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I had been having contractions on and off since late Sunday night/early Monday morning, but they weren’t getting any worse and they kept stopping and starting. I woke up at 2am Wednesday morning having what I thought were pretty bad contractions. They seemed to be coming every 3 minutes, so we called my parents to come stay with Josh thinking this was it. We arrived at the hospital around 3 or 3:30. At this point I was having contractions every 4 minutes. Our nurse Jessie checked me and said I was 4cm dilated and 60% effaced. She said baby's head was RIGHT THERE ready to go. I got monitored for a few more minutes and then she said I should get up and get things going. I spent a little over a half hour in the shower and didn't feel like the contractions were getting any stronger; if anything they seemed weaker than the few I had at 2am. I got out of the shower and she put the wireless monitors on me and Mike and I made two laps around the 4th floor. I was monitored again and everything was fine so we started walking again. While making another lap around the floor, we ran into Dr. Russell. She said to head back to our room and she'd check me. Three hours after arriving I had made zero progress. Dr. Russell said I might as well just head home because it didn't appear I was in active labor yet.

Wednesday went by without many contractions. I even let Mike go to work because I didn’t want him wasting more vacation days if nothing was happening.

Thursday morning I noticed a few contractions on and off all day. They didn’t seem regular or anything, so I figured it was more early labor. I had decided Mike should just go to work again. He was about to leave for work around 3:15pm when I kinda started to freak out. The contractions weren’t really bothering me, but the more I thought about it the more scared I got that he’d be over and hour away at work and things would progress quickly. I really didn’t want to be alone, so we decided he should just stay home. It was about this same time I noticed contractions coming every 4-5 minutes. They were a little worse than the ones I had been having. I did some relaxing, and ended up in the bath for a while. They seemed to be getting worse, but were staying around 5 minutes apart. I let my Mom and Dad know I was having regular contractions (they were on Josh duty), but not to get too excited because they could stop like the other ones did. They had some errands to run and were going to come over afterward and see how I was doing. The contractions started getting stronger and a little closer together. I ended up calling them and telling them I was pretty sure this was the real thing. They arrived and my contractions were getting worse. I had to breathe pretty heavily through most of them, and I had to stop what I was doing when they hit. My mom kept telling me we should get going, but I kept telling her I wasn’t leaving until I thought I was going to die because I did not want to get sent back home again! I went in the house to use the bathroom and had two pretty close together. I told Mike it was time to go. We finished loading up the car and headed to the hospital around 6:00pm.

We arrived at the hospital and on the way in, I had to stop walking when each contraction hit. They seemed to be 2-3 minutes apart at this point. We checked into our room at around 6:30pm. The nurse hooked me up to the contraction and baby heartrate monitors. They wanted to get 15 or so minutes of monitoring done so they could make sure the baby was handling the contractions well. I hated this part because I had to sit in the bed. When every contraction hit, I kept saying, “I hate the bed, I hate the bed, I hate the bed.” Finally the nurse came back in, said everything looked great. It was now 7pm and she checked me and I was 5cm, 90% effaced. I was a bit disappointed because I had only gained 1cm since Wednesday morning. I was afraid I was going to be in for another long labor. The nurse called Dr. Russell and Dr. Russell told her to let me labor for a while and she’d be there in a couple hours. I noticed a bit of bloody show on the bed by this time, so I knew things were really happening! I got out of the bed and got into the shower. It felt so good. It made the contractions feel a bit less intense, and I could tell it was making them stronger and closer together. I was in the shower from 7:20 until 7:40pm. After the shower, I alternated between the birthing ball and just leaning over the bed swaying my hips. That was really the only thing that was making the contractions at least somewhat manageable. They nurses really wanted to do some more monitoring of the baby’s heartrate, but were having a lot of trouble getting the monitor in the right place. I was moving around so much the monitor kept moving. Finally the nurse decided just to stand there and hold it in place. By this time I was in an INSANE amount of pain. The contractions were coming every minute and a half and I started freaking out, thinking I was only 5cm and had hours to go. I looked at Mike and told him I couldn’t do it without drugs, it was just too bad already and I didn’t know how much longer I could go on. The nurse explained to me my pain management options, and Mike and I decided to think about it for a bit. My plan was to decide after she checked me again and I could see how much progress I had made. It was about 8:15 or so and the nurse said she planned to check me again at 9pm to see my progress. She also said that if I felt any rectal pressure, like I needed to have a bowel movement, to let her know. Shortly after she said it, I did start to feel a little pressure. I didn’t think it was that bad, but I really wanted someone to check me before 9. I told the nurse about the pressure and she had me get back in the bed. She checked me at 8:34pm and I was complete! I couldn’t believe I went from 5 to 10cm in only an hour and a half. At that point I realized why the pain was so bad, I was in transition and the baby was really coming! I knew I could do it now without any medication. The nurse paged Dr. Russell to let her know she needed to hurry up because this baby was coming fast! I got on my hands and knees in the bed, and swayed my hips back and forth through each contraction. For some reason this position felt pretty good. The urge to push got stronger and stronger, but I held back because I wanted Dr. Russell to be there. At 8:46pm I felt a warm trickle of water. I asked if it was my water, and the nurses agreed that my water had broken! I was so happy about this because I wanted it to break on its own this time around. I felt a little more come out, but not much because the baby’s head was right there and keeping most of it in. Dr. Russell finally arrived at 8:48pm and was amazed at my progress. She asked if I was having back labor because of the position I was in, but I told her no, it just felt good. When the next contraction hit, she told me to listen to my body and push if I needed to. So that’s what I did. She saw the baby’s head right away, and I asked if he/she had hair! Leave it to me to be thinking about that! As the contractions came and went, I continued to listen to my body’s cues and push when it felt natural. Dr. Russell made me stop and take breaths when it looked like I might tear. She used warm compresses to help stretch me as the baby’s head came further and further out. It was hard sometimes to not push, but I knew I had to try as hard as I could to hold back or I’d end up with horrible tears like I did with Josh. Finally the head was out, and I had to wait a minute while they suctioned and moved the cord. With the next contraction, I gave a few little pushes and felt the rest of the baby deliver at 9:04pm, followed by all kinds of fluid. Dr. Russell told me to turn over and see my baby! As I turned, my eyes darted around trying to see if it was a girl or a boy. In all the chaos, I heard someone mention girl and I remember asking, “Is it really a girl?” I’m not sure who even answered, but someone said it was. I could not believe it! I had myself convinced it was a boy. They put her up on my chest and wiped her off. She was trying so hard to lift her head up and cry. She was absolutely beautiful. I started half crying and half laughing. The nurses and Dr. Russell mentioned how big she was, but she seemed so tiny to me! Shortly thereafter, I could feel the placenta coming out so I gave a couple little pushes and delivered it. Mike cut the cord, and we both sat and stared in amazement at our little baby girl. Dr. Russell said I had a tiny little tear, and she put one stitch in. She didn’t numb me because it would have been more pokes and burning than the suture itself. They didn’t rush her right away to clean her and measure her like they did with Josh. They left her in my arms, and then wrapped her up so Mike could hold her. Everybody left the room and let us have time with our new baby. I put her to my breast at 9:30pm and she latched on like a champ. She nursed almost non-stop for 15 minutes. Mike and I made our most important phone calls and saved the rest for the morning since it was getting late. The nurse kept coming in and checking on us, and finally at 10:10pm we decided it was time for her to get cleaned up a little better and weighed. She didn’t hate her sponge bath too much. They put her on the scale and I was surprised to see she was 8lbs 12oz, 4oz bigger than Josh was! She was 20” tall and her head circumference was 14.5”. It was almost time to move to our recovery room, so I got out of bed and took a nice shower. It felt good to wash off and relax. I was amazed at how much better I felt than after Josh’s birth. We got settled into our recovery room at around 11:35pm. We tried to get some sleep, but we were both so full of energy and adrenaline. At midnight the nurses came in to check our vitals.

We “woke up” ready to go home, but unfortunately we had to stay until Bella was 24 hours old so she could have her bloodwork done. That meant we were stuck there until after 9:04pm. Mike went with Bella in the morning to have her hearing test and get her Hep B shot. We wanted Josh to be the first visitor to meet his baby sister, so my parents brought him to the hospital at around 9am. He wasn’t too interested in her, and he was kinda scared of the hospital. We let my parents in shortly after to meet their new granddaughter. Mike’s mom was the next visitor. And then it got quiet for a while. Around noon it got really busy with nurses, hospital pictures, the pediatrician, the birth certificate lady, and I believe a few others. Mike’s mom brought us lunch. Then Mike’s dad and brother showed up. Then my brother did. They all left and we spent the rest of the day napping and watching TV, waiting for 9:00pm when we could finally head home. Mike went with Bella to get her bloodwork and get weighed before we went home. She was down to 8lbs 6oz and pretty much slept through getting her heel poked for blood. I showered and got dressed. We got everything packed up and loaded into the car. We were discharged and headed home sometime around 10pm. We got home and my mom said Josh had been great. Mike carried all of the stuff in and we settled into bed. It was so wonderful to have our whole family home at last!


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