Avery's Birth Story

Well it's been 10 days since Avery's arrival into our lives.  Let me give the update on how she got here.

On Saturday the 18th of January, I started having really bad lower back pain.  I just assumed it was because I was up and about cleaning, baking, organizing etc. to keep myself busy, so I thought nothing of it.  Sunday I woke up and still felt pretty awful and the back pain persisted.  I stayed home from church just for a rest and by the evening I started having some timeable contractions.  They ranged from half an hour to 2 hours apart, so I knew it was possibly the start of labour, but that I had a long way to go.

I had a doctor's appointment at 11am on Monday and was still having sporadic contractions.  When they checked me at my appointment they said I was 3cm dilated and sent me home.  I decided to go to my mom's place because she has a jacuzzi and we wouldn't have to fight rush hour traffic if we had to go back in to the hospital that evening.  I took a nap when we got there and by 2pm I was having contractions fairly strong, but manageable.  They ranged from 2 minutes apart to 10 minutes apart and were consistently 45 seconds long.  My OB had told me to wait until I felt them coming every 5 minutes for an hour, so we just waited.

By 5:15 my mom came home and I was in a lot of pain every time I had a contraction.  Every time I tried to go to the washroom I would start a contraction.  By 5:45 I had had 3 consecutive contractions and I had had enough.  I told my mom that I was in enough pain that I thought we should go to the hospital.  So off we went.  By 6:15 I was checked in to pre-admission and introduced to the resident on call that night.  They did an internal exam and asked me "when did your water break?".  I told them I wasn't aware that it had.  "Well, I can feel your baby's hair, so your water is definitely broken".  News to me!  Turns out the tiny gush I felt at one point in the afternoon around 4pm (I thought it was just a bit of incontinence) was my water breaking.  Baby had plugged the outlet so no other gushes were felt after that.

After an hour in pre-admission I was dilated enough for them to admit me into labour and delivery.  They had me hooked up to monitors checking the intensity of my contractions.  It was a scale from 0-100.  My baseline was sitting at about 50 and when I had a contraction, some of them were off the scale above the 100 mark.  It was pretty insane, but really cool to see on the screen.

I had planned on trying to do a natural birth with no drugs, but my contractions were so painful and I started throwing up during them that by 8pm I opted to get an epidural.  The anesthesiologist was so busy that night that he didn't end up showing up until 9:30pm.  Jon held my hands while the doctor tried to place the needle.  He commented on my spine being crooked and he missed the mark the first time he tried.  So he tried in a different spot on my spine instead.  That time it worked and within minutes I was pain free.  It was glorious.  I felt nothing from my breasts down.

Me after my epidural

The relief I felt was soon overcome by sleepiness so I tried to rest while I could.  They gave me oxytocin to speed up the dilation and kept me on IV fluids to keep me hydrated.  It was a bit frustrating not being able to move around and being stuck in bed, but I was able to update the extended family via facebook and email during the whole labour process, so that was pretty cool.

By 3am I was fully dilated, and they discovered that Avery was positioned badly and her head was on an angle in my pelvis and wasn't moving down.  So, they brought in a specialist and turned her.  They had to push her back up into my uterus in order to turn her properly, so that was a very strange feeling.  I was grateful for the epidural then!  They then decided to wait a few hours to let her contract downwards on her own before getting me to push.  They said that by about 6am we would start pushing, so I had a timeline.  I tried to rest some more, but I was getting too excited and scared about what was to come.

I pushed from 6am to 7:08am when Avery was born.  She had the cord wrapped around her neck and if I had taken any longer to get her out she may have been a C section baby, but the doctors were amazing and my L&D nurse was a huge help and encouragement.  I ended up with second degree tearing, since Avery had such broad shoulders that they had to reposition her again on the way out.  They took her away immediately so I didn't even get to see her.  I heard her whimpering so I knew she was alive, but I could only see her legs over at the examining table.  I think at one point I was so upset that I didn't get to see her that they brought her over so I could say hi and see my daughter before they took her away again for further testing.  She was apparently very white, likely from the cord being around her neck, so they just wanted to make sure she was ok.  It was about 15 minutes before I finally got to hold her.

Me holding Avery for the first time

She was beautiful.  I couldn't believe that I had given birth to her.  It all seemed worth it in that moment.  It's been 10 days since then and she has proven to be a wonderful baby.  She barely cries, and is easily comforted.  She loves being held and cuddled, and spends a lot of time sleeping on her daddy's chest while I take naps.  I've healed really well, and within 4 days all my swelling had gone down and I was back out and about.  Even with being sore and tired and healing I have felt better than I have in months.  The elation I feel every time I hold my little girl is indescribable.  She is awesome.