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Kelley introduces herself and describes how long it took her to get pregnant and her delivery experience.
Kelley:
Hi, I am Kelly, and I’d like to tell you about the birth of my daughter Rachel. She was born 14 years ago. She was 9 pounds, 7 ounces, 21 1/2 inches, born at 3:05 a.m. in the morning.
It took me a little bit longer to get pregnant than I thought it would. I had been on birth control since I was 16, on the oral type of birth control, and it took me roughly eight to nine months to get pregnant.
I really started getting a little worried as to whether or not I could get pregnant. I was 28 years old when I got pregnant with my daughter, but there were points when I had my parents that were giving us tips. They were reading everything; we were looking at things on the Internet, and we really got a little nervous, and at probably about seven or eight months we finally said, “Okay, that’s it; if we get pregnant, we get pregnant. If we don’t, we don’t.” So we went out, did a romantic dinner, went out and rented a dirty movie, and the rest is history.
I conceived. My pregnancy really had no major problems. I had a little bit of morning sickness but not too bad. I only had morning sickness for probably four or five weeks, and pregnancy went well, but gained quite a bit of weight, and then I remember being very excited about finally carrying my child through summer, and it’s Phoenix here, and it’s very hot.
So, I gave birth to my daughter on November 5. She was about two weeks late, and they had to induce labor, but I remember prior to that, about a month prior to that, I was thinking, “You know, I really don’t need pain medication. I think I can do this.” So I was out reading books about natural childbirth, and “Don’t ask for an epidural or pain medication too quickly. You know, you can probably get through just through breathing and watching and just staying focused on something other than the pain.”
Well, I am here to tell you, after the birth experience, I ended up burning that book while I was in the hospital. It was painful. And so I checked in on a Friday morning at 5:00 a.m., they started to induce labor because I was two weeks late, and wow. So they started to induce labor. Labor started a little bit; they put a little Pitocin on the cervix, and I started to finally dilate.
So they started at a Friday morning, checked in at 5:00 a.m., started to dilate, things started moving a little bit. They physically had to break my water probably around, probably about 2:00 or 3:00 p.m., and that’s when things really started to move and really started getting bad contractions, and then of course I wanted an epidural and I wanted it now.
And they told me that the anesthesiologist was on call. I then really freaked out. So just a little note, if I had a tip for any women out there–always, always have and make sure the anesthesiologist is on the premises, that when you are ready for that epidural, if indeed, and when you decide you want it and you need it now, because it took them probably close to four or five hours before they got the anesthesiologist there and it felt like four or five days.
And I can tell you, the pain, when the contractions really started to come on, were bad. It was probably some of the worst pain. I had stepped on a stingray in Mexico, and the stingray stinger went through my foot. It was as equal to that pain, if not worse. So it was pretty bad.
The anesthesiologist finally got there probably around 7:00 or 8:00 at night. They started, they got the epidural set up, and then I didn’t actually deliver until 3:05 a.m. in the morning. So I was in labor for quite a bit of time. I don’t do good with pain medication, so they unfortunately had the drip going a little bit too much, and I started getting sick so I started dry heaving, which helped the progression of the child coming out, and I ended up giving birth very quickly because I was having dry heaves.
But you forget about it. Within years you forget about this lovely experience you go through. So the baby started coming so quickly when I started to have dry heaves that the baby came out and the nurses actually delivered Rachel, and she was--I’ll never forget–she is 14 years old today, but she was 9 pounds, 7 ounces, 21 inches. She was a big girl, and it was wonderful. It was really a good thing to be over.
But I do remember laughing hysterically thinking, “What was I thinking--natural childbirth?” Natural and childbirth should not go together; I am here to tell you.
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