It was Father's Day and we were attending the early morning service at Desperation Church when I was so uncomfortable we had to leave the service early. I called my OB/Gyn and she told me to go on in to the hospital to get the baby checked out and to see if I was having back to back contractions. When we arrived at the hospital I was having what they call "irritating contractions" that produced no change in the cervix. They figured out that what was causing the contractions was my right kidney acting up again. They hooked me up to an IV and monitored me overnight when my kidney started bleeding. The doctor came in early that morning and told me that she was going to induce labor to prevent any damage to my kidney.
Dr. Joy Saunders broke my water at 8:30AM on Monday morning June 18th. That was an interesting experience. Rather than a nice little trickle it was sort of like a fire hydrant that has had its cap removed. After my water was broken I started having contractions every 7 minutes. They started a pitocin drip and my contractions started coming every two minutes. I'm a WUSS so I had my epidural at noon. It was an AWESOME epidural. I felt nothing but some pressure as her head began to descend. We started pushing at 2:20PM and at 2:30PM the nurse told me to stop pushing and just let the contractions do the work. The doctor arrived at 2:40PM and I had about two more pushes before she allowed me to deliver Bella myself at 2:45PM.
Bella was born "grunting" which is a sign of respiratory distress...not to mention that she came out looking like a smurf. They found a spot on her lungs that they said could be pneumonia. We all began praying and thanks to the Lord's mercy the spot was gone the next day. She then jaundiced and we spent the next couple of days watching her sunbathe in the NICU. We got to bring her home on Friday June 22nd.
