Labor Story

This is a first for me--writing about my labor via blog-- which is crazy because I do have 2 other children. I did write about Bentley's birth in his baby book but because I was induced, there wasn't anything all that exciting about it (which was fine by me--made things easy and stress free. Oh, except for the fact that he was my first child and I was scared to death about breastfeeding, how he'd sleep, how I'd know what he needed, how to bathe him when he was so tiny, how my body and stitches in the you know what would ever heal...but I digress...) Here is the way things went on the fateful days of February 17th and 18th, 2009:

4:48
5:08
5:24
5:34
5:44
5:50
6:06
6:09
6:12
6:16
6:20

That was me timing my contractions on Tuesday evening. I had seen Dr. Watts at 1:00 pm, earlier that day, and was dilated to a 4 and still 70% effaced. He asked me when I felt like my baby was coming and I said "my other babies have come in the 20s so hopefully soon." He then asked me if I knew what signs to look for and what I should do if I went into labor. I laughed and said "tell me again because that hasn't ever happened to me before." He told me that if my contractions came 5 mins or closer for at least half an hour to get right to the hospital, especially since I was already dilating.

I left the appt, picked the kids up from my mom's house and felt a few contractions as we drove home. Once we got settled, I suddenly felt really tired and grabbed a 40 min nap on the couch while the kids watched a movie. I woke up feeling great and started picking up around the house and finishing up some laundry. After a while I started noticing that my contractions kept coming and coming. I am used to having 2 in an hour but I was feeling 2 or 3 pretty close together. So I sat down and decided to relax and focus on timing them for a bit (hence the list above). By the time Joseph got home from work, around 6:30, I was pretty sure I was in labor but at the same time, I didn't want to drive all the way to the hospital just to have them tell me it was false labor and turn me away.

While eating dinner, I was feeling contractions really regularly and my hubby was getting more and more excited about heading to the hospital. I told him I wanted to bathe the kids first and then we could leave. He just smiled at me and said "I don't think we should wait that long." So, we hastily dressed the kids in PJs, packed them a quick overnight bag for sleeping at Nanny's, I threw things into a hospital bag and we were off. And I just sat in the car laughing (a little nervously to be honest) because I could not believe we were really heading out to potentially have a baby--I was still 3 weeks from my due date for crying out loud!

We arrived around 8:00 pm and as soon as I was hooked up to the monitors we saw that the contractions were indeed coming every 3 minutes and that they were nice and strong too. I had progressed to a 5 and plain and simply--I was in labor. At around 10:00 the doc came in and broke my water. I expected it to really hurt since I didn't have any drugs in me yet but it was surprisingly bearable. Soon after I started feeling a lot of pressure "down there" and it kept getting more and more painful. I thought I must be dilating like crazy but when the nurse checked me I was still at a 5. That's when I called in the epidural...ahhhh, I do love modern medicine:)

The epidural worked like a charm but it also slowed down my contractions quite a bit. So, they stared up the Petocin and things got right back on track. At 2:30 am I was at 8 cm and 80% effaced. Soon after I felt the baby move from my left side right down into position and that made all the difference--20 mins later I was complete and ready to deliver. I pushed with one contraction and that was it. The nurses held the baby up for me to see and announced "it's a girl!" It was such a great moment--I really was so excited to finally find out what "flavor" my tiny one would end up being.

And now it has been over a week since miss Olivia joined our family. And she has been really easy for us thus far, eating, sleeping, looking around in curiosity, sleeping some more, grunting and snorting and rooting when she's hungry, and then eating and sleeping--typical newborn lifestyle :)

I am so grateful for my new daughter. She is healthy and beautiful and such an amazing gift from God. I look at her and still can't believe that my body created her and turned her into a little human miracle. I love her.