Brooklyn Bonnie Rothe

Brooklyn Bonnie Rothe was born on September 28th, 2010 at 2:37 am. She was 8 lbs and 20 inches. I never thought that it would happen the way it did. I pictured myself in the middle of the night to start having contractions and going into labor. I would sit up all night timing the contractions. I would then let Mike know that it was time to go to the hospital. Well, that is not what happened. Here is the story. I woke up bright (well, not so bright) and early Monday morning, the 27th, at about 4:30 am. When I went to the bathroom I noticed a lot of bright red blood. My first thought was this is the "bloody show" I have been waiting for. Not that I really new what the "bloody show" consisted of. I cleaned things up and then decided to look up what the "bloody show" consisted of. As I read it said pink in color. This was definitely more than pink. Then it said if you see bright red blood to contact your doctor. I then called the after hours number and the lady on the phone said she wasn't sure what it meant but the she could call the doctor. I was a little reluctant to call because I didn't want to cause any undo concern in the middle of the night. I tried to wake Mike up to see what he thought. He wasn't sure and we decided to call Mom and Dad to see what they thought. They said to call the doctor. I then called the doctor and he said to go to the hospital and get it checked out. We arrived at the hospital around 6:30 am. They set us up in one of their labor and delivery rooms and put the baby's heart rate monitor on me and the monitor for the contractions. I was having only mild contractions and wasn't in real labor. After about an hour of monitoring they said I was still dilated to 2cm as I had been for the past two weeks. They called the doctor to see what he would have them do. They decided to have me get an ultrasound to see if the bleeding was because of the placenta detaching from the uterine wall. They were pretty busy in the imaging center so they said I would just have to wait until they were ready for me. Not long after they told me this the nurse came back in and said they would like to induce me. I was already after my due date and they thought this would be the best for me. They still couldn't explain why I was having the bleeding. They started the IV at about 11:00 am and got the Pitocin going. This started the contractions but things didn't move very fast from there. I didn't progress to 3cm until around 5:00 pm. Mike and I were able to play a game of cards and watch a movie. Mark even came and played a couple of rounds with me. At this time they asked if I wanted to start the epidural. The anesthesiologist was going into a C-section and wouldn't be available until about an hour later. I thought no I can handle the pain right now. Mike was there to let me squeeze his hands through the contractions. All my contractions were felt in my lower back. After making that decision I regretted it and was relieved that they came back and made sure that I didn't want it. I then decided to get it and it felt great. The needles going into my back were not as bad as I had imagined. During a lot of this time I had been talking to Mom and Dad letting them know what was going on. We expected that I would have the baby that day. This was not the case. I actually didn't reach 10 cm until about midnight and that is when I started to push. I pushed for 2 hours and just couldn't get her beyond the pelvis. I was so close but with each contraction I would push hard 2 times and on the third I just couldn't give it anymore. It didn't help that I was having heartburn and that third push made it really hard. I was grateful for the help that Mike gave me during this time. I just love Mike. He is the greatest! No husband compares to him. At this time the nurse decided to call the doctor and see what he wanted us to do. He decided it was time to come over and try getting her out with the vacuum. After resting for a little bit the doctor arrived. He told me I was going to have to do a lot in pushing to help get Brooklyn out. If the vacuum didn't work I was going to have a C-Section. Well, after just four strong pushes I was able to push her out. I was glad to have that over with. She is such a good baby and I was so happy to have her enter this world.