Birth Story

Jayda Beth Pedersen
7 lbs 15 oz, 20"  August 15, 2014

 Here I am on my due date.  40 weeks pregnant and still no sign of our baby girl coming!

We decided to head to our local pool when I was 40 weeks 4 days.  Wasn't feeling like she was making her way at all.  So I decided to start swimming.  Ended up swimming 20+ laps because I was ready to get this baby girl here! At this point I was just dying to meet her.  After swimming we went home around 4ish and I had showered and gotten ready.  After that we were just relaxing around the house with my niece Cleo and sister-in-law Cortnee when I started feeling contractions every 4-5 minutes.  I had been feeling contractions here and there for weeks now, but started freaking out a bit when they were happening so often.  My doctor told me only to go to the hospital if my water breaks OR if I'm feeling contractions every 4-5 minutes for two hours. 

Well, sure enough two hours came around so we decided maybe I really was finally in labor.  We grabbed our hospital bags and headed out around 6:45 pm(ish).  At this point contractions were not painful at all so I was worried the hospital would be sending me home.  We arrive at McKay-Dee hospital and head up to labor and delivery.  Is this the day she finally comes!?  The nurses take me into a little room to check to see where I am and how far along I really am.  First off, the intermountain hospitals have a policy that I must be dilated to a 3 to be admitted.  The nurse checked me and said I was only at a 2.5.  Gosh dang it... do I really need to go home!?  She ended up calling my doctor anyway to let him know what was happening.  My doctor said to let me walk around the labor & delivery floor for an hour to see if anything changes.  So you're telling me there's a chance!? :) After an hour of walking around in circles the nurse checked me again.  Of course, I am still at a 2.5 so she says she's really sorry, but after monitoring heart rates of me and baby (a must after walking around for an hour I guess) we would have to head home.  BUT as she started monitoring our heart rates, Jayda's heart rate was pretty high so she called my doctor again and he said to start an IV to hydrate and try to calm her down.  I had the IV going for about 30-40 minutes and during that time contractions started getting stronger and more painful.  Once the IV was finished the nurse said she normally doesn't check after, but since my contractions were getting stronger she would try one last time.   Sure enough I was dilated to a 3 and fully effaced!  YAY!!  I get to stay!  After some time of her finding me a room to move me to for delivery, we stood up to move and as soon as I stood up a part of my water broke.  By this time it is about midnight and I'm finally in the delivery room.  I then had the anesthesiologist come in to give me my epidural.  He was a sweet Indian man and the nurse told me before he came in that he was a man of very little words.  His vocabulary consisted of ouch, poke, cramp and pinch.  Luckily I had some AWESOME delivery nurses and she talked me through the whole thing.  Epidural was NOTHING.  I was so surprised.  That was one of the things I was fearing most, but I barely felt it because I told Kjarom I would be squeezing his hand so hard I would be focusing on that rather than the needle.  Sure enough I barely even felt it.  Then it was all smooth sailing.

Here we are soon after the epidural.  We are ready to meet our baby girl!!  The doctor on call came in after to check to see where I was.  I was dilated to a 4 so I was moving along!  He then broke the rest of my water to get things moving along.  Outside there was a ton of rain, lightning and thunder.  About two hours in around 1:45 the POWER GOES OUT.  Here I am giving birth for the first time and the power goes out?  This was not about to keep me calm.  Luckily the generators kicked on and all the important machines were running again.  We got a few minutes of rest after enjoying some popsicles and ice.  At 2:30 am my nurse came back in to check on me and she said I was already dilated to a 10!  She said this baby is ready to come.  She ran out to call my doctor to get him over.  The doctor on call came in to double check and sure enough he, too said I was at 10 cm.  he was surprised that I was a first time mom and it had only been 2 hours and I went from being a 4 to a 10.  Now I was told just to completely relax and we were going to try to keep her in for as long as possible because I was on some antibiotics that needed to be going through me for about 4 hours.  We didn't make it quite to 4 am.  I did 8 practice pushes with my nurse and when my doctor got there I only pushed 3 more times and he told me just to relax and my contractions pushed her out on their own.  I didn't have to do anything else and shortly after here she was at 3:52 am.  Everything went so smoothly it made me think right away that I could do this again -- easily and soon!  But not too soon... we will wait for a little while and enjoy our little angel while we can :)

Sweet baby Jayda weighed in at 7 lbs 15 oz!

Here I am holding her skin-to-skin for the first time!  I can't even begin to explain the instant love I felt.  It was such an emotional moment.  I couldn't believe she was finally here after all this time.

Daddy holding her in the delivery room for the first time!

Here we are later on that afternoon.  Our very first family picture!  We are so in love with this baby girl.  We could not stop staring at her.

 Grandpa and Grandma Murray came up to visit their newest granddaughter.

At McKay-Dee they have a photographer that comes to each room to do complimentary photo shoots in the hospital and we can purchase prints if we'd like.  Sure enough we loved them so we had to get them!  Here are a few of our favorites.  It was kind of funny because she was completely asleep, but as soon as the camera came out she opened her eyes.

Here she is ready to head home!  These clothes are 0-3 and drowning her!  With me being born at 9 lbs 15 oz I did NOT think I needed any newborn clothing.  Boy was I wrong.  She is still in newborn clothes at 2 weeks old.
We love this little girl and are so excited to have her as a part of our family.  We feel like the luckiest parents around.  She is absolutely perfect!!