Finally, I am getting around to writing Kit’s birth story! It’s just crazy to me that she’s already been with us for 8 weeks…today! And y’all, I just love her to pieces and am beyond grateful for this healthy, adorable and precious baby girl. Before I get started, if you are like me and are a birth story junkie and want to ready any of my other kid’s entrances into this world, you can do that here:

Boone – 2010 (the emergency c-section)

Crew – 2013 (the medication free vbac)

Grey – 2016(the epidural vbac)

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Pregnancy

I guess I have to start with my pregnancy. First, let me say that despite the aches, pains, anxiety and issues, I really love being pregnant and am so grateful that I got to experience it one last time and that everything ended with both me and baby being healthy through it all. With that said, for me, pregnancy is complicated. Among my laundry list of issues this time around was a history of HELLP Syndrome and pre-eclampsia, Thrombocytopenia (low platelet count), gestational diabetes (my 2nd time with it), a 3rd time v-bac and a baby that flip-flopped from breech to head down week after week after week after week. With all of this, I really wasn’t sure how everything was going to pan out from a labor and delivery standpoint and was on edge about it throughout pregnancy. In the end, will she be breech and I will have to have a c-section? Will she get too big from the GD and I’ll have to be induced a week before my due date? Will my platelet count be high enough for me to be able to get an epidural if I want one? Will I get HELLP and pre-eclampsia again?

Because of the GD, I knew my midwives weren’t going to let me go past my due date, but I thought I had a pretty good chance of going into labor on my own, seeing as Crew was just one day late and Grey was a few days early. Despite having tried “all the things” to induce labor naturally, it just didn’t happen. I’d never been induced before, so I was definitely kind of bummed that I couldn’t labor at home and was nervous that I would ultimately end up in a c-section because of it. Even so, I tried my best to trust that God already knew how everything was going to play out and to believe that He would keep us both safe.

Birth Day

On Monday – March 4th, my due date, we woke up bright and early to head to the hospital to begin the induction process. I cried when I was getting ready, as I realized this was it….pregnancy was over forever. Carrying my four babies has been one of the greatest joys of my life. And as excited as I was to meet our newest girl, I was also sad to be done for good.

We arrived to the hospital around 8am and got settled into our labor room (which we found smelling of lavender oils thanks to my amazing nurse, Kristin). I was 4cm dilated upon arrival and it was confirmed via ultrasound that she was head down. Praises! I also had my blood work taken and it showed that my platelets were at 110. More praises! This was an answered prayer, as they needed to be above 100 if I decided I wanted to get an epidural later. Each final week of pregnancy, they had been dropping lower and lower and got quite close to the marker, so I wasn’t sure where they would land when it was delivery day.

Before I knew it, I was hooked up to the monitor and the pitocin. I was contracting regularly, but it wasn’t at all painful. To try to get things to pick up, Geoff and I walked the hall outside of my room for 30 minutes or so before the pitocin was turned up….back and forth, back and forth. Since this was a vbac, the pitocin apparently had to be administered slowly and there was a cap to how high they could set it. Around 2pm, I was at 4 1/2 cm dilated. My contractions still weren’t really hurting and the pitocin cap had been reached, so I agreed to my water being broken. That was the game changer. Within an hour, I was in pretty intense pain and by 3:30pm, I was getting an epidural. Come to find out, the anesthesiologist administering the epidural was in training, so it took some extra effort that was pretty painful…lucky me. Geoff doesn’t do needles, so he heard me shouting from the hallway while I hung onto Kristin for dear life as he worked to get it right. And man…weathering contractions while sitting up and hunched over like that is the worst.

At 5:15pm I was 9 1/2 cm dilated and began pushing at 6:30pm. Crew and Grey both came out fairly quickly…within 30 minutes…but this girl took some extra work. At one point, my midwife said that she would be surprised if her position wasn’t face up. Sure enough, after 50ish minutes of pushing, she came out face up at 7:22pm. There had been some meconium in the water been it had broken, so we weren’t sure if I would be able to hold her right away. Thankfully, she was breathing fine and screaming when she came out, so they were able to give her right to me. Having your baby handed to you and put on your chest is one of THE best moments in life! She weighed 8 lbs. 15 ounces…coming in 2nd for the honor of the biggest Schultz baby. Crew was happy to hear that she still holds the title at 9 lbs. 14 ounces. 🙂

THIS. The best. 🙂

Thank you to my friend, Lauren Jackson, for these pictures of her delivery! They are a treasure to me.

One of the issues with gestational diabetes is that sometimes, babies can experience low blood sugars after birth. On her first check, she was low, but thankfully recovered quickly and didn’t have to have any interventions or be taken to the NICU. Everything else after that checked out perfectly.

How we chose her name

Geoff had been working a ton of really late nights leading up to her birth, so he was exhausted. After we got settled in for the night to our postpartum room, he passed out on the awful chair/bed and didn’t fully wake up “for the day” until 12 noon the next day. Of course, there were many people in and out of the room that first night and morning…all of them asking what her name was, which we hadn’t yet decided.

For most of the pregnancy, we had liked the name “Penny” and were pretty sure we were going with that, but had kind of been wanting a one syllable name like the other kids. A few weeks before she was born, I asked for ideas on Instagram and someone suggested the name, “Kit”. I mentioned it to Geoff and unlike any other time that I would name an option, he actually said that he liked it. As did I. Shortly thereafter, it hit me that “Kit” is also the name of the son of a dear friend of mine. Megan’s boy’s name is “Kittredge”, but they call him “Kitt” for short. So that put us in another lull in decision and decided we would just wait until she was here to move forward with her name.

After Geoff had awoken, I told him that we really needed to make a decision. I remember him saying, “I think I know what I want to name her”. At that point, I did too and was hoping that we would be on the same page. Sure enough, we were.

He told me he was thinking “Kit” and it just felt right. I texted my friend, Megan, to let her know we were thinking of naming her the same name as her son and she graciously responded to tell me that she would be happy for her to share a name with him. And after we looked up the meaning of both names and found that “Kit” meant “carrier of Christ”, we locked it in.

Kit Penny Schultz. We love you, sweet girl.