Even though this entry starts on Wednesday, October 13th, we must first describe and talk about what October 12th looked like and full detail.
I went to work on Tuesday, October 12th, just like every other day. We had a blitz scheduled at All Children's Hospital. The two managers and I walked all around 9 floors of the hospital for about an hour and half checking out the new building. This was scheduled weeks ago and I felt fine the entire time.
3:30 pm Tuesday, October 12th
After the lunch blitz I went home and said bye to Mike who was going to Austin for a meeting. A little concerned and teary eyed that he was flying two weeks before her due date, but I still felt completely normal.
6:00 pm Tuesday, October 12th
Before Mike left for Austin, he insisted that I try to get a hospital bag ready. Something that I have been putting off for two weeks, because I felt fine. I thought I should go to Marshall's and buy a new robe and pajamas for the hospital. Again, feeling fine and just like any other trip to Marshall's. While at Marshall's I called Skyra and we planned to do a late dinner at Olive Garden... mmm salad was on my mind.
8:00 pm Tuesday, October 12th
Skyra and I had a long fun dinner, chatting away like normal. No baby pains, no discomfort, just like the 100 other dinners Skyra and I had years before.
11:30 pm- Tuesday, October 12th
Watched the Rays lose another playoff game which kicked them out of the chance of going to the World Series. I went to the bathroom and had diarrhea.. too much damn salad, I thought. I mean 4 plates, who is counting?
2:30 am- Wednesday, October 13th
Woke up out of a dead sleep and had to go to the bathroom again-- more diarrhea. But when I wiped their was some blood. I never had blood anywhere before. I put a light one on and started to stir around the house. Called Mike who was just settled in to his Austin hotel room an hour before (remember the time change). I informed him that I had blood and he said to call the doctor. I started to feel cramps every ten minutes as if my period was going to start any minute. Again, very out of the ordinary for this pregnancy. Called the doctor and got the on call service. She informed me that, it is probably "just the beginning of stages of my dilating." I thought she was right, because prior to this day, (5 days earlier) at my doctor's visit I was 50 percent effaced and ZERO dilation.
Called my parents and they insisted that Dad should come down and spend the rest of the night with me just in case anything should happen. 30 minutes later, Mom calls and says she is driving separate, bringing her work clothes and wants to be there too.
Meanwhile, Mike goes back to sleep in Austin (or tries too). I am scurrying at the house trying to pack a bag that is filled with clothes, robes, pajamas ALL with the tags still on them from the store. Thinking that this is all a drill and we are over reacting.
While Dad is there we take a minute and begin to count these "cramps" I had been having. Every 10 minutes. Mom arrives and thinks that these could be contractions. Around 4:30, I call the doctor on call line again and say, "I have been having cramps every 10 minutes and would feel better if I got them checked out. Normally, I would have probably waited till 8:30 when the OBGYN office opened. But they were all in a meeting till 1:30 on this day and opening late. The on call nurse said go on to the hospital to get checked out.
Still thinking this is all a drill we pack everything as if this was the real thing. Dad and I are in his truck. Mom following on the crosstown we went. Still having these cramps every 10 minutes.
6:00 am- Wednesday, October 13th
Check in at St. Joe's triage and nurse is says, "you don't look like you are in labor" and proceeds to ask 100 questions and hook me up to monitors. Blood pressure is 150/90 and they ask if I had blood pressure issues during pregnancy I said never. My husband is in Austin and I am at the hospital, surely this is why my bp is so high. Right before she checks me she insists again that I am probably going home. In my mind, I am like "Great I need to be in Lakeland at 11 am." Mike is still standing by to book the next flight home. She proceeds to check me and says, "You are going to make a liar out of me after all, you are 3 cm dilated, 60 percent effaced."
This is when all HELL broke lose. I told my Dad to call Mike and get him on the next flight home. We then try to call Judy and John my in laws but could not reach them at first. Blood pressure is still very high. At this point the nurses want to monitor me for the next 1.5 hours and see if I continue to increase dilation.
8:30 am- Nurse Amanda comes in and checks me. She doesn't get the exact same reading as our earlier nurse and says I am now 2-3 cm and 60 effaced. Not progressing in dilation even though I am still having cramps which are now confirmed contractions every 10 minutes. We are going home.
My mom expresses her displeasure and asks for a second opinion. I am thinking,"This is great, we will have her this weekend or next week. Mike will be home."
The second nurse comes in and checks me. Agrees with Amanda and I will be going home.
9:00 am
Mom and I make our way back home to Brandon. Mike has already booked a flight home which makes a stop in Ft. Lauderdale before arriving in Tampa at 4:05pm.
We go home to rest.
10:30 am
We rest on the couch for about 45 minutes. I am still having contractions every 10 minutes. Mom plans to hang out with me till Mike gets home.
11:30 am
We both haven't ate anything all morning so Mom and I decide to run to Subway. I get a veggie sub and we return home to eat it.
Noon-
I call Mike to give him an update. He is boarded and on his way home. I am so thankful because he is in route. I am still having contractions, but feel better that he is on way home. I hang up the phone, he turns his phone off for take off. I take a few bites, some chips and get up to go pee. I stand and water starts to gush out! It is not pee. I run to the bathroom screaming and mom following behind me. Still not 100 percent it was my water breaking, I stand up to look in the toilet and more gushes out of me. I call the doctor's office, still not open and the on call lady says go to back to hospital.
I then run upstairs to change clothes. I realize now that this baby will be coming in less than 24 hours. That is the time limit the give you once your water breaks. I start to panic, because Mike is flying over the Gulf of Mexico and has no idea about the water breaking.
Mom then loads me back in the car, only before I grab a green towel and change in to my maternity jeans. I also brush my teeth. I brush because I didn't want to have onion breath when I went back to the hospital from my veggie sub.
We get back to the hospital with pains about every 5 minutes. At the valet entrance there were eight cars in front of us, so what does mom do? Honk of course! So I then say, stop the car, I will walk from here, about 30 feet. Of course as I walk, water continues to gush down my jeans and legs! I go to the security desk with the towel wrapped around me and they get a wheelchair to wheel me back. The same ladies that checked me out two hours earlier, check me back in.
I am now 4 cm and they admit me to Labor and Delivery. We meet nurse Jeanette and she rocked! They wanted to then give me Pitocin to help me bring my cervix forward, but I refused it until Mike is in the building. I just didn't want anything to speed up her arrival. They get me hooked up to an IV and all the bells and whistles. They are monitoring her heart, my heart, my blood pressure and much much more! Mom is with me the entire time, thank goodness. Dad arrives too from Dade City. He had left early to go back to Dade City to get a crown put on his tooth. Judy arrives too at the hospital. John just dropped her off, because he was on his way to the airport to pick Mike up at the gate. Mandi and Shannon are there too! Everyone takes turns to come in to see me. I can chat like normal in between contractions. But once a contraction hit, I had to do my breathing that they taught me in class. Each contraction would last about a minute. A
3:30
I had to go pee. We paged the nurse to help escort me to the bathroom, but the contractions kept getting closer and closer. I had a hard time recovering from them because they were back to back and pain was increasing. Around 4:10, after I went pee, I couldn't take it any more. I was about 5 cm and asked for the epidural now that Mike has landed in Tampa.
Mike arrives right in the middle of me having to be still for the epidural fighting a contractions. I cry tears of joy and relief knowing he is here and will be there when our daughter will be born later that day. I was so happy to see him.
6:45
6 cm dilated and progressing nicely with epidural. Shannon, Mandi, Mom, Dad, Judy and John all take turns coming and going from the room. What an amazing support team we had.
7:45
Doctors were amid their shift change and my practice had three other women in labor. So they were very busy indeed. Dr. Johnson had been checking me, but then passed me off to Dr. Borrero. She was great too. At 8 pm, they checked me and I was "PUSHABLE". As nurse Jeannette said if I didn't have a perineum them she would have shot out of me. They get the room ready and everyone comes in for one last hug. I start pushing at 8 pm.
8:38
Maggie Hope Higgins comes in to our lives. We were thrilled beyond words. 6 lbs, 14 ounces, and 20 inches long. Beautiful and healthy! I was screaming with joy! Nurse Jeannette said she could barely hear the baby because I was so loud! Baby Maggie was cleaned up and ready to meet everyone.
We had the entire Kutsch family the afternoon of Halloween. Grandma and PapPap Kutsch came down, Uncle Johnny and Aunt Laurel joined us for the Buc's game and dinner. We waited for trick or treaters, which we had several come by. Uncle Johnny helped us carve a pumpkin a few days earlier which we put out front of the house.
Maggie meet Kevin and Sam. They are wonderful folks and will be in your life often. We hope that their story of love will inspire you. We also hope that you have the drive and fight like Kevin had battling cancer. We hope that you won't have to live with cancers when you get older and that we find a cure for all of them. Mike and Kevin have been friends for many years and we are so blessed to have their wonderful spirit in our lives.
Jenn Wagner is a great friend of ours and came to visit Maggie! She was there on one of our first trip's to Tallahassee when we began to date and has been a great friend for many years.
My brother came down from St. Augustine and used several vacation days and spent several days with us. He would come down for several hours in the afternoon and hang out with Maggie. It was the most time he has ever spent in Brandon with us and we really enjoyed having him at the house. He provided much comic relief and some very touching moments when he sang songs to Maggie. Aunt Laurel also brought yummy food and a beautiful FSU blanket with her name embroidered on it. 
I have had some wonderful birthday parties in the past. Party buses, float in Guavaween Parade, Boat ride into the Gulf, NYC skating on Rockefeller ice, were all so wonderful. But holding my daughter and having a cookout was one I will never ever forget. It started with one of my dearest friends Keely calling me from Germany to wish me a Happy Birthday! The day was filled with greetings and calls from friends. We celebrated at home and my parents and Mike's parents were so incredibly helpful in making it extra special. Mike's parents bought stuff for the cookout and my mom brought down ABC Greek salad- one of my favorites. Dad even drove his bike down to wish me a Happy Birthday.
Ann and James met Maggie. Ann is one my best friends and we love James too! Baby "C" as in Cosentino will be here in four short months and Maggie and him will be best friends too. We were excited to both be pregnant together and share this exciting time. Ann also came to the hospital to meet Maggie and spent a whole morning with us. We love them dearly and think of them like family.
After our first visit to the pediatrician, we found out Maggie was jaundice. She ordered us to have photo therapy where they brought special lights to the house. We had to monitor Maggie for about 16 hours straight and keep vigil to make sure her special sunglasses stayed on her head. The levels returned to normal the next day and we were cleared of the light therapy. More than half of all babies are jaundice when they are born. It usually clears up, but in some cases special lights are brought in to assist it and clear it up.
Lisa and Chris drove all the way from Vero and back in the same day just to meet Miss Maggie. We were so excited to see them. We just saw them the week before when they came for the Syracuse game and to hang out in Tampa. Two weekends in a row! We were so excited to see them and so was Maggie! On her fourth day, she got to meet them and that was so special. They brought us lunch and flowers and we just loved sharing in the joy of Maggie's arrival. Anytime we get to spend with them is always a great time. We will have to wait a bit longer for Maggie to meet her cousins Brady and Belle. What a day that will be!
Even though this entry starts on Wednesday, October 13th, we must first describe and talk about what October 12th looked like and full detail.
WOW! Today we got a package of love from Pittsburgh, PA! My cousin Debbie, Chuck, Carly and Vinny sent handmade blanket, pillow, books, outfits and shoes for BGH. Talk about box full of love. The blanket is so soft and is pink and green! Perfect for her to play on or put over her swing or bounce seat for her to sit on. Debbie is a teacher and knows the importance of reading to children at a young age and she sent quite the collection. Everything from books about puppies, butterflies, father/child book, to one about the Star Spangled Banner that even has a cd.
Tonight we put together the bouncer seat for BGH. We have it in the office for now upstairs. We plan for her to hang out in it and have her watch Mike when he is on call. It is mobile, so we can also move it from room to room. My mom's friend Mima gave it to us. It's pink and brown and just too cute. We love it.
Brady and Belle came to visit us! This was such great timing. It was so great to see them and we had a wonderful time. We went to the park, had lunch at Chipotle and went to the Children's Museum in downtown. The grand finale was a ice cream cone and coloring before they headed back to Vero. Chris went to the USF game with Mike, so Lisa and the kids and I hung out all day! It was fabulous.
Baby's now the size of a watermelon!
We have decided to go with Health Point Medical Group in Brandon. Our Doctor will be Dr. Julie Deckle. However,since we are delivering at St. Joe's we'll be seen by the South Tampa Doctor, Dr. Robert Pesce. He will check BGH out after I deliver and then tell us the date we need to go to our Brandon office, usually a few days later. But once in Brandon, we will see Dr. Julie Dekle. 
Here's a sideview of the belly and me doing a cooking demo. It really needs to look into getting its own zip code and are code. Seriously, we are getting bigger by the day.
