Jacie Ann Kelly is Born!!

As you can tell we decided to name our little girl Jacie Ann Kelly, Ann after her Nana. She was born on July 16th, 2011 at 1:11 pm. She was born at St. Joseph Hospital in College, Station Texas. Luckily for Pete and I she decided to let me wait to go into labor until AFTER we went and saw the final Harry Potter movie :) We went to the movie on Friday night, July 15th, and I probably went into labor sometime that night but I didn't know for sure that I was in labor until about 5 am the next day. I woke up with some serious pain and thought "ok, I think there is definitely something going on here". I woke Pete up and we started trying to time my contractions so that we would know when to head to the hospital. The first few that we timed were about 6 minutes apart but then they moved to 5 minutes and then to 2 minutes all within about half an hour or so. Now anyone who has had a baby knows that the doctor always tells you to wait to go to the hospital until your contractions have consistently been 5 minutes apart for about an hour. Since my contractions were getting closer together so quickly I figured I must be experiencing false labor so I decided to just sit tight. They continued to get harder and more painful and started being about a minute and a half apart. This is the point when I am hunched over in pain and I told Pete "If this is false labor it is SO not funny, I cannot be feeling this extreme pain for nothing!" So we decided to go ahead and go to hospital. Even though we had planned to, Pete and I never did a practice drive to the hospital so we had no idea where it was. We plugged the address into the GPS, and guess what? It got us lost!! So we are driving around in a random neighborhood that the GPS took us to with no hospital in sight and I am holding onto the door of the car for dear life with every contraction. Luckily we found some people in a parking lot setting up some sort of fruit stand and asked them how to get to the hospital. When we got there they put me in a room right away and got me hooked up to monitors. At that point my pain was validated when the nurse watched the monitor and said "Wow! Your labor is going like gangbusters!" So very true. At this point my contractions are right on top of each other. The doctor came in to see how I was progressing and I wasn't happy to hear that I still hadn't dilated at all, not one single bit. Luckily my lack of progression didn't keep them from giving me the blessed epidural. It was amazing!! Before the epidural I felt the worst pain I have ever felt in my life, but within five minutes of getting the shot I didn't feel one more contraction, it was beautiful. When the doctor came in less than an hour after checking in on me the first time she checked again and let me know that I was then dilated to a four and fully effaced! She said that I had progressed so quickly because my contractions were so intense. I was feeling good, no more pain, progressing well, my Mama had arrived at the  hospital, all was well. A little while later the doctor came in to break my water and said that she thought she felt a booty where the head should be so we did an ultrasound and sure enough J was breech. Since I was progressed so far at this point they needed to go ahead and do a c-section as soon as they could get me into an O.R. so that she didn't try coming out on her own. They did a spinal block and off we went. The surgery went really smoothly and wasn't bad at all. I had heard some horror stories about getting a c-section but mine was no big deal. When I first heard Jacie cry I thought it was the most beautiful thing I had ever heard. Then Pete carried her over to me and put her right up next to my face, I couldn't hold her yet because I couldn't move while I was on the operating table. She was so beautiful! After they took her away to the nursery I just fell asleep right there on the operating table, I was exhausted! I slept for a few hours and woke up when they brought her back to me. Holding my baby girl for the first time was an indescribable feeling, the absolute best! We stayed at the hospital for 2 nights and then got to go home, well to our temporary College Station home that is. The doctors and nurses at St. Josephs were so great and helped me have an amazing experience. I am so glad my baby girl is here!!

Waiting in the Labor & Delivery Room

 My Baby Girl! Jacie Ann Kelly!

Pete holding her next to my face so I can see her :) 

Jacie and her Nana

Me holding Jacie for the first time :) 

Definitely my favorite picture taken of her in the hospital, she is so goofy!

She was jaundice so they had to put her in a special blanket with UV lights. They put eye protectors on her and we decided she looked like she was going to a tanning bed

She is just so precious!

 I will do another post about the rest of our summer and with some updated pictures of Jacie, I just wanted her birth to have a post all its own :)