Birth Story

Evie Gray Kratzberg
9lbs / 2 oz
Born at 12:21 am August 10th, 2016


Little miss was a week overdue and in the wrong spot, I had been having strong contractions since my kidney surgery in June. However nothing was progressing due to her positioning and not wanting to come down. There were no signs of me ever going into labor so we scheduled an induction. I was so nervous about this because Ryder's birth was so horribly painful and so very long, my OB already warned me that this one would definitely have the potential to be worse. To say I was terrified or thought I was not strong enough would be an understatement. The induction process started at 7:30 on Tuesday, August 9th. I was nowhere near thinned out, so we had to start at the beginning. It didn't take long for the contractions to jump up a step. Four hours later they checked me and I was still a 1. I felt defeated, why was this not moving along? They started a heavy pitocin drip then and turned it up about every 15-20 minutes. I do have to say you are in a better place with a second child and knowing how to focus and get through each one. Checked me about 3 hours later and I was a 3.5!!! It was music to my ears, I was progressing maybe just maybe this wouldn't end in a section. For the record I am not opposed to drugs. My husband works in the medical medicine field and there are many amazing things out there. More power to mamas who do it on their own (you are literally superwoman) but I am ok with taking the less than warrior route. I say bring on anything that can add some comfort to this process. {insert wide eyes and no freaking way expression to natural childbirth}. About an hour later my wonderful nurse came in and said we have a situation with our anesthesiologist. We have two sets of twins getting ready to go into surgery and if you are getting an epidural you should probably do it now because it could be hours. Well okay then {insert me thinking yessssss on the fact that it wasn't me having twins and I get an early epidural this time} I will start it now. So after the epidural which was amazing this time, never lost feeling anywhere other than the lessoning of the contractions, my legs were fully functional the whole time. After the epidural they broke my water and before I knew it I was at a 6. I knew I should be sleeping -- but between the nausea and the body shakes I couldn't. As I kept moving up in numbers I was getting worried for the pushing. Ryder took 4 hours of hard pushing and got stuck in my pelvic bone. It continued to hang over my head. At about 11 o'clock that night I started getting the intense pressure and called for the nurse. She came and checked me and I was a 8.5. This was real. It was going to happen whether I liked it or not. My awesome nurse assured me we were going to do this the right way and continue to breathe as I "labored down". I could feel her sliding down with each contraction. The nurse went to feel her and and felt her eyes towards the back which also meant my sunny side up little girl turned around on her way down. :) 21 minutes later and about 10 pushes later my little girl was out and on my chest. She took a minute to cry but when she did she was loud and proud. I calmed her with my voice while she was on my chest. She was perfect --- she was Ryder. Her lips, her mouth, her cheeks were all Ryder. Jarin actually yelled, "oh my gosh it's Ryder when she was coming out". So thankful for this birth, it was simple, quiet, and perfect. It was an experience unlike last time, there was nothing traumatic about it.