Avery's Birth Story

Our long awaited baby girl arrived on Oct. 8th! She weighed 7lbs 9oz, and 19 1/4 inches long. Derek and I were both surprised she was so short... Jadon was 19 inches when he was born and that was 5 weeks early!
Having a full term baby is a completely different experience to having a preterm baby. We were able to leave the hospital the day after she was born, and we didnt have to deal with any issues that come with preemies, ie, jaundice, difficulty breathing, trouble maintaining body temp, etc.
Jadon has been doing really well. He was really having a hard time when we were in the hospital, but I think he was worried about seeing me in a hospital bed, and the whole hospital setting. He has really warmed up to Avery too since we have been home, and now he seems to really love her.

Anyways, the birth story! I'm not sure where to start really. I had about 2 contractions a day for about a month leading up to the delivery. A week and a half before she was born, I was 3cm dilated... a week later, I was dilated to 3 1/2 cm, and she was really moving her way down. The day before she was born, I woke up with alot of pressure down there, and I kept having these pains (they didnt feel like contractions... it felt more like the pressure would momentarily increase drastically for about a minute). All day I had them, although I wasnt convinced they were contractions, I still timed them several times throughout the day. They were very irregular, and ranged anywhere from 7 minutes apart to 18 minutes apart, and even almost completely stopped that afternoon. By late evening, they were getting more painful, but I STILL wasnt convinced it was contractions, but I was convinced that the baby would be coming soon. We went to bed that night, and I continued to have these pains all night, and probably about 2 an hour and they would wake me up from sleeping. At 4am, I was woken up by a particularly painful one and right in the middle of it, my water broke. I woke Derek and told him my water broke, so he starts getting ready to go to the hospital. I was still not convinced. My pains were still very irregular up until then, and I could still function through them for the most part, so I didnt think it was quite time to go to the hospital. Derek insisted we go. I convinced myself to go as well because I was not feeling the baby move at all and was really worried something was wrong. We left the house about 4:15am or so... while in the car, the pain was beginning to get worse, and started to become regularly 5 minutes apart. Once at the hospital, everything went downhill. The nurse asked me to go the the bathroom and change into a gown... While I was in the bathroom, I had 3 consecutive contractions with no relief between them.
The nurse checked me, and I was dilated to 5cm. About 5 minutes or so later, I felt like I needed to push BAD! I yelled to the nurse that I felt like I needed to poop. She checked me again, and I was fully dilated. It was time to go!! The doctor wasnt there yet, so they had the hospital midwife come in and monitor things. I think they tried to get me to not push much since the doctor wasnt there yet, so I did alot of panting, but the urge to push overcame me several times. Finally the doctor got there right as the baby was crowning, and I think I only pushed once or twice after she got there! At 5:28am, our 2nd little miracle was born!

Let me just say, I had been planning to get an epidural for the delivery, but obviously when you dilate 5cm in 5 minutes, theres no time for ANY pain meds! So, she was born completely naturally. I'm proud of myself, but at the same time, IT HURT!!!!!!!!! Unfortunately the recovery wasnt as grand as they make natural births sound... at least for me. I was doing alot of bleeding, so they put me on pitocin to help me contract (that hurt), and gave me a shot of something in the leg to help with bleeding also. Also, as soon as she was born, my blood pressure shot up for awhile so they had to monitor me for awhile.

Thats all for now! I'll post more later when I get a chance!