Baby Time!

Kent here with a guest post series.

10:51 PM, 12/19: I had this picture ready just in case, and I’m glad I did. The weather is insane lately with the worst, by far, yet to come over the next couple of days (check out the weather reports for Seattle, and you’ll see what I’m talking about), and the roads are better than they were, but the timing still doesn’t lend itself well to driving around. Fortunately, we’ll be staying put for a couple of days, because we’re legit now! Kirsten’s water broke at home about 9:30 tonight, and we made it up here to Overlake Labor and Delivery in our own car. We were grateful that the roads got plowed and cleaned up well enough that we didn’t have to take an ambulance. We’ve checked in, and everything looks ship shape so far. All my other updates will probably be a lot shorter than this one as the action picks up, and if you don’t see anything else until we’re back home… Well, just trust that we were a little too busy. More to come…

12:40 AM, 12/20: Our awesome midwife Nicki just got here and checked in with us, and Jenni, our nurse (also fantastic) is across the room hooking up the penicillin to Kirsten's IV. Kirsten has a bacteria that plenty of moms do, called Group B Streptococcus. It's just one of the many bacteria she's got going on, and though it's nothing harmful to grownups, newborns can get some gnarly infections from it, so they do a couple of doses of antibiotics to protect the little folks. A nurse here told us on a previous visit that she's never seen a baby get infected with the B strep after the penicillin dosage, so it's really just standard procedure. Contractions are a lot more intense at this point too, so keep watching.

2:02 AM, 12/20: Dilated to 4 cm now, and more effaced. We've just decided to go ahead and get epidural medicine. The biggest motivator at this point is that it's the middle of the night, and Kirsten's really going to need her rest when she starts pushing. If it was daytime, the dicussion may have looked just a little different, but night time is for sleeping, and that's something we both really need at this point.

3:00 AM, 12/20: The epidural went in with no complications thanks to Dr. Silverman (UVA guy; we talked about Virginia a little bit). Kirsten's next mission (and Nicki specifically said the word "mission") is to get some sleep. That makes it mine too. More updates after we wake up.

7:49 AM, 12/20: Well, that wasn't the very most consistent sleep in the world, especially for Kirsten, who had to switch sides every thirty minutes or so and do some periodic monitoring and whatnot, but "this epidural business," as Kirsten has just said, "is fantastic." The last check was at 5:30, and we were hanging out at 6 cm. Still lots of contractions, but they're new and improved, with 99% less pain!

8:51 AM, 12/20: Hey, 9 cm! Alright! The guard changed, so now our nurse is Malinda, and today's midwife is the very friendly and very informative Jennifer. She just checked in with us for the first time and broke the last of the water to make a little more room for everything. We've been assigned two more hours of sleep if we can (hard work and little sleep ahead!), and after that, it's probably time for pushing!

10:32 AM, 12/20: Well, between another bag of epidural medicine and some extra pressure, we didn't really go back to sleep yet. Jennifer just checked again, though, and we're all the way at 10 cm! The extra pressure was from Greta turning and getting lower, which is exactly what she should be doing. If she keeps moving down like this, we'll be in the pushing part pretty soon. And then I won't be updating as much. Stay tuned.