Lexi's Birth Story

I loved Ciara's idea of going back and putting down our history.  It gives us one place where we have all of our stories together so here is my contribution for the day/night.  

We actually had a very good experience with our birth!!! It sort of started Sunday night. I started having contractions that weren't too painful but they started at about 10 minutes apart and after about four hours they were about a minute and a half apart...but I could still walk and talk through them. Our practice said we should go in and get checked out so we went into L&D and I was checked and I was 0 cm and 0 effaced. The nurse said we could walk or just go home...so we decided to go home. When we were leaving she said "Ok see you next week."

Monday we slept (we got home around 6 am and slept till about noon - Ty was luckily with my parents for a sleepover). We spent the night trying to get the contractions to "do something" with no luck. We went over to my parents house around 8:30 to have dessert, play dominoes, and hang out with Ty who was going to stay with them until our little one came. I started having the same type of contractions not too painful but fairly consistently about 5-7 minutes apart. When we got home we decided to try to go to sleep because we were both exhausted after the night before and didn't have the energy to walk and time, especially if nothing was going to happen.

So around midnight I took my Benadryl (the secret to me sleeping during the third trimester) and we went to sleep. I woke up a couple of times to use the bathroom and noticed that I was still having contractions and that they were getting more painful. At 2 am the contractions woke me up and I was definitely not able to walk and talk through them. I tried to get through them for a while on my own (ciara was EXHAUSTED so I thought I’d let her sleep). The contractions were about three minutes apart and lasting only about 30 seconds. I tried breathing through them and taking a bath. After an hour we called the advice line and they said they were shorter than they would like but closer together....so she paged the doctor. She called back and said the doctor wanted us to go in so he could check my cervix. I was just starting to figure out how to get through the contractions and was thinking it might be nice to labor at home for a little while longer...but we decided we would go ahead and go in since it is a thirty minute drive.

By the time I got there I was having a lot of trouble breathing through the contractions and they felt like they were getting closer together. All I could think about was getting my epidural and I was hoping I was close to 4cm so they would admit me and let me get one. We went through the check in procedures which went very quickly since we had been there the night before (which actually was nice because I certainly could not have answered all of those questions). Before the nurse went to get the doctor to check me Ciara asked if she thought I would be staying. She looked at the print out and said she was pretty sure I would be admitted but that we would see. The doctor came very quickly (the last time we waited an hour and the doctor just sent the nurse instead). When he checked he said i was EIGHT centimeters and that he could stretch me to nine!!!!!

After that everything went into what felt like hyper speed mode. We had checked in at 4:00am. I was GBS+ and wanted an epidural so they got me into a room and started my IV. We called my parents and the photographer to let them know and have the photographer come over. They got me hooked up to the Epidural and I had some relief but I was still feeling a lot of pain/pressure. The nurse was so sweet and was sitting with me trying to get me through the contractions but also trying to get her paperwork done (there were two others helping her because everything had gone so fast). She was kidding around and asked me to just hold off until she finished but with each contraction she looked more nervous because I kept feeling pain and pressure and said I thought I might be feeling like i needed to push. She got the doctor again and sure enough I was 10 centimeters. My water hadn’t broken and the doctor asked if I thought I could hold off a half an hour more because with the GBS they really like to run the antibiotics for two hours. He stayed in the room with me and was talking with the nurse and Ciara and after two or three contractions with them watching my face he said I should go ahead and he would have me push and see what happened.He was checking stuff and having me push a little and my water broke. So he said we would go ahead and set up for delivery. Our photographer walked in just as I was about to start the first push so she made it just in time....With the first contraction they could see her hair, and with the second one she was out!!!!!! She was born at 5:45 am, weighed 6 pounds 11 ounces, and was 20 inches long.

(I added a link to the blog of the photographer we used and LOVE for our wedding, maternity, and birth photos so people can check her out - she rocks - and here's the slideshow she created!!!)