Ainsley

Ainsley Lynn Beckert

Born February 5, 2013 @ 7:18 AM 

6 pounds 10 ounces 20 inches long

It's taken me awhile to finally write down Ainsley's entrance into the world, but I'm afraid of forgetting some of the details that I want to remember so I'm writing it here while I have a lot of time to fill sitting at this computer. 
Monday afternoon was our weekly doctor’s appointment. My doctor said I had progressed to about a 2. Things were moving along. I would probably not go late, but he didn’t think I would be early either. My due date was a good guess for when she would come. He also said at 37 weeks I was full term, which basically meant that if I went into labor that night they wouldn’t try to stop it. 

Monday night, Karl and I were going through our regular routine of making dinner, watching Conan, then watching the office before we go to bed. We made really yummy waffles :) I remember feeling so antsy that day. I started joking with Karl that I wanted this baby to come today. I was ready; I didn't want to wait another three weeks! I felt huge and awkward, I had a huge workload for school at the time that I was dreading having to do, and mostly I just wanted to finally have her here so I could see her and know she was ok (I was always worried that something would be wrong. She wasn't much of a mover so I freaked myself out a lot). 

Karl started to get nervous at this point. We have a saying we use a lot "Many truths are told in jest". Karl told that to me on our second date. Anyways, he could tell that my teasing about having this baby early was not teasing at all. According to him, I sounded pretty sure that this baby should come now. He also had a heavy workload that week with school, including an hour and half presentation for a class that Wednesday night that was worth 60% of his grade. Basically Karl really wanted a few more weeks. 

I finally calmed myself down by saying that this baby would come when she wanted to come and a few more weeks was no big deal. We sat down with our dinner and started watching Conan. There was a really funny comedian on Conan that night and we were laughing a lot. While I was laughing my water broke. I remember telling Karl that I thought my water had broken and he just kept asking me “are you sure?”.  I told him that I know what it feels like to pee my pants and I was definitely not peeing my pants. 

We went to the hospital and got checked in. They did a test to see if my water really had broken because I was having irregular contractions, but I had been having Braxton Hicks for a while and that's all they felt like to me. They confirmed that my water definitely broke and started me on Pitocin to help the contractions pick up. 

Bless any woman who could give birth naturally because I lasted for about 5 hours before I was in some serious pain! Most of my contractions were pretty mild and felt like period cramps. I slept through a lot of them. Things started picking up after a while. Only about an hour or two of really intense pain and I was ready for some drugs. Luckily I had progressed enough that they could give me an epidural!!! I honestly think that my body needed the pain to ease up a bit before I could progress to where I needed to be because as soon as I got that epidural things picked up fast. 

Every time the nurses came to check on me I had progressed at least another centimeter. We had a nurse shift change around 5 or 6 that morning and our new nurse decided we had better call my doctor quick because this baby was coming fast. Ainsley was sitting sideways inside my stomach. She had been in that position during my whole pregnancy pretty much. Our awesome new nurse had me lay in a few different positions to try and get her facing the right way. Five minutes of that and Ainsley got herself into the right position. (I loved all my nurses, but the last nurse was especially awesome with helping me know exactly what to do. She was wonderful!) The nurse then decided to have me do a few practice pushes to help move things along while we waited for the doctor. 

(I wanted to remember this part to: Karl’s mom was awesome and brought him a Carl’s Jr. breakfast sandwich right before I started pushing. He told me later that he really wishes he would have waited to eat it. Poor guyJ I thought that was pretty funny. He was an awesome support the whole time!)

I pushed three times and then the nurse told me to STOP. She could see Ainsley’s little head. At that point she decided she had better go call my doctor quick! Luckily my doctor had just barely walked into the hospital. He didn’t believe that I was that far a long yet because they had only called him about an hour or two ago to come to the hospital. As soon as he walked into my room he sped up quickly to get ready for this baby to get here. 

After my doctor was ready, I pushed 3 times and my beautiful baby girl was here. Karl said my doctor had to hurry and catch her. 

They put her on my chest and let me hold her while the cleaned her up. Karl was able to cut the cord and after the nurses got her stats, he got to hold his baby girl while the stitched me up ( I tore). I remember seeing the look on his face. It was a mix of shock and awe. I don’t think he fully registered yet that this was his little girl.  The whole experience was so surreal to me that I don’t think I registered right away that this baby girl was mine either. The more time I get to spend with her and serve her, the more I grow to love her every day. 

Every glimpse into Ainsley’s personality I see makes me believe she is going to move through life fast paced. She came to this world as soon as she could and has been learning and growing at a fast paced rate. I joke that as soon as she heard the doctor give her the go ahead to come whenever, she was coming! 

She is constant motion, starting to smile and coo, a total daddy's girl, and my new little buddy:)