It's a Girl! The Birth Story

Well, it's only been almost 2 weeks (wow!) since she was born & I'm just now getting a minute to write her birth story! Ah, well, better late than never :)

So, going back a couple weeks, on Wednesday, 5 days before my due date, I woke up feeling like I was having some minor contractions/cramping. It was really irregular, but I was nervous & called off our playdate for the day. I felt like a first time mom trying to decipher labor starting b/c the first time my water broke during my doctor's appointment and they sent me to the hospital and put me on pitocin. So, this was sort of new to me! I had my 39 week appointment that afternoon, and nothing had really happened & the contractions had subsided, BUT I was 4.5 cm dilated, so we figured it would be soon!

On Thursday I woke up and nothing.....ALL DAY......NOTHING!! I figured it wasn't going to happen that day. My sister had flown in on Wednesday & then my parents got in Thursday night. I started thinking that it wouldn't happen that weekend while they were here. But Keelyn had impeccable timing. We all went to bed that night with my whole family here,

and that next morning at 6:15am, I woke up to my water breaking. It was perfect. I didn't have to worry about getting Mackenzie to a friend's house (my biggest fear was dealing with that & postponing getting to the hospital!) since my family was there, she just slept on in her bed. And Brannon & I took off to the hospital with contractions just starting.

They checked me and there was a secondary bag of waters (never had heard of that) that still needed to break. They said they could break it or wait a bit and see if it broke on its own. We waited b/c I was unsure about using pain meds. Last time, my epidural experience

was not a good one, so I wanted to go as long as I could without it and see if I could make it. And she said once that bag of waters broke it would get a lot more intense. It ended up breaking on its own pretty soon anyways, and it did definitely get more intense. And fast. It felt like the contractions were right on top of each other. So, I took it as long as I could, but then had them give me a IV pain medicine to take the pain off. That helped, but only lasted an hour. I could have three of those but they said each of the later ones helped out with pain less & less. So, I tried to see how long I could go again without anything. It got to be too much, so I went for the epidural. But I did make it to like 7 or 8 cm (can't remember, a bit of a blur). Getting the epidural went much better - the doctor wasn't brand new, my leg didn't jump, they didn't have to do it twice, so much better!

And it felt nice. Gotta love that pain relief! I got to 10cm pretty quickly from there. But it was similar to last time. Apparently, my body dilates very quickly (even many

cm's before labor begins), and by noon I was at 10. BUT, my babies don't drop very quickly. The baby was still at "0" station. I thought I was feeling pressure to push, but since she hadn't dropped, we needed to wait a bit. WELL......also apparently, my body just doesn't take epidurals for long periods of time.... Just like last time, after a while on the epidural, it started to wear off. They actually had me already on a high dose b/c of last time it wearing off. And then, they tried upping the meds from there. They called the anesthesiologist back and really upped the meds. She said if that didn't work, then we could redo the epidural. Great. We waited and that last upping of the meds seemed to mostly work. I could still feel some pain but it was bearable.

That whole episode took about an hour. Then, we waited about another hour for the baby to

drop some more. Around 3pm, we were ready to push. And just like last time, she only made it to +1 station (instead of +2). Which I guess just makes it harder/longer to push. Oh, and they also realized that she was facing up - head down, but face up instead of face down. So, that makes

it harder to push also..... Anyways, we pushed for just over 30 minutes and at 3:36pm she was born - which I'm told is impressive for a baby facing that way! The midwife held her up & Brannon got to announce "It's a GIRL!". They placed her on my chest (a first b/c last time I ran a temp so they swept up Mackenzie for a quick check). I kind of laughed and turned to Brannon & said, "You were right!". He was just so sure the whole time that it was a girl.

What an amazing moment. Keelyn Ramsey McKay was born 7lbs 7 oz and 20.5 inches long. We came up with her name (& kept it a surprise!) by combining some family names.

Brannon's father's middle name i

s Keel - which is the town in Ireland that the McKays came from. And on my side, my paternal grandmother's maiden name was Keeling and my maternal grandmother's maiden name was Keenan. So, we kind of meshed them together to get Keelyn. And Ramsey, of course, is my maiden name :)

I am so happy to have experienced this feeling twice of giving birth to beautiful, healthy baby girls. We are truly blessed.