I give to you again, her birthstory. :)
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For being such a short labor my story is pretty long
Evelyn Grace’s Birth Story
March 5th, 2008
Jeremy left for work at 5pm, early for a Wednesday, he was putting in as much overtime as he could in preparation for the arrival of our new baby. I managed to get Victoria and Nathan down to bed around 7:30 and popped on the internet to waste my evening until bedtime. I was 4 days late now and showing no signs of having a baby anytime soon. After being throughly bored online I decided to make a choco-banana smoothie and catch up with my DVR. Around 9:00, I started feeling sick and chalked it up to too much smoothie for one night. I spoke with a friend for a bit and she said maybe I was sick because labor was starting and I laughed at her and thought, “no way.” I headed to bed around 10:30, eager to get some sleep, yet reluctant to wake up another day pregnant.
March 6th, 2008
I got up for bathroom runs as usual, glancing at the clock each time and figuring out how many more hours until Jer would be off work and home again. Shortly after 3am I realized I was waking up to contractions but didn’t care enough to notice how often. Actually I was more annoyed than anything. At 5am I wasn’t able to sleep between them anymore. I called my mom and she said she’d come over about 7, which was fine with me. I got out of bed and decided I should try timing them. You’d think with this being my third baby I’d be a pro at timing contractions, however this is not the case. Best I could figure I had 7 contractions in an hour. I called my mom back and asked her if she could hurry over. I was getting pretty uncomfortable.
At about 6:15, I called Jer at work to tell him to finish his shift and hurry home but he didn’t answer his cell. I went to bed to try to relax and the moment my back hit the mattress I realized that was not a good position for me anymore. I propped myself up on a few pillows and just rocked on my knees and that seemed to relieve quite a bit of the pain. My mom came in and asked what was going on and after I filled her in we decided maybe someone should pack our hospital bag. I tried to get up to do it but it was pretty obvious that wasn’t gonna happen. I called Jer again, no answer.
6:45 Jeremy called to let me know he saw my calls and was on his way home. I urged him to hurry but didn’t give him an explanation to why.
7:00 Jeremy gets home and Victoria and Nathan wake up. We realize that we should probably get to the hospital pretty quickly so as fast as I can I dress myself and get on shoes. This takes a good 15-20 minutes. I eat a piece of toast and Jer and I head to the car. At this point I realize my shirt is on backwards. Jer tells me not to worry because as soon as we get to the hospital I’ll be taking it off anyway, so off we go.
7:30 we arrive at the hospital and Jer drops me at the entrance. I find a bench inside to wait for him and the attendants ask me if I want a wheelchair. I repeatedly decline. Jer comes in toting my purse and we head to the 5th floor. We stop 6 times on the way and 6 times strangers ask me various forms of “Are you in labor NOW?” I actually answered one person with, “Nope, I’m just practicing.” When we get to the triage desk I walk away from Jer as he gets my insurance card and ID out of my purse and I go to the bathroom. It feels great to sit. When I get back to him we are lead to a triage room and I change out of my backwards shirt and into a gown. I’m not really sure of the time at this point.
The nurse comes in to get me on the monitor but I refuse to lay back so she’s not able to get the baby’s heartbeat. She sends in another nurse who starts to ask me why I won’t lay back and when the last time I felt the baby move. I told her I wasn’t laying back because I was in labor and I felt the baby 4 seconds ago. We go back and forth a little bit and I end up mostly laying back in a most uncomfortable position. She checks me and I am 4-5 cm. We wait a bit and the very cute on-call OB comes in. He was very pleasant, checked me and called me 5+ cm and in labor then he helped me out of bed. I LOVED this man. We spoke for a little and he told me to be sure I told the nurses in the delivery room of ANY changes b/c it would take him at least 10 minutes to get from his office back to the hospital and he wanted to be the one to catch so I had to give him time to get back.
It was time to go to our labor suite and I declined a wheelchair again. We stopped 4 times in 100 feet. I got into the room and headed to the bathroom. The same nurse tells me I need to get into bed and lay down so she can get me on the monitor. I basically told her to get out of my room and not let the door hit her on the way out. I go to the side of the bed and set it up like I was at home, only I was standing instead of on my knees. Jer talks to the nurses as they come in and out as I labor on my own, ignoring all of them. I start to cry and Jeremy comes to help me. He was wonderful. I’m having a lot of trouble breathing so to force the air, I cry. I cry during every contraction from this point on. They get me an IV, my antibiotics and a birthing ball. I sit on the ball still propped up on the side of the bed. It helps. There was only one point when I was in actual tears, saying I didn’t want to do it anymore. I felt so bad for Jer because he just looked at me and said “sweetie you have to, you’re almost done, I promise.”
They ask me to get on the bed so they can check me and tell me after they check me they will let me back up. It’s been 90 minutes since the OB checked me so I figure I’m maybe 6 cm. I’m an 8! 8cm! So I stay in bed and Jer gets me an oxygen mask and the cool air feels great. I’m still crying and everything starts to blur together. My water is still in tact and it HURTS. Next thing I know the OB is there messing with me during contractions and whooosh he breaks my water. The relief was unimaginable. For the next 10 minutes things were very quiet and I was enjoying what seemed to be a break. Then the OB told me to push. I thought he was crazy but gave a ½ attempt at a push anyway. He told me to stop b/c he needed to get his gown on. That one push got her all the way down the birth canal. He came back and told me to push again.
I pushed once and the head was out. He started talking to us and asked us if we knew gender or not. Jeremy, who was doing his best to hold my hand and see, told him that we did not know.
I pushed again - shoulders are out.
Pushed again - It’s a Girl!
They gave her to me, cleaned her up some. I remember asking “It’s a girl? Really? Is she okay? Really, a girl?” They took her and finished cleaning her up, suctioning her out b/c she wasn’t in the birth canal long enough to squeeze anything out, weighed her and took her apgars. The nurse who weighed her said, “And she weighs..... 9 POUNDS!!! and... 7 Ounces!! Big girl!” Her apgars were 9/9. My placenta didn’t want to let go so that took some pressing and some more pain, but it finally let go and came out in good condition. We never had a chance to get our hospital bag to the room so there are no pictures until we got moved into the mother’s unit.
We had to stay in the hospital for 48 hours since I just got one round of antibiotics and it was barely 2 hours before birth but Evie passed all her testing just fine and we came home. We’ve been home a few days now and things are going pretty good. Typical newborn not sleeping is starting to take a toll but I knew that was coming so I’m trying not to complain too much. My recovery is going well. I stopped taking Tylenol 3 and Motrin 800 at 4 days PP. I had no tears so no stitches and aside from my body being in shock a little bit (from not being pregnant anymore) I’m doing great. We are working through some breastfeeding issues and I’m not sure where I stand on wanting to try anymore so when that decision is made everything will be fine.
Here are the important stats:
Evelyn Grace
Contractions became uncomfortable: 3 am
Hospital Admission: 8:30 am
Baby born: March 6th, 2008 10:43 am
Labor length: 7 hours 43 minutes
Weight: 9 lbs 7oz
Length: 21 inches
Apgars 9/9
no pain meds, no tears or other complications
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