McKinley's Birth Story

The morning of Tuesday August 24th, Travis and I woke up at about 7:30am and I got out of bed and started working on a bow holder I had painted the night before, that I was waiting to let dry over night. I got up and started hot gluing the ribbon on to the wood piece when all of the sudden I realized my water had broken! It wasn't all at once but a little at a time, so I wasn't quite sure what to do and if in fact my water had broken. I asked Travis what to do, and he said pick up your craft stuff and take a shower, and he started vacuuming. We laugh about this now because both of us were a little out of sorts not quite sure what we should be doing. After doing these things, we decided we should call our doctor. Our doctor wasn't on call but I talked to another doctor, Dr. England, (the Dr. who ended up delivering McKinley) and I think he could tell the unsureness in my voice because he asked me if I was a first-time mom. I said yes and we both laughed. He told me to come on in to the hospital and get checked out. So we got our hospital bags we had packed and ready to go, grabbed a few movies and headed to the hospital. When we got there, they sent us to a room and I got into my hospital gown. They came in and checked me out and confirmed that sure enough my water had broken. So they hooked me up to my IV and Travis and I put in a movie to make the time pass faster. They then came in to put me on pitocin, at 10am, to get my contractions started, I only had a few very small ones before they put on the pitocin. Travis and I watched movies, called/texted family and friends to let them know what was going on and waited for things to start happening. After about 2 hours on the pitocin, my contractions started getting stronger and I started being unable to talk or focus on other things while I was having them. At one point my sister called while I was having one, and I told Travis sorry I can't talk to her now you're going to have to! So at that point, I decided it was about time to get my epidural. So at 1pm, after about 3 hours of labor on my own, I got my epidural. I told Travis I felt like I was cheating because I had hardly had that many painful contractions, but I was so relieved when the anesthesiologist arrived! He was really nice and friendly and we had a conversation the whole time he was giving me my epidural. I laid on my side and held Travis's hand and it really didn't hurt! I felt instant relief from my contractions! It was amazing! My legs really didn't get numb and I was still able to feel a little pressure from my contractions, just not the pain. So apparently I got the "perfect epidural" as my nurse called it! When I got my epidural I was only dilated to a 2, so we were a little discouraged and thought we were going to be at the hospital all night waiting for this girl to come! Natalie, Travis's sister, came to hang out with us. We watched some more movies and I took a little nap. Then we started a game of Phase 10. After about 4 rounds of Phase 10 and 3 hours of my epidural, I started to feel a lot of pressure with each contraction, and we looked at the monitor and my contractions were only a minute apart and pretty intense. So I called the nurse to have her come and check me. She checked and said her head is right there, you're dilated to a 9 and ready to start pushing! I was shocked I had only been in labor for 6 hours and I was already ready to push! In a matter of 3 hours since I got my epidural I dilated from a 2 to a 9! So at 4pm I started to push with my nurse, Cody. She was great, really friendly and very helpful! We really liked her. So after about 10 minutes of pushing with her, she decided it was time to call the doctor! The doctor couldn't get there fast enough! I felt the urge to push really strong and didn't like having to wait to push until he got there. Luckily, when I thought I couldn't wait anymore he finally got there! So we pushed for about 10 more minutes with the doctor and she was here!! Travis didn't get to cut her umbilical cord, because it was wrapped around her neck and the doctor had to cut it. They took her over and weighed her and did her measurements and cleaned her up. She peed all over the table while the nurse was doing all of this! She was born at 4:27pm, weighed 7 lbs 6 oz, and was 20 inches long. We didn't have a name for her right when she was born. On the wall in our hospital room they had written "Baby Secret Name Hulse". We decided about 10 minutes after she was born to name her McKinley Elana Hulse. We had a few names we were choosing from, but that's the one we thought fit our baby girl the best. She was really healthy and everything looked great! They came and put her on my chest and I thought she was beautiful. It was so nice to finally have my baby girl here and to snuggle with her! I thought she was so cute and I loved kissing her head!






I was so surprised with how easy everything was. In my head I had pictured it to be a lot worse! Right after I had her, I said to the doctor "That wasn't bad, I could do that again!" She was so alert after she was born. In fact, the 2 days we spent in the hospital, she really didn't sleep all that much! She stayed awake most of the time and everyone was impressed with how alert she was. In fact, in the pictures that the photographer took at the hospital, all the nurses were so impressed with how alert she was and all remarked about how she didn't look like a newborn! In the hospital we were visited by Natalie, my aunts Sally and Darla, my cousins Lindsey and Ashley, and my friends Heather and Jeremy and Nicole.

It was so great to have so many visitors and to relax and be waited on by all of the nurses. I felt like I recovered really well and was up and walking the next day after I had her. It felt good to get out of the hospital bed and walk around. In fact, one time Travis was laying in my hospital bed and I was up sitting in the chair and one of the nurses walked in and remarked, "What's wrong with this picture?" Thursday morning around 10am, my doctor and McKinley's doctor okayed it for us to head home. We were ready to leave the hospital and begin life at home with McKinley! That morning Travis's mom came up to the hospital and we were able to introduce her to McKinley for the first time. She was able to help us take her home for the first time. We were no longer a family of 2 but now a family of 3!