Abby's birth story of Drake William February 8, 2011

The anticipation was rising as I was 3 weeks from my due date.  I made sure everything in the babies room was ready, my bag was packed, and I even had stocked up on food for the dogs…just in case our little guy decided to arrive early.  I had been having some “discharge” that I pinpointed as my water leaking but it was not enough to cause any concern.  During the night of the 6^th/7^th of February I woke up around 1am with a very strange feeling in my lower abdomen.  It felt like menstrual cramps for about 45 seconds and then nothing.  Then 11 mins would go by and this would all start again.  I grabbed my cell phone and started timing them.  In my head I was thinking that I was pretty sure they were contractions, but having never gone through anything like this before, I still didn’t know for sure.  I told Kyle about it in the morning and went about my day. When I got to work I called the doctor to see if I needed to come in.  Of course they said yes, so I left work and headed to the doctor.  Once they checked me out and put me on the monitor, the midwife informed me that they were just Braxton Hicks contractions and no, my water was not leaking.  She said see you in a few weeks, you are no where near ready to have this baby.  I took the rest of the day off from work as I felt like crap and rested.  At 1:30am the following day I woke up to the most indescribable feeling {as if a balloon were popping} in my tummy.  I jumped out of bed and ran to the bathroom.  My water broke!  A few weeks my butt…we’re going to have a baby!  I calmly went back into the bedroom, tapped Kyle on the shoulder and quietly whispered “hunny, my water just broke”.  He JUMPED out of bed and was dressed and ready before I could even get a grasp on what was going to happen.  I took my time, took a shower, made sure I had everything, and was then ready to go. {Kyle took care of the dogs and got them situated}.  I called my mom and Kyle’s mom on our way to the hospital (2am) and told them we’d keep them posted.  We arrived at Methodist Medical Center {Peoria} around 2:15am and got checked in.  The on call OB told me I was not dilated and needed to walk.  After 147{so it seemed} painful laps they let me rest.  Contractions at this point were lasting around a minute and were 3 minutes apart.  My nurse Whitney (recommended to me by my friend Britni Price), was so wonderful and kept trying to make me stay positive as I still was not dilating.  They started Pitocin around 7am and the contractions grew stronger…and stronger…and stronger.  Still not dilating. Mom called and said she was on her way and would be there around 11 or so.  Around 9:30am the fun started. {kidding}.  Whitney was standing next to my bed looking at something on the monitor when all of a sudden a contraction came and never went. I was in so much pain, even crying at this point.  Contracting, contracting, contracting….no relief.  She hit the green button on the computer stand and before we knew it there were 9 nurses and 3 obstetricians in our room.  They flipped and flopped me, gave me oxygen, put internal monitors on him, and finally after 7 and a half minutes of chaos, the contraction stopped. During all of this the babies heart rate fell to 54 and was very stressed.  During this time I dilated from 1 to 7.  Unfortunately, all of this happened 3 more times throughout the day.  My mom and dad arrived and were patiently waiting … At 3pm my brother, Joe, and Jolee made it to the hospital {so good to see them!}.  I received an epidural at 4:15pm hoping to finally get some rest.  The epidural was not working and I felt worse than I had all day.  When the anesthesiologist came back in she looked at the catheter in my back and said it was broke off under my skin so she would have to redo it. Nice!  Since the pain was so bad she also gave me a spinal so I could rest better.  I have never felt my body feel like complete concreted dead weight before in my life.  When they had to flip and flop me and mess with internal monitors, it took several people to move me since I was NO help at all.  At 7pm the pain from the contractions was back and Whitney noticed my epidural had been shut off.  This can be blamed on my OB – who so kindly did this.  He  came in and told me it was time to push as I was dilated to 9 and the babies heart rate was falling so we had to get him out.  After pushing for 10 mins or so my doctor left the room and left me there with Whitney.  I asked where he went and Whitney told me he went home because he was tired {he had just gotten back from a golf tourney in Florida}.  Pissed off at this point, I asked for the on call OB to take over. They told me that the baby was stuck and I would need a C Section. {I didn’t care at this point!}.  With his heart rate falling rapidly, things started going fast.  I was wheeled into the operating room at 7:20pm and he was born at 7:28pm. {Guess who showed back up?  Yep, my doctor – they called him}  We were blessed with a beautiful baby boy. Drake William Deppert, 6 lbs 0.5 oz 19 inches long.  Our lives were changed forever, and all of the pain that lead up to this moment was nonexistent.  It was love at first sight.