Chase and Cammi Bevans

This morning at 5:53am, my best friend Mandy had a baby girl. I got to be with her through all the contractions at home, one trip to the hospital to get checked, sent home, up all night with bad contractions, and then back to the hospital for the live show! This is how my last couple days has been:

Wednesday night I could not fall into a deep sleep for the life of me. Up every 2 hours, tossing an turning, it was awful. Well my alarm goes off for work at about 6:45am but I was wide awake at 6:00am! At 6:30 I received a text from Mandy telling me that she has been having contrations since 2:45am that are about 6 mins apart. Nothing major yet, so her Mom and I met up and drove the 2 hours to her house to be with her. We stayed with her when we got there, timing her contractions, how long they were and times inbetween. Then, about 11:30am Mandy, Matt (her husband) and I went to the hospital while Mandy's Mom stayed behind with Mandy's other little boy, Dominik.

At the hospital we checked in, got in a room and Mandy got checked out. She was only 50% thinned on her cervix and 2cm!!! Well they won't let us stay unless she is 3 or 4! So back home we went. The drive between her house is about 20 mins, not bad in the grand scheme of things, but news was telling us that Friday a huge snow storm warning was in effect for our area, so we wanted baby to come out!!

When we got home, Mandy felt fine. No more contractions. We walked, ate spicy food, drank castor oil, (and when I say 'we' I mean Mandy) and even told her husband to work his magic. ;)

NOTHING!!!!!!

Well about 7:00 that night Mandy's Mom decides maybe she will take Dominik home with her, then if Mandy goes into labor that night she doesn't have to worry about him and if she doesn't her Mom could go to work the next day. At this time Mandy was feeling fine so she wasn't too concerned about her having the baby too soon. I wanted to stay, Mandy had asked me to be in the room with her and Matt and I didn't want to take the risk of missing anything. Matt, Mandy and I stayed up. Matt and I watched Mandy walk around the circle of their house over and over while I timed contractions on Matts watch. The contractions started to come back around 9:30 and they were more intense but very sparatic. One time it was 2 mins, next it was 4, then 6, then 5, then 6 for a long time, then 2!! AAAAHHHHH! So I rubbed her ankles for a while and she was pooped so she went to bed.

I tried to sleep, honest I did, but I could not. I watched a movie, and when it was over I heard Mandy drawing a bath. I asked her if she needed anything, she said she was just trying to ease the pain. I started another movie at about 1:15am dozed off and was woken up by Mandy at 2:10am telling me we needed to go. They were still not very close together but they were hurting her so bad she could barely stand then anymore. So off we went, Round two!

The nurse checked her at 2:45am and she was 4 cm!! YAY we could stay!! But I was worried we had a loooooong road ahead of us. She showered to ease the pain, and sat on those exercise balls for comfort. She had an epidural early in her first pregnancy and knew she wanted one with this one, but she was only 4 cm and the nurse said the epidural could slow down progress and we did NOT want that. But, Mands desperately needed something for the pain. At this point, everytime she had a contraction, she would tear up and then of course so would I. Its awful watching someone be in that much pain. The nurse suggested Morphine for pain and maybe to help Mandy get some sleep, so Mandy agreed. She got the morphine shot at 3:50am. 20 mins later, she had the worst contraction thus far, then the next one was worse, then worse, this continued for a good 30 - 40 mins. She told the nurse she NEEDED the epidural so the nurse made some calls, got her prepped and she showered again to try to help with the pain.

Mandy was in so much pain, but was seriously doing so good! I let her squeeze my hand, reminded her to breathe, and told her how great she was doing. Hell we're basically a lesbian couple at this point!! lol JOKES!! Anyways, epidural guy shows up! WHOO HOO!! Mandy sits on the side of the bed, over the little table, holding Matts hand, and I just watch. The guy was super nice, and explained everything as he was doing it and asked her questions trying to take the focus off the contractions. The needle for epidurals is HUGE!!! and they just put it in SO far!!! I couldn't help but watch!! I felt so bad for her again of course, because having a contraction while he's trying to do this just looked so awful. And she was just trying not to cry but she was in so much pain and had NO sleep at this point. As epidural guy AKA Kevin, is doing his job the nurse tells us that they call Kevin the 'cervix whisperer' because 90% of the time he does the epidural, as soon as he's done the Mom is ready to push and baby comes fast. Well, true to form, he had JUST got done threading the tube in her and hadn't even put the medication in her yet, just cleaning her up and Mandy looked at me and said, 'I feel like I need to push!'

Nurses needed her to try and hold off, they laid her down fast and then said, if you need to now then just push. They put the medication for the epidural in but Mandy was already pushing. Matt by her head holding her hand and me holding a leg, right in there! Well I promise you it was 5 pushes and baby girl MacLellan was born!! As Mandy was pushing and her head started to come out I just kept thinking.... ' I will NEVER be able to do this!' EVER!! I am not physically able!! I swear!! Mandy was a champ!! epidural MAYBE helped her through the last push when they were pulling out baby and into her check up after, but all of the pain and pushing was pretty much just her! Babies sex was a surprise but her were hoping for a girl as she already has a boy, and Matt's Mom had just passed away last month and if it was a girl, the middle name was dedicated to her. Born at 5:53am was 8lbs 11oz Coadee Josephina Maria MacLellan, 20.5 inches long! The name Coadee spelt the way it is, is after Mandy's grandma that died of breast cancer before Mandy or any of her siblings were even born. Coad was her last name.

I have never wanted kids, and this didn't exactly help, but it was AMAZING!! She has a full head of blonde hair, Mandy's nose and mouth, and Matt's head shape. I didn't even get grossed out by watching everything, I was just focused on getting Mandy through it. I can't even describe it............ AMAZING!!!

Here she is: