I thought I should post Aubrey's labor story so it's documented.
Friday night, 11/25, the day after Thanksgiving, we had gone upstairs sometime after 11pm to go to bed. I took my blood thinner around 11:30 and went to sleep. An hour later (12:30am), I woke up and went to the bathroom. When I got back in bed, my water broke. I looked at Steve, exclaiming "oh my God" several times and finally got out of bed and ran to the toilet. My water breaking was a GUSH...no trickle here! And it kept coming!
Steve ran into closet and started throwing on his clothes. I told him I needed to call the doc b/c I wasn't sure what we needed to do. The doc asked if I was having contractions, which I wasn't, so she said to come in when contractions were regular or by 8/9am if they weren't regular. 15 minutes later, the contractions started. They were pretty regular right off the bat. Steve ran over to walmart to get some snacks and things for the labor room and by the time he got back, mom and I had decided I should probably head into the hospital. My concern was the distance from our house to the hospital and although I knew I wouldn't be in a situation where I was delivering on the side of the road, I just felt better going in. So we packed up the car, threw some towels on the seat and off we went to the hospital.
We got to the hospital around 2:30am I think...maybe 3am. I wasn't really making a note of what time things were happening. Contractions were pretty painful at this point and by the time they got me admitted and set up in the room, they checked to see how far dilated I was and I was at 5 cm. There was concern that I wouldn't be able to get an epidural b/c of the blood thinner that I had given to myself at 11:30pm. It needed to clear my bloodstream and since I was progressing pretty rapidly, they weren't sure it would clear my bloodstream in time. That caused some concern on my part, but I figured if that was how this labor was going to go, then that was how it was going to go. It was out of my control.
I made use of the whirlpool tub for pain management and Steve was a champ at helping put pressure on my back while leaning over the bed when contractions hit. Finally, an epidural was approved and the nurse came in to get me all set up. I was fearful of the epidural, but everything went fine and once that puppy kicked in, I was good to go. I still had some pain in my lower back that would carry forward to my groin, but the nurse suggested if the pain was bearable, that I not have the epidural adjusted b/c it would help when it came time to push.
The next time I was checked to see how far along I was, I was at 9 cm. Another hour passed and they checked again and I was at 9 3/4 cm. They decided to start a pitocin drip to bump me to 10 cm. b/c my contractions had become irregular and it was stalling the dilation. Not long after, I hit 10 cm. and soon after that, the nurse said we could do 1 of 2 things - continue to let my body bring Aubrey down b/c she was still a little high or I could start pushing and try to bring her down myself. I chose to start pushing - if I could speed this process up, I was going to. So we got set up and mom held my left leg and Steve held my right and with each contraction, I pushed. The doc came in to check on my progress and at the time, my mom decided it was time to leave the room and give us the moment to ourselves, just me and Steve. The nurse suggested I try to use the birthing bar - so she set it up and I used that for most of the time I was pushing. After the doc checked me, I still had a ways to go with pushing, so we continued and FINALLY Aubrey was crowning.
It was so amazing bringing her into the world. She was laid on me immediately and she was beautiful. It was all so surreal. I had just birthed a child into this world!
She had some fluid in her lungs, so they took her to the nursery for monitoring and brought her back in about 45 minutes. By that time, my dad, step-mom and 2 sisters had come into the room. My mom had come back in as well. Only Steve was able to hold her b/c once she was back, I needed to nurse. So everyone was kicked out and Aubrey nursed. Then they had me do the kangaroo hold with her where she is skin-on-skin on my chest. The family came back in and stayed for a while before it was time for me to be moved to the post-delivery room for recovery.
According to the nurse and doc, everything was textbook as far as labor went. I was in labor from water breaking to the birth of Aubrey for 15 hours. It's wild how the middle of the night didn't seem like the middle of the night when all of that is going on.
What a miracle. We are so blessed!
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| Minutes After Birth |
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| How Perfect Is She? |
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| Me & Dad |
