Megan Grace Pellegrino

40 weeks on May 11th

To This On May 12th

She's Here! God timed it just right!

My due date was May 11th, 2012. I had a doctor's appointment on the 9th and the doctor and I had discussed what would happen if I went over my due date. I was alright with waiting another week and see where we would go from there, if not we could induce the following Thursday night. Thursday night was chosen because Dr. Spomer would be gone to a family graduation that weekend and we would do it before she had to leave, if the need arose.

Friday, the 11th came and went with not much action until sometime in the night. Thankfully, Jason made it home that night. I thought I started to feel some slight contractions, but nothing really major and they were spread out quite far. Saturday, the 12th, I was definitely feeling some cramping pains but again nothing close together but was having them during the morning. We did a bunch of yard work during the day, in hopes it might help and things just needed to get done too. Around 5pm, they started to get closer together. 5:30pm they were closer together and growing in strength. I didn't know what to make for supper, so McDonald's was suggested by me and we ate in the car while Jason was at the station getting a few things to go out to the shooting range. I started timing the contractions and they were 3 mins apart consistantly. Jason was caught talking to some co-workers inside and finally came out after 7. We were debating if we should go out to the shooting range with him or go home and see where these contractions would take us. We ended up going home, thankfully.

I had packed my hospital bag that afternoon, since I had left it to the last minute. So we were ready to go. I didn't want to get checked into the hospital too early and get charged for an extra day, so we wanted to stay home as long as we could. We got home and Jason called our friend Theresa, who was willing to stay with Katelyn at home. Surprisingly, she was in Cody at a wedding instead of her home which is an hour away. So she came over in a shorter amount of time than we expected, and was here about 8-8:30pm. The pains were definitely getting harder to bear but I hung in there. At 9:30pm I thought we should go. We knew of another couple who just had a baby in February, who went in to the hospital and she was already at a 10cm. I didn't want to wait too long and be in that position.

I got checked in at 9:30pm and was in a gown and in the big "party" room by 9:45pm. The room had a couch and lots of space to move around. It was nice! By 9:50 I had had 4 contractions in 5 mins and they didn't feel pleasant. The nurse checked me and said, your about a 2-3, so we'll have you walk for an hour and see what happens. Within the next couple of minutes, she checked again and I was at a 4 and progressing very quickly. They really hurt now. The nurse told me the anesthesiologist would take 45 mins to get here if we needed him. I told her to call him NOW!

The next hour was almost chaotic. The on call doctor, who thankfully was another woman, (I prefer women over male doctors especially for having babies) came in and kept checking me and the baby. The baby's heart rate would drop with every contraction because I was "freaking out" basically. I would kind of stop breathing normally and be so focused on the pain and not take in enough oxygen. So I was put on oxygen and had my head tipped down on the bed to bring more oxygen to the baby. So I really couldn't see much of what was going on in the room. Dr. Durney, the on call dr. said to alert the OR just in case we needed to c-section. That wasn't something I wanted to hear. Thankfully, Jason was right next to me, helping me to "combat breathe". It's basically breathing really slow in and out to slow down your heart rate. Something he learned at the police academy. It wasn't really helping. Everytime I breathed in, my body wanted to push.

In the flurry of action, I had those nurses and dr. hopping, Dr. Spomer came in around 10:30ish. She came over my face and checked on me, told me I was doing a good job. She had just enough time to put on her scrubs, get up dated and tell me to push. Not long before, Dr. Durney said that I was at about a 9 and I shouldn't push, but my body was not listening and I had short spurts of wanting to push. Finally, I felt her moving down and yelled that she was coming. The action increased and Spomer got into position. I know I didn't push that long, at least it didn't feel like it since I couldn't see the clock. Spomer threatened to use the vacuum to get her out and I yelled, "just use the vacuum". I do have to say I was very vocal at this birth. :)

Within a couple of minutes and pushes, out she came at 10:45pm. I am proud to say that I did it drug free, but really, I didn't have a choice because the dr. didn't even get there. So, as I told Jason, I am a real woman now because I gave birth without drugs. This time, they were able to put her on my stomach and Jason did cut the cord. With Katelyn, we weren't able to because they wisked her away because of meconium. Megan also had meconium, but they didn't seem too worried about it. She was pretty blue when she came out and she gave us a faint cry. All I could say was, "oh God, Oh God, I can't believe I did it!" It happened all so quickly and thankfully, it happened when it did, because Jason could have missed the whole thing had he been down at the academy. We did have him set up with a ministry called Pilots for Christ, who were willing to fly to Douglas, WY to pick him up and deliver him home. It would have taken about 2 hrs to call them and have him home, but this was so much better. God was good to me, because he knew I needed him there.

So she was born Saturday and to try and save some money on the final bill, insisted to leave Sunday night. They like us to be there for 24 hrs, so that night at 10:30pm I got wheeled out to my car and drove 4 houses down from the hospital, to bring the newest addition home. Jason had to leave Sunday afternoon to go back to Douglas, so I soloed it going home, but had a friend stay over who stayed with Katelyn over the weekend. She left shortly before my parents pulled up on Monday.

Family of 4

One very excited big Sister! She smothers her sister in kisses.