. And this is the story of her birth:

We were told that Reyna was due on September 7th, so when that day came and went I was getting a little frustrated that my baby wasn't here yet. I was definitely done being pregnant, I'd been kicked in the ribs enough times. :) I even told Kevin that they should give you a span of a week or month that your baby is due in, and also that people shouldn't tell you all these stories about how their baby was weeks early because then you think your baby might come early and you just wait and wait and wait... and wait.

On Sunday night, the 8th, I sat down to write in my journal about 10:30pm and wrote a little about how the baby wasn't here yet, and that I felt like she was never coming! I laid down to sleep at 11:00pm, I was all by myself because Kevin was on a 24 hour shift at the fire department and wouldn't be home until the next morning. At 12:06am (just after midnight) I woke up with the worst pain in my abdomen, it hurt so bad, but then went away. I'd had false contractions a few days before so I was sure that's what these were, but I decided to time them (harder than it sounds!) They were coming about every 4-6 minutes and lasted about a minute, sometimes longer. I decided to wait until 1:00am before I called Kevin because I still wasn't sure if this was it.

I finally called Kevin just after 1:00am and to my surprise he was awake, they had just gotten a call and he was out with the ambulance. A drunk guy had run into a power line, they were waiting for the power company to get there to check the line. I told Kevin that I thought I was in labor and he told me that I'd have to wait about 45 minutes for him to have the scene cleared and make it back to the station. I got off the phone and ate a bowl of fruit loops, in case I was in labor so I could have something in my stomach. To my surprise Kevin called back about 5 minutes later. He told me he'd be home in 10 minutes to take me to the hospital. Apparently after I'd gotten off the phone with him, he informed his captain that I thought I was going into labor. His captain quickly got on the radio and told the station to send out an ambulance to pick Kevin up because his wife was having a baby. Thus 10 minutes later Kevin shows up to our apartment in an ambulance, we got into our own car and headed to the hospital.

The nurse came in to check me, this was about 2:00am, and said I was dilated to a 4 and asked if I wanted an epidural. I thought about holding off for a while, until I had another contraction and the nurse said, "If you're going to get one later, you might as well get it now." I agreed, but it wasn't until 3:30am that the guy came and gave me my epidural, the pain relief was amazing! Although it is quite weird to be numb from your waist down and have very little control over your legs. Everything that happened after that is kind of a blur on the timeline scale. The epidural had slowed down my contractions so they put me on pitocin. By about 6:00am I was dilated to a 6 and they told me the baby would probably be there by 10:00 that morning... oh were they off.

Around 10:00 the doctor came in and broke my water, so I thought for sure the baby would be here soon. However when the doctor broke my water he said that there was some poop in it, that meant that Reyna had pooped in the womb, so he was worried that she could have inhaled some fluid. He warned me that he would have the NICU nurses in the room when I gave birth so that they could be there to check her out and make sure that she didn't have fluid in her lungs, but if she did than they could get it out and take care of her.

The doctor came back in to see me around 1:00pm to see if we couldn't get Reyna to come out, so he had me push a few times. Later on he told me that he almost took me in for a c section at that time, but since the baby was doing good and I was doing good he wanted to see if I could give birth vaginally even if it took a few more hours. He wanted the uterus to work a little harder to push Reyna down into the birth canal more, I had carried her so high my whole pregnancy and she had never really dropped down. Well we waited a little longer, and at 2:45pm the nurse had me push... I pushed for 2 hours, it was tiring and exhausting and I was NOT prepared for how hard it was going to be. I thought that dealing with contractions was going to be the hard part! Pushing out a baby is not easy. At around 4:40ish Dr. Evans showed up and he got all suited up. I couldn't quite get Reyna to come out so Dr. Evans asked if it was ok if he helped me get her out with the vacuum and I said that was fine. Well one vacuum suck and an episiotomy snip did the trick and I felt her head and shoulders pop out.

Kevin was able to cut the cord but then, unfortunately, they handed her off the the NICU nurses because she did indeed have fluid in her lungs. It made me sad not to be able to hold Reyna right away, and as it was I only got to hold her for a minute or two before they wheeled her off into the NICU and Kevin went with her. She ended up being just fine, they just wanted to monitor her for two hours to make sure that she was getting oxygen and breathing well.

I was so grateful when I got to finally see my baby girl and really hold her. I was nervous and scared of this little life that was put into my hands but I am so glad everything went well with her delivery and she was alive and well. I am so glad Heavenly Father has given me the opportunity to be a mom and raise this little baby, not to mention the opportunity to see Kevin as a dad. She is a beautiful little angel and I am glad to have her in my life.