Birthing Story Version 1 (for any readers that don't want the long detailed account or those that are disturbed by dilation and contraction details)
I was admitted to the hospital on 9/16 at 7:30am. Given pitocin at 8:30am to speed up labor. It worked. After a long day of ridiculous contractions, I pushed for 20 minutes and out came Baby Peapod. Welcome to the world Cheyanne at 6:13pm.
Now, Birthing Story Version 2 (for any readers that want the long gory detailed account)
Drum roll please.......
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Wednesday morning (09.15) at 10am I arrived at my OBGYN's office 39 weeks pregnant to begin the induction process that we had scheduled the week before. When they checked me, I was at 2cm dialated. The doctor inserted a foley bulb to begin induction. The doctor said that I would begin to feel some mild cramps throughout the day and hopefully progress to 3cm by Thursday morning. Within an hour, I started to feel the cramps, which I called cramps until about 2pm at which point I quit speculating and declared them to be contractions. They started out mild, and I could still function just fine during them. That quickly changed. Afternoon turned to faster "cramps" and lots of leaning against the wall to breathe. By the time the Giant got home from work, I was at the point that my "cramps" were timeable. I grabbed his stopwatch and began timing and timing and timing them. They went from 7-8 minutes apart to 5-6 minutes apart. After a few long hours of this I called the doctor. She told me to continue to time them for another hour and if they got closer than 5 minutes apart, it was time to head to the hospital. Of course, my luck, as soon as I got off the phone my contractions slowed to 8-11 minutes apart for the rest of the night!
Sigh. Stupid false labor.
I slept okay that night, not great but not horrible. We had to be at the hospital at 7:30 Thursday morning so I was up by 5. When I got up, my contractions were rough but were consistently 7 minutes apart. Consistently that is until after my shower, at which point they jumped to 3-4 minutes and stayed there. Let me tell you, I had planned on it taking less than an hour for me to get ready. Let's just double that, inserting unplanned time for contractions and breathing in between said contractions and more of that leaning against the wall thing holding on to anything I could grab (Hubs kept his distance after seeing my grip on the bed post). In between these spurts of firey hell, I was talking and laughing hesistantly. Little did I know at this point that these contractions were NOTHING compared to what was coming ahead!
We got to the hospital early, but not as early as I had wanted. I had preregistered online so I thought I would be able to just head right up to Labor and Delivery like I had been told. Wrong. I had to check in while right in the middle of contractions. So there I was in the middle of pain answering a billion questions that I had already answered online. Ugh. Finally, question session was over and we got upstairs to L&D. Immediately I was set up in my room and checked. I was 4cm dialated already. We all (nurse, Giant, and I) thought- well shoot I'm at 4cm already, this is going to be a quick breeze. She immediately started me on pitocin, the lowest dose just to get things moving faster. Pitocin was something that scared me ahead of time and I had hoped so much I wouldn't have to be on it. Contractions at that point sucked but were manageable.
Side note: This would be the point that the Giant started the video camera which I have since watched and reaffirmed that we will not be going down this road again for a while: end side note. 
Thirty minutes later, I was checked again and was already at 5cm. The nurse told us "if there is anyone that would absolutely die if they weren't here and missed her birth, you should probably go ahead and call them and tell them to start making their way here". Excitement started to set in at this point, in between contractions.
We called my parents that had stayed the night before at a hotel down the street with my Mamaw and Papaw and told them to head to the hospital. I only needed to hold off until 10:30 for my sister to get in from her San Francisco flight. I was not having this baby before T was there. Cheyanne had waited this long to make her debut in the world, she could wait another hour. That time span seemed to drag on, with my family coming in and out of the room, watching me contract, trying to take my mind off of it. Mom continued to remind me to open my eyes during contractions. "What's your focal point?" said by the woman that had all three children naturally, drug-free. So I listened as much as I could.
Finally T arrived and I was all a go.
Unfortunately my body was not quite ready. The nurse checked me every hour to see how much I progressed. In my mind, things seemed to have slowed down since I had gone from 4 to 5 in 30 minutes. She kept asking me if I wanted any pain meds. Nope. I wanted to go as long as possible by myself without meds. I think I made it to 6 centimeters when finally I asked T what she thought and we agreed I'd try the Stadol for some pain relief. It is a pain relief med administered by IV that is supposed to just take the edge off of contractions. Hmm. Well for me, that's not exactly what it did. It knocked me out. Completely drugged me to a whole other dimension. I could feel every contraction, but it messed with my head so much that I could not tell what was reality and what was not. I almost felt like I was in a heavy dream state not being able to open my eyes or respond but could hear and feel everything going on. This would be another point when the Giant pulled out the video camera and captured the oh-so-lovely shot of my druggily trying to scratch my nose. Has it ever taken you five minutes to get your hand to your nose? Well it has me. The great thing with it though, the next hour and a half flew by. Stadol wore off after an hour and a half or so and I was back to reality. It is at this point I have a very hazy memory of being so nauseas I was gagging to throw up. Stadol and a very empty stomach with severe labor pains apparently don't mix. My sweet husband and sister helped me through holding a bucket and cooling me down with a cold washcloth. I had progressed some, to about 7 1/2 centimeters.
It was roughly then that the nurse told me if I wanted to get the epidural, it was now or never. Looking to my sister for wisdom (which is how most of my day went with decisions), we went for it. I am still a little disappointed in myself for that decision, but I at that point I was just done with the pain that was coming every minute or so. I got the epidural at around 3:30-4pm, which was a pain in and of itself to sit still long enough for it to be inserted. We had to catch it between contractions which were entirely too close. Trying to sit still was like literally fighting mother nature. Once it was in, within about fifteen minutes I felt a little relief. But, my luck, I guess we waited too late for the entire epidural to work because I still felt everything. My lower half never went numb like it was supposed to, only my big right toe which stayed like that for 2 weeks. Weird. The contractions were milder but manageable again. You know how in movies, the woman on an edipural looks at the monitor and says "Is that a contraction? I didn't even feel it." Nope, that was not me. There was no screaming or writhing in pain or cursing up a storm, but I was not looking at that little line on the monitor jump up and saying "Oh hmm I don't feel a thing." By 5:45, I was feeling so much pressure that I started to have a meltdown. I was feeling so much pressure that I felt I was about to pop out a 10 pound baby right then and there. The nurse told me to wait for the doctor to come check me. I think I made it quite clear that that had better be soon because I could not hold off much longer. My doctor came in all smiles, me not so much. She checked and I was at 9 1/2cm. It didn't matter. I was going to be pushing whether they liked it or not. She did some stretching to help me out and get me to 10 and the pushing began.
Husband on one side with a leg, the nurse on the other. Mom and T behind the doctor watching and coaching. Everyone was telling me to do different things. Breathe! PUSH! Counting! UUggh! Through all of the voices, I grabbed on to one, my sister's. I had to make my mind ignore everyone else and only listen to her. Thank God she was there. PUSH. PUSH. PUSH. Breath. Do it again. PUSH. PUSH. PUSH. "Molly do you want to feel her head?" "NO!" PUSH. PUSH. PUSH. On and on it went. Finally. One final push and everyone squeeled but me. Twenty minutes of pushing and out in the world she came at 6:13pm. She was greeted by a multitude of people in my room, some planned, some unplanned. I couldn't see her so all I could do was look at my husband staring at her looking petrified. I knew something was off but I wasn't even in the mindset to put together what.
Now here's the part I am completely getting from what I've been told. Cheyanne came out with the cord wrapped so very tight around her neck that the doctor had to cut her cord off. Her face was blue, which is what caused the petrified look on Hubs' face. She wasn't crying or making any noise for that matter but was very alert. They had called in the NICU right before she was born so they quickly took her once she was out. All I saw was a head full of dark hair as they wisked her to her bed. As they did, they asked what's her name? I saw the dark hair just like her momma and Nana and I knew she was a Faye. So Cheyanne Faye it was. They quickly tended to her in the room in front of everyone.
I told the Giant to go see what was going on. He stayed with her from then on. At this point, my sister must have seen how confused I was because she smiled at me and I instantly knew the baby was going to be okay. A few minutes went by (which seemed like hours) with no sound from her at all. Nothing we could hear at least. The NICU nurse finally said that Cheyanne was wimpering and any noise was good noise. And she was definitely already a good pooper because I was told the nurse was there laughing over the baby that she had to keep wiping her. Good girl! Baby poop is a good thing! They cleaned her off and wrapped her up. I was able to hold her for just a minute when they took her back. I held her long enough to see her, take a few pictures, and off she went. I did not get her back for another 3 hours. Because she was born with the cord wrapped around her, they monitored for an extra long time. Also, she was born with low platelets which caused some alarm. They immediately started her on antibiotics to fight anything she might already be fighting. She had to have an IV put in her right hand, which we lovingly refered to as her "claw" for the next 3 days. She perked up that first night and started to make up for her lack of crying during her first few minutes of life. We are so thankful that God watched over our Peapod and kept her healthy during a potentially scary time. And I am also very thankful that God kept me quite naive to all that was happening to her at the time. I had a peace in those first few minutes that I knew he was keeping her safe. He kept
my daughter safe. So all in all, Cheyanne Faye was born at 6:13pm on 9/16 weighing a healthy 7lb 8oz and 20 1/2 inches long and the world will never be the same.
