Baby Girl's Birth

It's 2:50 am. We got a call from Grandma Kiki that Kayla's water broke and they were heading to the hospital. Good thing Angee didn't turn my phone to silent. I went to bed that night knowing something would happen. Robby and Angee got up and got our bags ready and started driving. We get another call at 3:30 saying that Kayla's contractions were only 3 minutes apart. We were shocked. We started going faster. At 4 we get a call from Kelly saying that Kayla's contractions are closer together and they couldn't find the hospital! We gave them directions and they finally made it at 4:20. We showed up at 4:30 and Kayla was in a room getting checked. We waited in the waiting room until 6 when we found out her contractions were only 2 minutes apart and she was dilated to a 6. Kayla finally got the epidural and felt better. Kayla was checked again at 9 and was dilated to a 7.5 but was slowing down. So they gave Kayla some Pitocin to speed up the labor.

At 11, Kayla was dilated to a 10 and ready to push. Angee was on Kayla's right side and Kelly was on Kayla's left. Angee helped coach Kayla through her contractions. At 11:35 Kayla felt the urge to push and started doing some preliminary pushes to get Baby Girl into the birth canal. The nurse told Kayla to stop pushing because the doctor was helping with a C-section and wasn't going to be there for at least 30 minutes. Kayla couldn't stop pushing though and Baby Girl kept coming closer to being born. The doctor finally came in at 12:05. 1.5 pushes later, at 12:07, Baby Girl's head came out.

She had this magnificent full head of hair! It was DARK brown and Baby Girl's face was a little blue. She had the umbilical cord around her neck 2 times (and I was terrified, but interesting fact, Robby had his around his neck twice and Angee's was around her neck 3 times). Kayla pushed the rest of baby girl out in one push at 12:08 pm and she was beautiful. Angee cut the cord, though it took her 2 cuts. It is SLIPPERY! Lol.

They laid baby Girl on Kayla's chest and it was so amazing. We couldn't believe that this little girl was finally here. We were so grateful to Kayla and the miracle she just had. All the boys (Robby, Kayla's step dad, and Austin) were invited in and were able to see the sweet little princess. She was weighed and was 6lbs 14 oz and 20 inches long. She had the sweetest little cry. We hugged and cried. Angee was able to give her the first sponge bath (which she hated) and her first shampoo (which she LOVED!). We then bundled her up and she was passed around to Angee, then Kelly, then Austin, then Robby. It was incredible how much love there was in that room. It was so amazing.

Around 9, everyone left except for Angee and Kayla and we were in charge of taking care of this little girl. It was really important for us that Kayla feel like she had the opportunity to love and care for Baby Girl during the hospital stay. Angee would get the bottles ready and then give her to Kayla to feed her.

We had talked about SO many names but could not decide on one. On the Sunday before she was born, Kayla called Angee and asked what she thought about Grace Michelle. She loved it! She was given to us only by the Grace of God and Michelle means Gift from God (and is also Angee's middle name). Angee asked Robby and he liked Grace too (mostly because our favorite little girl that we baby sit, her name is Grace). Kelly told us she always wanted to name one of her daughter's Grace growing up but ended up naming all her kids with K names so it didn't fit. :) We finally had a name so it was OK for Grace to show up.