the birth story

Ok, here's the long awaited story, reader's digest condensed version.

Thursday June 28 2007 started like any other day. It was my second last scheduled day of work before my mat leave was to begin.

Went for lunch with a friend, and after lunch I noticed that it REALLY felt like there was a bowling ball between my legs, but I didn't think much of it. Was having braxton hicks contractions throughout the day, but not more than usual, and not painful at all. Tracked them for a bit using an online contraction tracker, but they were actually getting farther apart, and were very irregular.

Went home after work, didn't feel too good, decided to spend a quiet night at home instead of going to aquacise. Anthony went off to his ballgame at about 5:45, i was just hanging out on the computer. About 6:30, I noticed that i was having contractions - they were pretty obvious. Along with the tightening and pain in the front, i had a TON of back pain. Not pleasant. I decided to make a chart to time them, so i got that ready and printed off 5 pages worth so i'd have plenty of space to chart things for the next number of hours.

Contractions were about 4-5 mins apart, lasting 30-45 seconds each, and I decided to call Anthony home from ball around 7pm. He was home by 7:15, and decided to have a quick shower and clean up from ball, then we'd decide what to do. I believe it was at this point that I told him I was going to ask for meds when we went to the hospital, as it was more intense than I had expected (and i was thinking that this was just the beginning, that it would get a lot worse and i'd be in pain for hours and hours and hours). We decided we'd head to the hospital after he was ready to get things checked out and see where I was at.

I decided to grab a quick shower too, to see if that would help me manage the pain, it felt pretty good. After getting out of the shower, about 8pm, I had a very strong painful contraction and felt a "pop"...yup, my water broke. At least I still had my towel on, so i was able to catch most of it. But man, did those contractions ever come strong and hard and fast after that! OW!

So now we knew we were going to the hospital to stay. We called my parents who had gone to the lake earlier that afternoon, to let them know they might want to come back in the morning...but we'd update them once we'd been checked at the hospital. Anthony got the rest of the things together, and we headed out the door. He had grabbed me a bag of hash browns to use for ice, I had a pail in case I puked (i sure felt like I would) and an old towel to sit on. I tried to get in the front seat, to no avail, so i went to get in the back and had a VERY strong contraction. I was bent over the trunk of the car moaning and groaning, must have been quite the sight for the neighbourhood! I asked Anthony to come pray that I'd make it to the hospital through these super painful ones, and he came and started praying..."Dear God, thanks so much for this beautiful day..." at which point I interrupted and said "PRAY THAT I MAKE IT TO THE HOSPITAL!!!!" so he quickly prayed just for that and off we went...it was 8:12 pm.

Got to the hospital and the registration lady took one look at me and said "I'll just get your name and healthcard and let them know you're coming. Anthony signed a form and off we went. We got upstairs and there was a whole contingency of nurses waiting, they checked me out and said "she's 7cm already!" They didn't have time to do the whole 20 min fetal monitoring thing, they listened until they heard baby was fine and then took me down to a delivery room. I had asked to get put on the epidural list when i got to L&D, they said they'd take care fo me in delivery. Anthony called my parents and said "um, i think you'd better come home tonight..."

The contractions were SUPER DUPER hard & strong and fast at this point, i ended up biting anthony's hand through a couple of them just to make it through. Of course the delivery folks let me know it was too late for an epidural, they offered me some NOS, i accepted, but when i put the mask on to breathe it in, i found i couldn't get a deep enough breath to fill my lungs, which is what I really needed, so I just threw the mask away and grabbed Anthony's chest hair instead :)

I was in quite a daze, but all i remember is at 8:55, the resident Dr. said "ok, time to push now!" and i thought "You have got to be kidding..." but it was. I started pushing as best i could, but the contractions were so short that i couldn't get 3 good pushes in like they wanted me to. They were also one on top of another so i couldn't push every contraction, it was just exhausting. I remember thinking "oh i don't like this at ALL, i don't want to do it" but yet realizing that this was the only way this kid was going to come out. My dr. arrived (9:20ish?), and shortly after that i got the hang of the pushing. The head came out nicely, same with the shoulders, and Dr. Misfeldt said "ok, grab the baby and pull it out!" That kinda surprised me (we had never once discussed any plans/preferences for the labour/delivery), but I got Anthony to grab her too, and we pulled her out together. It was a cool moment. 9:49pm.

They put her on my belly and started drying her off, and i remember trying to fumble for the edge of the towel to see what she was, noone had said if it was a boy or a girl yet. So i said "What is it?" and a nurse checked and said "A girl!"

It all went so fast that i was a bit stunned by the whole thing...i remember calling and leaving a message at work 6 hours after leaving there for the day, and saying "um, i won't be in tomorrow, i'm in the hospital with my new daughter!" We had about 3 hours in L&D, got stiched up (2nd degree tear, 3 stitches!), rested, fed, had a shower and went up to our room. Anthony went and moved the car out of temporary parking and got the camera and bag sometime during those 3 hours (he was planning to go do that once he had gotten me settled in assessment, but there was no time). Both sets of new grandparents were there and we got to share the joy of our new little girl with them.