Birth Story

I received a message from Sirron on September 17 that she would be inducing on September 28, the day after I got done with SERE, and she wanted to make sure that I would be able to be there. It had been 11 days since I had talked to her, and I wouldn't be able to for another 10. The doctor had put Sirron on bed-rest on the 4th, because her blood pressure had gotten too high.

I was released from my course at 2:00, went to my apartment to pack up, and hit the road at 3:00. I drove through the night and got home at midnight. While I had thought that we would induce early Monday morning, it turned out that we didn't have to be at the hospital until Monday night. This was great, because Sirron and I got to spend all of Monday together, by ourselves. We went out to eat in Little Rock, our last date as non-parents, prior to going to the hospital.

We were to show up at St. Vincents at 8:00 Monday night, so we got there about 7:45. We were told to have a seat and they would come get us. Three hours later, we were taken back to our birthing room. The nurses performed a procedure known as Cytotec to start the dilation process on Sirron at 1:00 am. This did little more than make her uncomfortable throughout the night, and she got very little sleep of about an hour. Nurses started the Pitocin drip at 5:00 am, and the contractions ensued...quickly. The doctor showed up at 8:30 and broke Sirron's water...we were going to have a baby that day!

Sirron was contracting every two minutes, and the intensity was quickly increasing. Nurses checked Sirron's dilation progress throughout the morning, and little to nothing was happening. At 1:00 that afternoon, 8 hours after starting Pitocin, we got to a 2. Our nurse told us at this time that we were looking at a very long day and night, and would probably have our baby around 5:00 the next morning! Sirron's labor pains were in full swing, and had been for several hours, so an epidural was administered...it was smooth sailing from this point on.

Sirron slept, on and off, for the remainder of the afternoon and into the evening, never feeling any pain from another contraction. It took a couple of hours to get from a 2 to a 3, then another hour or so to a 4...we skipped 5, straight to 6, and in what seemed like no time (an hour and half), we were at an 8/9 and ready to deliver.

Before the doctor ever arrived, the baby's head was visible. Once he did get there, the pushing started. On the second push, Caroline's head was out. The third push revealed our baby GIRL, to much relief.

3 pushes, that was it...no screaming, no cussing, nothing that I had planned for. Sirron proved to be the strongest woman I have ever seen. I was so proud of her, and we were both proud new parents of a beautiful baby girl.