Introducing....

Camdyn McLaine Smith, Born Monday, 8/22/11 at 10:11am, 6lbs 12 oz, 19 1/4 inches long

Her Birth Story...

Everyone (including my doctor) told me I couldn't expect my labor and delivery to be anything like Grayson's since he was a preemie, and my water spontaneously breaking and my dilating so quickly was most likely unique to his birth. But, in reality, our experience with Camdyn couldn't have been more similar.

I saw my doctor the Thursday before she was born and I was dilated three cm. My doctor told me she expected me to deliver within the week. She sent me to the hospital that day for them to monitor me for a little bit just to make sure I wasn't having contractions and didn't know it. At that point, we called my mom to come in Sunday night, as we wanted to savor one last weekend as a family, just the three of us. At approximately 7:11am Monday morning (my water broke with Grayson at 7:15am on a Sunday morning), I felt a pop. About the time it occurred to me that it could have been my water breaking, I felt a little trickle down my leg as I climbed out of bed. Of course, with my experience with Grayson and being the obsessive planner that I am, I had already been driving around with a packed suit case for at least three weeks, and all our toiletries were laid out on the counter. I yelled to Brad that my water broke and we started throwing last minute items into a plastic bag. About that time, Grayson walked into our room, and Brad said, "Guess what buddy, your little sister is going to be born today!" and Grayson then yelled, "YAY!!!" Of course, once we got out the video camera, he refused to repeat his reaction. We were calm and out the door within 10 minutes of my announcement.

We then were quickly on the road right in the middle of Houston rush hour traffic on the first day of school. Luckily, we could hop in the HOV lane, which they had just extended to our exit literally the week before. As we made calls to family, I still was feeling no contractions. It took us about 45 min to get to the hospital (record time for that time of day), and I finally started having contractions about 20 min before we arrived. And at that point, they came on strong and were about 2/3 minutes apart. At that point, I told Brad, "Oh my gosh, this is going to be just like last time, you watch. This is happening really fast. I'm going to be 8cm by the time we get to the hospital."

On the way to the hospital, we passed a Camden Estate Apartments (Camden/Camdyn had been our front runner name for the few months leading up to her birth, although we disagreed on the spelling) at the exact same time we were behind an 18 wheeler with McLaine across the back (one of three possible favorites for a middle name), which I quickly claimed as a "sign" that that was to be her name.

Once we got up to the L&D floor, the nurses were taking their time with paperwork. I'm pretty sure they thought I was just being a wuss with all my screams. In fact, my nurse even apologized to me afterwards ("I knew you were in pain, I just didn't realize you were in that much pain"). Originally when she checked me, she said she didn't think my water had broken, but a few minutes later the OBGYN assured her that it had and that I was already dilated to 8cm (this is where I turned to Brad and said, "I told you so.") At one point, I even had Brad go into the hall and hurry everyone up because I knew I wasn't going to get an epidural if they didn't hurry (which being the nice guy that he is, I'm sure he walked out there politely and calmly and asked if they could please hurry it up a bit...unlike his wife who was in a panic at this point.) After what felt like an eternity of pain, the anesthesiologist was in my room and the on-call OBGYN informed me that I was 9/9.5cm dilated. She and the nurse asked me one more time if I was sure I wanted an epidural (that it might go faster without one). About the time I was ready to agree to do it naturally, the OBGYN asked me how long I pushed with my first child. When I told her an hour and five minutes, she responded, "You pushed an hour and five minutes with a less than five pound baby??!!!?" "Get her the epidural, she is probably going to need it!" At that point, they asked Brad to leave the room and gave me the epidural. I then said a silent prayer asking God to protect me from being one of those extremely rare cases of paralysis from the epidural because I was too big of a wuss to do it naturally (an irrational prayer I know, but at that point, I don't know if any of my thoughts were all that rational).

Brad later told me that I was like a different person once I got the epidural. And if I had to do it again, I would get it again because I was actually able to enjoy the experience after that. I told Brad natural child birth was kind of like running a marathon to me. While I'd love to say that I did it, I'm not really willing to go through the pain it takes to do it. Although I then pushed for only 20 minutes, I was fully aware then of what was going on and I actually got to see my daughter being born with a sane mind.

And our sweet Camdyn (even though we didn't finalize her name until the end of the day) made her arrival at 10:11am (Grayson was born at 10:43am), exactly three hours after my water broke. And I will never forget the sound of her sweet cry and how she felt and sounded when they placed her on my chest...the sweetest feeling in the whole world and something I longer for ever since I didn't get to experience that with Grayson.

Afterwards, the OBGYN congratulated me for nearly doing it all naturally and commented that the worst thing I screamed was "shoot" which she thought was pretty funny (although it was pretty obvious to everyone that the vowel in that word was changed only at the very last possible second). Overall, it was a pretty smooth delivery minus the fact that the nurse missed my vein in both arms, so the pitocin was just going into my tissue, leaving my arms swelled up like Popeye, which later forced her to shove with all her might on my stomach to get out all the blood clots (which was about as painful as the contractions).

Grayson got to meet his little sister later that evening and was reluctant to let anyone else hold her. In fact, he kept saying, "two more minutes Grandma, and then I get her back." So far, he absolutely adores her! If anything, he is just a little too loving, and wants to hug and kiss all over her all the time. We have been thankful to have alot of help from family and friends so far. And we are loving being a family of four! We praise God for his perfect timing and for growing our family with this beautiful baby girl!