Welcome Baby Hannah - Birth Story

Pregnancy Recap - I wouldn't call the pregnancy with Hannah difficult although on paper it looked like it. Considering I was a growing a human being in me I felt pretty good for most of it.  But medically speaking between the hyperthyroidism, being RH -, gestational diabetes, and the weekly progesterone shots to try to prevent the "spontaneous pre-term birth" I had with Everett, keeping her in and us both healthy until 37 weeks felt like an accomplishment.  The good news is that I loved my doctor and the office which was great because I got to see them every week for five months.

Birth Story -
Once we hit 35 weeks I started having lots of random contractions.  When they checked me at 36 weeks I was 3cm already, so that week was a little nervous as we really wanted her to stay in until 37 weeks.  However, once we got there we were in the clear to try to get that baby out.  Nothing worked, I would get a couple of hours of good contractions and then it would stop.  At my 37 week appointment my doctor scheduled my induction, kind of.  Everett was an emergency c-section because he was breech, I made it to 8 cm with him before they figured out he was butt first and took him out the "emergency hatch" as Ev calls it.  Since Everett was born Salem hospital lifted their ban on VBAC (vaginal birth after cesarean) which I was really excited about.  But, although they aren't banned anymore the hospital still doesn't like them from a risk standpoint so anything beyond breaking my water was out of the question and I would have to be hooked up to the monitors the entire time.  If I didn't got into labor on my own I would be looking at C-section but I was glad to get to try.

That morning we woke up and were ready to leave the house a little after 5:30am, right about then we get a call that they were very busy and they had no space for us.  We were suppose to call back at 8am.  8am comes around and then we are suppose to call back at 10am...at this point I'm doing anything I can to stay busy including cleaning the house, doing my nails, seriously anything.  10am rolls around and they tell me they have a couple of beds freeing up and will call me.  So more waiting....finally around 11 we get the call and head to the hospital.  By noon we are in a room talking with the doctor.  They check me and I'm at 4cm, so they break my water and we wait.  Thankfully contractions started, not too painful for the first hour and then things picked up.  It got pretty intense and I started to wonder about the wisdom of not having an epidural.  When they checked me again I was only 6cm so I decided to go ahead and get the epidural since I figured we had a couple of hours ahead of us.  Turns out that was a poor choice because things went really really fast from here on out.  As soon as they had it in place and I was back in bed something didn't feel right, the nurse checked me and it was time to have a baby!  18 minutes of pushing later we had a baby (and then the epidural took effect lol, totally after the fact).

Hannah Michelle Hutches was here, 19 3/4 long and 8lbs 4 ounces.  Her birth was the most amazing experience, everything went fantastic and I can't articulate how incredible it was to finally get to hold her when it was all done.  I can't say enough how awesome our experience was at Salem hospital, both our doctor and our primary nurse Bethany were fantastic and a huge part of why it went so well.