Abigail's Birth Story

She is HERE!

Abigail Lynn Lara was born on Monday, March 11, 2013 at 4:25 AM.  She weighed 7lbs 14 oz and measured 20 inches long.  Also, she is PERFECT.  Just incase you were wondering. 

Okay. Getting her here took some patience on my part.  My due date was March 9, and Valette was 3 days early.  My Mom's birthday (and a few other people) is March 6th.  She had her fingers crossed for 3 days early again.  I had just started assuming Abbi would come on Wednesday-ish that week.  I assumed I would be early again.  I caused my own problem.

All through February I had the random braxton hicks contractions.  At 36 weeks Dr. Newman said I was one cm dilated.  The week before I was due the braxton hicks started getting closer together, never rhythmic but I would notice at least one almost every hour and they made my belly very hard.  This was the only real way to identify them because they never hurt.  On March 5th I was almost 2 cm dilated and very hopeful that things would get going soon.

On March 6th I woke up around 7:30 feeling exactly the same as the day before.  I texted Eric how sad this made me because by that time of day last time I was already at the hospital and knew for sure that my baby was coming now.  I was so disappointed.  The whole day I felt like nothing was progressing and that discouraged me.  On the bright side, since there was nothing baby going on I went and spent the day with my mom for her birthday, which we all enjoyed.  She walked me all over Tempe Marketplace while we looked for a few things for Valette's new room.

That night we went to a birthday party for Valette's cousin Dylan (see? more March 6) and everyone there was lamenting with me that I was available to come and not having a baby.  The good news this day was that I had bloody show start that night and continue for the whole next day.  Finally some progress.

At 4:30 on Thursday I woke up with more contractions.  Again not painful, but they were coming steady while I layed there in my bed doing nothing but timing them.  It was happening 9 minutes apart. By 6 am it was 7 minutes apart.  Eric didn't go to work because if they got to be 5-6 minutes I told him we would go to the hospital.  At 7 am we called his mom to come stay with Valette and finished packing everything to take with us. Then we sat in front of the tv and continued to time the contractions.  By 9:30 I was getting them just over 6 minutes apart and I decided to wait one hour and then we'd go.  At 10:30 they basically stopped. Sigh.

Eric and I went walking around the neighborhood.  I called my Dr.'s office, they gave the same mantra I had already heard.  My contractions stayed at 45 minutes to an hour apart.  Then we went to the mall to walk more, I even went up and down the stairs about ten times.  Nothing.  The only thing I accomplished was that the next day my legs were sore.

I was feeling more sad about this with each day.  This also made me feel guilty.  I shouldn't be sad.  She wasn't even late yet.  Eric kept reminding me that we are just grateful that both of us were healthy and doing fine.  He is not used to being the not-upset one.

Saturday, March 9:  Nothing.  Just a missed due date.

Valette and I went to Eric's work (he has to work one Saturday every month) and had lunch with him.  This made me happy and distracted, except for right when we got there when Valette decided to be difficult and I just welled up in tears and had to cuddle Eric until it went away.  That was totally hormones and sadness about not having a baby yet, all Valette did was trigger it.

Sunday, March 10:  Went to church worried that lots of people would ask when my due date is and that it would make me all emotional or something.  Thankfully not too many people mentioned it and I wasn't crazy emotional either.  Eric's parents came to sacrament with us.  Valette sat in their laps and didn't even know Eric and I existed the whole meeting.

We went to dinner at my parent's house and enjoyed visiting and eating and Valette played with her cousins.  I made some brownies after we had cleaned up dinner.  I put them in the oven and started visiting with my mom.  Eric and I needed to go home at this point because it was bedtime.  (Eric now works at 5am because the time zone switched again, so we need to go to bed early around here.)  I grabbed a tissue, blew my nose, and felt a gush of liquid in my pants.  For 3 seconds I was thinking "You are kidding me! This entire pregnancy I am fine and then I pee my pants now?!!!"  Then I realized my water probably broke.  I let out an "OH!" and my mom immediately wants to know what's wrong.  I started running to the bathroom and told her either I peed my pants or my water broke.

(This cracks me up. I think it is such a funny story. I blew my nose and my water broke. Ha.)

I was right about the water. YAY my baby is coming!  Eric came down the hall to see what is going on, my mom told him and he basically started cheering.  We were excited to meet this child for sure.

We drove home to get all the bags and so that I could change.  Grandma Julie met us there to take Valette and we were off to the hospital within a half hour.

They admitted me to triage where they start your IVs and monitors, bring paperwork to sign, check dilation and in my case she had to check if it was for real that my water broke.  I am no dummy, I waited to make sure there was continued leakage after I left the bathroom before we went to the hospital because I didn't want to be wrong.  Apparently not all women do that.  The triage nurse told us that they send more women home for being wrong about their water breaking than for not enough contractions.  Usually they test it and it's just urine.  But of course I was right, and unfortunately I was only dilated to 2 1/2.  I could feel contractions for real now.  They hurt.  It wasn't super painful, but I certainly didn't like it.  I now understand what other women say about contractions being more painful after your water breaks.  For me now, both times I felt zero pain until after the water broke.

They took me to my room and let my mom come in.  The nurse had already started penicillin in my IV as well as the fluids they give you to prep for an epidural.  I am positive for Group B Strep which is something that would affect the abdomen (I think) but it doesn't really matter to adults.  Child birth can pass it to the baby though, so they have to medicate me.  The baby could be sick from it if not.  The penicillin burns as it goes in (apparently it is acidic) and I am a big baby and can't handle the pain.  My nurse turned it up when I arrived in my room and I could immediately tell from the pain in my arm, and then I started to tear up from the pain.  She turned it down until it stopped hurting for me.  This basically meant she set it to AS LOW as it would go.  Because I continued to feel it each time she asked me.

The anesthesiologist came to discuss procedure with me and when I wanted to have the epidural put in. I really liked her.  She was pretty young and just recently found out she is pregnant too.  She told me she loved my name and that Noelle is on her girl list but her husband isn't on board.  At this point I needed the baby to come after 4 hours had passed because I had to have a second dose of the penicillin before she was born.  Since Valette came in 6 1/2 hours total we didn't want Abbi to come faster than that and me not be medicated enough.  So I didn't get the epidural right then, I breathed through my contractions and waited a while.  I think I waited at least an hour after the first time she came in to call her back for the epidural, maybe more?  I can't remember exactly.

Rachael came to join us for a while too.  She was leaving early in the morning out of town and she was still awake anyway, so she came to visit.  I think she arrived around 9:30 pm and stayed until 11 ish.  I know that she was in the room when I was dealing with contractions, so maybe I got the epidural around 11 when she left?  It was something like that.  The anesthesiologist worked very fast and I was seriously happy once the medication was working.  At this time the nurse checked and I was at 4 cm.

After this I wanted to try and nap, and I wanted Eric to try to sleep too.  My mom didn't feel tired, she is kind of a lost cause if it is not her chair in her room for sleeping.  She stayed up and read..  I dozed for about a half hour and Eric actually slept for about 45 minutes, which was really good because we didn't expect he would sleep for real.

My nurse came back at 2 am to give me the second dose of penicillin, again very slowly.  She checked me for dilation and said I was at 7 cm and that the baby's head was at "0" which meant she was right at the cervix, I think. Not the same as crowning.

I can't think of anything else significant that happened between this time and close to 4 am.  Eric was on his computer watching youtube videos with his earpieces in when the nurse came to check again.  She was joking that she would find me "complete" (as in, fully dilated) and he wouldn't be able to hear the good news because of the head phones.  He heard us laughing, took them out to ask what was funny.  After the joke was explained she looked up and said, "it's a dream come true.  You are complete."  And then she buzzed the Dr.

The nurse wanted to see how I did with pushing so when the next contraction started she had me grab my legs and push.  The head started crowning.  After this she took the bed apart and set up the stirrups. I did one more contraction's worth of pushing before the Dr. arrived.  My OB is Dr. Newman, who was not on call.  Abigail was delivered by Dr. Brass who I had never met before this night, but I liked her just fine.  She let me go at my own pace and she was very calm and easy to talk to.  After the first bit of pushing I was starting to cry a little because the holding-your-breath part is really hard for me.  (I would never have done well as a synchronized swimmer.)  I really wanted to tell her my "birth plan" which consisted of two requests:  I wanted to let the baby stay connected to her cord for 2-3 minutes so she could get all of that special blood, and I wanted to hold her for a good long while before they took her to weigh and all the other things I can't see that happen in that basket.  During my first rest I tried to get this out but I could not get my voice to work.  Eric had to tell her for me, and she smiled and said I didn't even need to ask.  That is her usual method.  This was a relief to me.

We were marveling at all the long, DARK hair this girl has the whole time I was working to get her head out.  Dr. Brass finally decided that I was about to rip, so she gave me a tiny epesiotomy (sp?) and Abbi's head came right out.  After the shoulders were free she had me reach down and pull her out the rest of the way so I could hold her to my chest.  We were so excited that she was finally here. Just over one day late.  (I still haven't decided if she was one day late or two, it was only 4 am and I labored all night.  I'm leaning towards one, it sounds better.)

Labor hormones apparently make you shaky.  I'm sure this happened with Valette too, but I didn't remember it.  Before Abbi came out I would get shaky pretty much everytime they checked something. My legs and arms and sometimes my teeth would chatter, but I could stop that one.  Once I was holding Abbi I was shaking SO BAD.  Eric took a video and you can see how crazy my arms are.  I felt bad because I think the shaking was making me squeeze the poor child a little too tight.

But Abigail was perfect and healthy and everyone was thrilled.  I got 2 stitches and I hate the part where the nurses come back to you and squeeze your tummy down to help the uterus go back to normal size.  I know it's necessary, but it hurts.

I read while I was pregnant that with each consecutive birth that the shrinking-back-to-size part hurts worse each time.  I think I agree because I know that last time the only pain killer I used was the ibuprofen.  This time I used both the ibuprofen and the percoset until day 6, and I still took the ibuprofen the 2 days after that.  Also, I am a wimp with pain, so take that for what it's worth.

Now that I have two deliveries worth of evidence I have decided that I must really suck at relaxing and that I don't progress until they give me the epidural.  I'm sure that Abbi would have been born two ish hours sooner if I had gotten the epidural right away like I did with Valette.  Also, apparently I'm one of those less common people whose water breaks first.  I wonder if that will happen for every baby...

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Valette's birth story here.