Starting EPO post-due--how much?--It DID work! raven mae's birth post 25 - Page 2

[happyhippimama]

YAY!!!! Congratulations! Can't wait to hear the story.

[richella]

Congrats, get some rest.

[Ianthe]

Cant wait to read your story!!!

[kdtmom2be]

Originally Posted by amyleigh33

well after a relatively short, but overnight, labour we had our girl this morning at 7:40 am. she doesn't have a name yet : so i'll post in the birth announcement thread more details when i'm not so tired, and when we have them. but it DID work, (well, something did) she's here!

woohoo! congratulations! happy to hear that it worked are you home? (did you even go to the hospital?) That's three for three for girls in Vancouver! woohoo!

[amyleigh33]

raven mae's birth

here's the pg13 version i'm sending to friends and family, addt'l details to follow

All day Wednesday (May 23), starting at about 5 am, I was having mild cramping or light contractions, I didn't really know what they were or what they meant. At 10 pm, we tried to go to bed. Jeff fell asleep, my mom fell asleep in the living room, but I couldn't sleep because I was in too much pain. At about 11:30 pm, I woke my mom up and said, "How am I supposed to sleep like this?!" because I was having somewhat painful contractions every 10-20 minutes or so. I was under the impression that it was some sort of "pre-labour" and was going to continue at least all night, maybe for a couple days. But my mom said she thought I was actually in labour, and I thought "Nooo... that would hurt more than this." But sure enough, by about 1 am they were pretty painful, so I decided to get in the bath.

That helped a bit with the pain, but after about an hour I was feeling too warm, so I got out; by that time contractions were about three minutes apart. My midwife, Beth, had told me I should call her when they were three minutes apart for two hours, but by about 2:45 i was in agonizing pain, so I got Jeff to page her. She came over at about 3:30 am, and said I was only 3 cm dilated. She asked what I wanted to do. I told her I would prefer to go to the hospital sooner rather than later, because I was afraid the cab ride would be even worse later. So, she called the hospital to see if they had room, and found out that all the good rooms with bathtubs were taken, and they were also generally swamped. They told us that if we waited a bit longer it would probably be better. We decided to wait and call back around 5 am. Beth went home, and called at about 5 am to see what we wanted to do. She told us there were still no bathtub rooms at the hospital, but we could still go there and settle for a different room. By then I was in really bad pain, so I asked her whether there was one that at least had a shower, and she said yes, so I told her that would be fine. We agreed to leave right away and meet her there.

When we got to the hospital, I was in triage for a bit, but I have no idea how long. It was probably from about 5:30 to 6:00 am. When my midwife arrived, she checked again, and I was 6-7 cm dilated. They moved me to a delivery room, and I got in the shower right away. I sat in the shower for maybe an hour, and at around 7 am I had to get out because it was clearly time to start pushing. I went back to the bed, and within 5 or 6 pushes and 30 minutes or so, the baby was born at 7:40 am (Thursday, May 24th). Beth quickly placed her on my chest, and the nurses threw a towel over us. After it stopped pulsating, Jeff cut her umbilical cord. She spent about about an hour with us, then Beth did her checkup and she weighed in at 7 lbs and 7 ounces and measured 19 inches long.

So that was the culmination of all this talk in this thread! I was lucky and made out with only a tiny tear that didn't even need to be stitched. I couldn't believe how much pushing and delivering DIDN'T hurt after/compared to the contractions during transition. It really was an amazing experience. She's been feeding pretty well, except we had some problems learning how to latch on the first day so I'm still a bit sore from improper latching at first... Umm, I'm pretty sure there was more I wanted to say but that's all I can think of for now.

Oh, except CONGRATS to all the other mamas with new babies this week, it looks like there was a LOT!

longer birth story (baby blog): http://ravenmae.wordpress.com/2007/0...-semi-graphic/

[tofutti]

what a super cool little cutie

love it! thanks for sharing!!

deb

[crysmomofthree]

she's sure a cutie and nice little chubby cheeks

[beatee]

Congratulations! She's gorgeous, and your birth sounds pretty damn good!
For some reason I thought our babies might be born the same day (err, I just typed 'bought' instead of born and had to correct-that's a bit worrying!), but obviously not!
And Raven Mae is a really beautiful name. I had been thinking about Mae as a middle name for our little girl, but I think DP wants something else. And it's looking unlikely that she's even going to be born in May, which was kind of the point!
Enjoy yourselves and rest lots!

[BirthInStyle]

Congrats!