Priceless...

2 trips to Pocatello...$30


A trip to Wal-mart to prepare for baby...$100


An hour stay at Comfort Inn Pocatello...$70


Driving down the freeway from 0-100 mph in 20 seconds...$50


Running a red light...$0 (Thank goodness!)


A healthy baby born in the hospital (barely)...priceless




Our Birth Story: Yep, it's a good one!

July 1, 2008

Today started out just like every other day—still pregnant. We started our day early (in the morning that is), and still late (for our appointment). I was one day away from being a week over due, and we were going in for our weekly. After the appointment, we made appointments for an ultra-sound and fetal monitoring just in case. While the receptionist was making a final call to set up monitoring, I excused myself to use the restroom. When I returned to the front desk, our appointments were made, and we were ready to leave. Some time in between leaving the exam room and leaving the office, I had developed a dull pain in my lower back…Something I would only later classify as the start of labor pains.

Before we left Pocatello, we had some errands to run… Errands took us about two hours to complete, and throughout them, my lower back pain kept returning, about every twenty minutes. After running around Pocatello all morning we went home and unloaded the car, did a few chores, and talked with family. Aaron decided that this would be a perfect night for a Pocatello get away…dinner, movie, and a motel...I completely agreed. The idea of laboring on the town, or in a motel room was a lot more appealing than laboring around my house with five children and three adults watching, and anxiously waiting. Aaron and I wanted a labor process that was more intimate than this, something we could both remember as amazing and personal. At this point, lower back pains were about every 15 min, but they weren’t bad, they didn’t make me stop in my tracks, so I though nothing of it (except that it could potentially be a very long night)

We packed our bags, and left around 4:00. We had two more stops that we had to make before the night would be completely ours. All through Walmart, I still had that lower back pain, but nothing that I would have mentally classified as labor, they were getting closer (probably every 10-12 min), but they didn’t hurt, they didn’t take my breath away, I had no prior labor experience to refer to, so I thought nothing of it, I figured the whole night might go on like this, and potentially the entire next day…

With my contractions getting closer together, around 6:00 I told Aaron we probably weren’t going to make it to the movies, and of course he was OK with that, so we settled into our motel room for what we thought might be a late night of contractions but nothing huge; contractions were getting closer, but they weren’t anything that I couldn’t dance or re-focus my way through, and they definitely weren’t something that I thought were bad enough to be ‘labor’. Silly me :)

We talked, laughed, hugged, and spent the time just being together. Every time a contraction would hit, (it started as a dull pain, and I could always feel them coming) I would stop talking, and just hug Aaron and dance—rocking back and forth with Aaron applying counter pressure on my lower back. They would only last for about a minute, and were about 5 min. apart, but they still didn’t seem bad enough yet to call or go in to the office. I knew I was in trouble when I sat down to go potty and the contraction was so bad that it wouldn’t let me sit any longer. It lasted about a minute, and about a minute later another one hit, this is where I finally thought they were bad enough, this is when they really started to hurt, and I was afraid that I couldn’t work through them any more, my focus was on nothing and everything at the same time, this is when I finally felt like I was in labor.

This is also when Aaron called the Midwife hot line and got Tracy’s number, then called Tracy and let her know how I was feeling. She said to come in to the office and she would check me and we would go from there. Aaron initially called Tracy around 7:00, all the while trying to help me get dressed and help me through contractions. At 7:05 he called Tracy back to inform her that my water had just broke, and that I felt like pushing…she said we really needed to get to the hospital, and that she would meet us in labor and delivery.

After my water broke, things got better, I didn’t experience contractions every minute, and a HUGE pressure was no longer there, yet it was all I could do to make it out of the motel bathroom and to the car, bare foot because my sandals were soaked from my water breaking—it was not a trickle that I had read was more common, mine was a HUGE gush (the not so common I guess).

Aaron didn’t drive the speed limit at any point in our travels, He did drive 100mph on the freeway between on ramp and off ramp, at which point he also said the car was up in the 6000rpms and that gas mileage was going to be horrible. Most of the lights we encountered were in our favor, the one that wasn’t Aaron slowed down to, there weren’t any cars coming, he asked if he could just go, I think my voice was a little loud when I answered him with a yes, please, it was probably the first red light Aaron has ever ran.

In the car, my water continued to ‘leak’ out, and the motel towels that we had were already wet from drying off, but luckily they did the job, and our front seat didn’t get too wet. I think it helped that I was also wearing two bottom layers that were absorbing a lot as well.

At the hospital, there was (tenderly) a parking spot in front, and a nurse coming off duty was walking through the door, asked if I needed a wheel chair, and escorted us to labor and delivery, by way of Nursery (she got the wrong floor). I was wheeled into my delivery room, I got out of the wheel chair, I got out of my soaking pants, I went to sit on the bed, but that didn’t work so well, so I stood beside the bed instead, and then another contraction hit, I really felt like pushing, Tracy encouraged it, and was in the process of getting gloves on when she looked down to check me just in time to put her hands out (only one gloved) to catch our baby.

McKenzie Kay Marshall was born at 7:19 pm. She was placed directly in my arms, still attached, I was able to finally sit down, and caress and hold her. She was given a few seconds of oxygen to improve her coloring, and I held her through delivering my placenta (which Tracy let us look at, and explained that all of the pieces were there, and what each piece was—really cool), I held her through cutting the cord (which was done lovingly by Aaron), I held her the entire time I was getting stitched up, and I was still holding her (in bed, in my t-shirt, which I had pushed up) when Alexis and mom came, and I was still holding her while Aaron made all the phone calls, unable to answer any questions (height/weight), and would have to make them all again later. It was AMAZING! Nursery finally came to weigh, check, and somewhat clean her up after she had latched on and had been in my arms from birth for well over an hour (it’s hard to remember exactly how long, looking at a clock was not a priority).

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For more pictures please to refer to archives-Kenzie Kay