Wednesday, February 13, 2013

Harper’s Birth Story

First of all, thank you for all of the comments, tweets, texts and well wishes over the past week!  It’s hard to believe that we have already been a family of four for a week.  I guess I’d better get used to time flying by, though.  So before I forget it all, I wanted to document Harper’s birth story.  I thought I’d separate this post out from her announcement in case anyone wanted to just skip over the details… although there will be more pictures in this one.  Feel free to just skim the pictures if birth stories make you squeamish. ;) 

On Wednesday, February 6th, I woke up around 2:30am to go to the bathroom.  This was pretty par for the course at that point in my pregnancy; I think Harper was just camped out on my bladder.  When I laid back down, I had a contraction, but this was also nothing new as I’d been having them randomly for a week or so.  About 10 minutes later, I had another one, and given that my doctor had warned me at my 38 week appointment that labor would go quickly this time, I decided to stay awake to time them. 

After an hour or so of relatively easy contractions coming every 5-10 minutes apart, I decided to call the doctor and text my mom and dear friend Courtney. {Sidenote: Courtney is a college friend of mine who is more like an aunt to Hadley & Harper than just a friend – she volunteered to be the one to come stay with Hadley until my mom could get here whenever I went into labor.  And I kid you not, she responded within a minute of my texting her at 3:45am!  She is a true example of what friendship should look like.}

I woke Matt up and called the doctor and they said to go ahead and come to the hospital.  I showered and Matt loaded the car up while we waited for Courtney to get to the house.  We finally left for the hospital around 5am and I made Matt stop at the McDonald’s drive-through so I could get a bacon & cheese bagel and water for breakfast. (Totally unnecessary detail – yes, but I never said this would be short!)

We had to go to labor & delivery triage at the hospital since it was so early, but my doctor came down to check my progress and said I was around 3/4 cm and 50% effaced.  We had to be monitored for 20 minutes to track my contractions, and then they told me to go walk around the hospital for 20 minutes or so, and then come back.  After we got back, they put me back on the monitor to watch my contractions for another 30 minutes and then sent us to go walk again.  We got back from the second walk around 8:30a and they checked me again.  This time I was almost at 5cm but still 50% effaced.  We had to wait a little bit, but finally around 9:30a they came back to tell me I was going to be admitted and they were waiting on a room for me. 

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We both breathed a sigh of relief to finally know that we weren’t going to leave the hospital without a baby; although my relief was also filled with anxiety about what was to come.  My contractions were still not unbearably painful and weren’t coming that much closer together, so I wasn’t sure when I should get the epidural.  I didn’t want to be a wimp and get it too early, but when my doctor came back to check me again after we were admitted it almost brought me to tears from the pain.  When she said at the next check she was also going to break my water I decided I wanted the epidural before that time came! 

The epidural hurt more than I remembered this time, but that’s probably because my labor wasn’t as painful as it was with Hadley,  By 10:30a the epidural was kicking in and I decided to try to take a nap.  My doctor came in to break my water around 11:30 and told me I was between 5 and 6cm and to rest for a bit.  They left and just said to call if I felt any pain or pressure.

Well, I didn’t get to rest much as around 12:25 I started feeling pressure like I needed to push.  I called the nurse and she came in, did a quick check and said “well, let’s do a practice push… you’re ready!”  I laughed, assuming she was joking, to which she replied that no, I was indeed ready to push.  After one practice push she told me to stop and called for the doctor.  I started pushing at 12:38 and Harper was born 8 minutes later at 12:46pm!  Much nicer than my hour and a half of pushing with Hadley. 

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Letting the nurse know she was NOT happy about being away from momma.

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Sleeping in daddy’s arms :) Much better than the giant pout Hadley gave…

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Heading home with our newest little girl! Feeling so blessed.

One more post of when Hadley met Harper (also known as the moment Hadley became a little girl instead of my baby – cue the tears) coming soon.


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2 comments:

Jenny Bishop said...

LOVE birth stories so I was so excited to see you posted yours!! Glad everything went so smoothly!! And go mama for pushing her out in 8 minutes!!! :) You're a champ! She is SOOO precious! Congrats again!!

Anonymous said...

I love your choice in baby names. Are you willing to share what your baby boy names were?

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