Payton's birth story

As mentioned before, Payton was due 8/5/19, but showed us what we thought were signs that she was ready to join us a couple weeks earlier.

Mom had her membranes swept at 38 and 39 weeks, caused some rumbling, but August 5th (40 weeks) came and went. So we were told she would probably be scheduled for induction on the 8th. That turned into the 12th, and we were disappointed we had to wait longer, but still not a big deal in the grand scheme of things.

Mom called the hospital to confirm the appointment Sunday night, and was told that "unless a busload of pregnant women" showed up to deliver, we should be fine, but call back at 5:30 AM.

Funny thing about delivery wards is it seems to be feast or famine according to the nurses we spoke to. So when we called in the AM, we found out that proverbial busload showed up, and they had no room for us. Ahhhhhh!

Grandma and Grandpa Doan had taken off work and stayed at our house to watch Dylan (and Louie), so we were again disappointed and a little panicked. Anyhow, the hospital told us to call back in 2 hours, and when we did they said try again in another 2 if we didn't hear from them.

Around 11:30 we got the call we'd been waiting for 😊. We trucked on down there and got all checked in and ready to roll by about 1P.

We were surprised to find Mom was still only 1cm dilated. But her cervix was about 70% ripe (I didn't make up that term), so they started with a pill meant to help dilate the cervix and get it ready for contractions. That pill doesn't go down your throat just FYI.

After 4 hours of that, she was dilated 3 or 4 cm, (out of 10 cm) and the Doc decided to start a drip of Pitocin, which stimulates contractions. She also got her epidural and by 6PM her water was broken and we were now playing the old waiting game again.

Things progressed pretty steadily from there. We both were able to take a few quick naps in between cervix checks and whatnot. Mom got a great epidural this time and was very comfortable. The hospital updated the torture racks they passed off as couch/beds for Dad's too since last time we were here. Win Win!

By about 1AM it was pretty much go time. It was a busy night for them, so we had to wait a bit for our Doctor to be ready to catch the baby. Mom was an absolute warrior again when it came to pushing. Fortunately, Dylan had blazed the trail for Payton and left some good directions. After about 20 minutes of pushing her little head of hair popped out, quickly followed by the rest of her! Successsssssss! 18 months and 1 day after Dylan, Payton was ours!

It was a much calmer delivery this time. No swat team from the NICU, Dad even got to cut the umbilical cord. I asked if they had a cool samurai sword or something, but they advised I use the surgical scissors, which was probably the right call. Probably.

Long story short, Payton is a happy healthy beautiful little girl. She met her sister for the first time today (video to follow), can't wait to get home tomorrow and start our lives together.

I guess the moral of this story is every struggle or difficulty that a person goes through is relative to their situation. Our "inconvenience" of having to wait an extra week for a healthy baby is a zero on the big scale of life. We're all too familiar with the real struggles of fertility and tragedies of pregnancy and child raising that happen all the time. We're so thankful for Payton, Dylan and all the support from our friends and family. And Louie.

Many thanks to Nurses Marnie, Jessica and Barb, Dr Candela, Dr Brooks, Dr Brauer, Nurses Amber and Jennifer and all the rest of the staff at the Northwest Women's Center.