My water broke on my due date in Korean BBQ joint Seoul Taco.
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| University of Missouri - Women's & Children's Hospital's Low Intervention Suite |
I was on the toilet for 30 minutes, and it just kept coming.
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| Me, questioning whether or not low intervention was the right choice. |
We finally got me off the toilet, texted my doctor (you can text doctors now?!), and headed in to the hospital, where they had to make sure it was actually amniotic fluid, and I didn't really just pee my pants.
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"Smile, Caitlin!"
Meh. |
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| A beach ball on a beach ball |
It was amniotic fluid, so they admitted me.
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| They write these things so crazy/sedated people remember where they are and who's taking care of them. |
After about 4 1/2 hours of laboring, I decided to get an epidural. I'm really glad I tried it naturally, and then was really glad I got the epidural, because then we both slept for two hours, which was one of the keys to our success.
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| How Colton told me to feel. |
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| How I really felt. (Sorry, Dad.) |
The epidural ended up mostly wearing off, as many do, by the delivery portion of the labor, but had I not gotten that two hours of sleep from it, I might still be in the hospital today.
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| Me and my hair are glad she's out. |
I only survived because Colton refreshed ice chips and water every five minutes, and then held my head up during too many hours of pushing. I kept thinking about new mothers who do this alone, and then kept being glad that I wasn't.
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| She's glad she's out too. (Picture by Colton) |
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| Chillin'. |
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| The sweetest dad picture. |
We're finally home, after a five-day hospital stay to make sure Lucy and I were okay.
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| "You're not going to put me in a bucket with a giant flower on my head, are you?" |
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| A blanket from the LDS women's organization. |
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| Dad, thinking about all the five-dollar bills he's going to be giving away for the next couple decades. |
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| We call these "tootsies." |
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| Blanket from Grandma Duncan that I've been waiting to swaddle her in for months. |
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| "My forehead looks especially Neanderthal-like in this one, but I think it's just bad lighting." |
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| The bear my family got us two + years ago from Harrod's in London finally has a friend. |
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| "You think my mother could have straightened me out for this picture." |
