She (It's a girl!!! I'm no longer part of Team Green!) was born last night at 8:37. Alexandra Rae was 6lb 13.2oz and 18.5" long. Just a tiny little squirt! She has a full head of black hair! My active labor started at around 2pm, we headed to the hospital at 5 (45 min drive). I was dilated to a 4-5 and 100% effaced upon arrival, 6cm an hour later, and started pushing 45 min later! I pushed for about 20 min. Transition was a bitch because the whole thing was really fast, from 4cm to complete. Much faster and more intense than I anticipated. I'll post a birth story when I get a little more time. We got home from the hospital at 6:45pm today and are getting settled. BF'ing is going really well and she's perfect! I'll post pics later on.
Baby girl decided to come on our wedding anniversary!
Birth Story:
I had gone to the gym to take an aerobics class on Mon night (10-6) and then went to DH's Grandma's to spend time with his family. I was having my normal BH's that were no more than my tummy getting really tight. They never went away really. I was up about 6x overnight to pee because they were so tight but still causing me absolutely no pain or discomfort so I didn't think anything of them. DH got up at about 6:15am Tues morning (10-7) and I couldn't get back to sleep so I just watched TV in our room while he got ready. He left at about 7:15am and I noticed my back started hurting but again didn't think anything of it because I'd been adjusted the day before and it's normal for me to be sore. I did start seeing a pattern that my back hurt with my BH's and felt better if I put my fist on it. This was my first clue that something might. It still wasn't painful really just kind of annoying because I really wanted to sleep some more. I finally got frustrated and got up at about 7:45am to see if I could get the BH's to calm down. I cleaned my house, ate breakfast, drank a bunch of water and nothing changed. So, I texted my BFF/Doula to see how long it should take for BH's to calm down or go away if you change what you're doing. She said an hour probably and it had been about an hour and half and nothing was any different. I emailed DH to let him know that I had been losing pieces of my plug last night and more this morning with some blood and that maybe something was happening but there was no need for him to come home or anything since I still just wasn't sure. He texted me an hour later to see if anything had chaned and I let him know that things definitely weren't stopping but I was still find and I'd update him in another hour. My doula called me and we talked for a long time. I timed several of what I thought were ctx while we talked and sure enough there was a pattern. They were 3-4min apart and lasted about 1:15min. I decided at about 11:30am that I was going to take a shower and do my hair and makeup just to kill time and see if that made a difference in the "ctx". While I was in the shower I noticed that I couldn't stay totally upright during a ctx and leaned up against the shower wall. It still wasn't painful but it was getting more uncomfortable and my legs felt a little weak. I called my doula after I got done getting ready and she was shocked that she couldn't tell when I was having a ctx but said I definitely sounded different in general and she wasn't surprised that the shower seemed to help things progress. I finally texted DH again and said he should probably start wrapping things up at work and come home when he could but I was still fine and there was no need to hurry or get excited and asked him not to say anything to my Mom because it was still too early (they work together). He got home about an hour and a half later to find me watching "Across the Universe" (love the music!) and working through the ctx by that point either leaning on the counter or rocking on my hands and knees. We walked circles around the house and things were really beginning to change and intensify. My Doula left her house at about 2pm and lives 2 hours away so we just labored at home waiting for her. By 3pm I was becoming vocal with the ctx, using the low moan with a deep breath to encourage things to open. My Doula arrived at about 4:15pm and I was really having to work by then. I was SOO happy to see her! I really needed her help and DH needed her to help too because he couldn't think of any ways to help me as we tried it all by then (position changes, back rub, hip squeeze, etc). At 5pm I said, "I think we need to go" and DH had alreay loaded the car and such and we headed out. The hospital is about a 45 min drive from us which was torture but we made it in 30 min because DH was driving like 90. Ha! Unfortunately we got caught in rush hour traffic and that delayed us just a bit. I remember saying, "Come on people! Get out of my way! Don't you know what I'm trying to do here?!" Yeah, like that worked...
: We went right to the maternity ward and got in a room (had to stop for several ctx of course) and declined the admission bloodwork, got an initial monitor reading (Doula held it on my tummy so I could be on my hands and knees), and the nurse checked me (my request). I was 4-5cm and 100% effaced. After the initial strip was done the nurse ok'd me to get in the tub. It didn't seem to help during the ctx since they were SOO intense by then and not really stopping but it did help me relax a little more in between the peaks. An hour after we arrived I requested another check and I was 6cm. This really worried me because I totally felt like I was at the end and I still had 4cm to go! Shortly after that things seemed to change again and I swore my body had to be close because the pressure was rediculously intense and I could feel my bottom bulging. The nurse overheard me telling this to my Doula and said she was going to go ahead and page my OB to get on property and have her check me when she got there. My OB got there at about 8:10pm and checked me to find that I had dilated fully on my left side but had a tiny piece left on the right but it was so tiny that she was confident I was ready to push and could push through it easily. Apparently, I'd gone from 6cm to complete in about 45 min! No wonder I thought the end had to be near...my body had gone into warp mode! We think I must've hit transition about the time we got to the hospital and things just flew from there. So they got me out of the tub (no hospital water births in the metro where we live) and dried off, I got to the bed, and they got a better feel for the baby, listening for her heart rate and my OB felt for her head (I was on my back at this point but my OB said I could turn over after this). My OB then suddenly asked for an u/s machine and I quickly asked what she was worried about (I was pushing through ctx by now, still on my back; did about 2 or 3). She said she wasn't sure baby was head down. I said, "You've got to be kidding! Baby has been head down this whole pregnancy!" She couldn't get a good view on the u/s and decided to go by what it looked and felt like instead. She said, "Nope, it's a head...there's hair!" PHEW! So, I turned over to my elbows and knees so I could get better leverage to push backwards since I knew that's how I felt the strongest. It took a ctx to figure out how to push effectively but after that my OB kept saying how strongly I was pushing and how well the baby was moving down. I was able to see the head on the next ctx and 2 ctx later, her head was out! I of course had a big mirror and watched the whole thing. My OB asked me to stop pushing so I did and then she told me to go ahead and push again. The shoulders came out super easy and I felt such a relief by this time that I really thought she was out. My OB said to give her one more push because apparently her tummy and legs weren't out. I barely pushed and out she came! I pushed for a total of about 20 min and ended up with a 1st degree tear, requiring only 2 small stitches that I didn't even know she'd done until after I delivered the placenta when she told me. 
I turned over to pull her to me and was met by DH right in my face and he said, "It's a girl!" I said, "You're kidding?!!!!" We were both shocked and couldn't stop giggling. We of course exchanged "I love you's, kisses, and he told me how proud he was of me and awesome I'd done. 
: I nursed immediately while we waited for the cord to go limp and to get a feeling that the placenta was ready to come out which I never got. She got a cord blood sample after the majority of the blood had gotten to my little girl and sent it to the lab for a typing (I'm Rh- and needed to know whether Rhogam was necessary). The cord wasn't very long. It was long enough that she rested comfortably on my chest but that's it. My OB checked to see where the placenta was and to her surprise said, "Oh! It's just sitting here waiting! Go ahead and give a little push." It turns out, my placenta had detached already and I just didn't ever feel the ctx that signaled to push it out. I gave one little push and it was out. She showed it to me and explained everything about it which was really neat. Even DH thought it was fascinating. So, we got little Alexandra's body temp up where it need to be, got me cleaned up just a bit and welcomed our family in at about 10:15pm. They left at 10:45pm and my nurse helped get me up and to the bathroom to potty and show me how to use the peri bottle, pads, Tucks, etc. While I was in the bathroom they took out the hospital/delivery bed and folded the family queen sized bed down from the wall and got it ready for us all to sleep in. I got comfy in bed and DH gave Ally her fist bath with some guidance from the nursery nurse. We didn't get much sleep of course with the nurse coming in all night for vitals and learning to BF. Ally's dr got there at about 10 til 6 the next morning and released her to go home whenever we were ready. We declined everything except the hearing test and got those paper signed and no one gave us a hard time at all. My OB came at about 8am and said I was good to go anytime we were ready. We decided to stay through the majority of the day and go home that evening. We got home at about 6:45pm and my Mom, brother, and sister had made us dinner which was so nice to come home to. Our kitties are still trying to figure out what the heck is going on in their house but they've sniffed her a few times. We all doing great, BF'ing has been successful and I'm just waiting for my milk to come in. She's nursing about every 3 hours (have to undress her to wake her up) and is taking both sides for about 15 min each.
Thank you to everyone here for your wonderful support through my 1st pregnancy and I'm so excited to be able to share such an awesome hospital birth with you! It really couldn't have gone better. I'm thrilled with it all and would do the same thing again! I hope I didn't leave out any details!!! It was such a simple labor and birth but there still seems to be so many details.
Baby girl decided to come on our wedding anniversary!
Birth Story:
I had gone to the gym to take an aerobics class on Mon night (10-6) and then went to DH's Grandma's to spend time with his family. I was having my normal BH's that were no more than my tummy getting really tight. They never went away really. I was up about 6x overnight to pee because they were so tight but still causing me absolutely no pain or discomfort so I didn't think anything of them. DH got up at about 6:15am Tues morning (10-7) and I couldn't get back to sleep so I just watched TV in our room while he got ready. He left at about 7:15am and I noticed my back started hurting but again didn't think anything of it because I'd been adjusted the day before and it's normal for me to be sore. I did start seeing a pattern that my back hurt with my BH's and felt better if I put my fist on it. This was my first clue that something might. It still wasn't painful really just kind of annoying because I really wanted to sleep some more. I finally got frustrated and got up at about 7:45am to see if I could get the BH's to calm down. I cleaned my house, ate breakfast, drank a bunch of water and nothing changed. So, I texted my BFF/Doula to see how long it should take for BH's to calm down or go away if you change what you're doing. She said an hour probably and it had been about an hour and half and nothing was any different. I emailed DH to let him know that I had been losing pieces of my plug last night and more this morning with some blood and that maybe something was happening but there was no need for him to come home or anything since I still just wasn't sure. He texted me an hour later to see if anything had chaned and I let him know that things definitely weren't stopping but I was still find and I'd update him in another hour. My doula called me and we talked for a long time. I timed several of what I thought were ctx while we talked and sure enough there was a pattern. They were 3-4min apart and lasted about 1:15min. I decided at about 11:30am that I was going to take a shower and do my hair and makeup just to kill time and see if that made a difference in the "ctx". While I was in the shower I noticed that I couldn't stay totally upright during a ctx and leaned up against the shower wall. It still wasn't painful but it was getting more uncomfortable and my legs felt a little weak. I called my doula after I got done getting ready and she was shocked that she couldn't tell when I was having a ctx but said I definitely sounded different in general and she wasn't surprised that the shower seemed to help things progress. I finally texted DH again and said he should probably start wrapping things up at work and come home when he could but I was still fine and there was no need to hurry or get excited and asked him not to say anything to my Mom because it was still too early (they work together). He got home about an hour and a half later to find me watching "Across the Universe" (love the music!) and working through the ctx by that point either leaning on the counter or rocking on my hands and knees. We walked circles around the house and things were really beginning to change and intensify. My Doula left her house at about 2pm and lives 2 hours away so we just labored at home waiting for her. By 3pm I was becoming vocal with the ctx, using the low moan with a deep breath to encourage things to open. My Doula arrived at about 4:15pm and I was really having to work by then. I was SOO happy to see her! I really needed her help and DH needed her to help too because he couldn't think of any ways to help me as we tried it all by then (position changes, back rub, hip squeeze, etc). At 5pm I said, "I think we need to go" and DH had alreay loaded the car and such and we headed out. The hospital is about a 45 min drive from us which was torture but we made it in 30 min because DH was driving like 90. Ha! Unfortunately we got caught in rush hour traffic and that delayed us just a bit. I remember saying, "Come on people! Get out of my way! Don't you know what I'm trying to do here?!" Yeah, like that worked...
: We went right to the maternity ward and got in a room (had to stop for several ctx of course) and declined the admission bloodwork, got an initial monitor reading (Doula held it on my tummy so I could be on my hands and knees), and the nurse checked me (my request). I was 4-5cm and 100% effaced. After the initial strip was done the nurse ok'd me to get in the tub. It didn't seem to help during the ctx since they were SOO intense by then and not really stopping but it did help me relax a little more in between the peaks. An hour after we arrived I requested another check and I was 6cm. This really worried me because I totally felt like I was at the end and I still had 4cm to go! Shortly after that things seemed to change again and I swore my body had to be close because the pressure was rediculously intense and I could feel my bottom bulging. The nurse overheard me telling this to my Doula and said she was going to go ahead and page my OB to get on property and have her check me when she got there. My OB got there at about 8:10pm and checked me to find that I had dilated fully on my left side but had a tiny piece left on the right but it was so tiny that she was confident I was ready to push and could push through it easily. Apparently, I'd gone from 6cm to complete in about 45 min! No wonder I thought the end had to be near...my body had gone into warp mode! We think I must've hit transition about the time we got to the hospital and things just flew from there. So they got me out of the tub (no hospital water births in the metro where we live) and dried off, I got to the bed, and they got a better feel for the baby, listening for her heart rate and my OB felt for her head (I was on my back at this point but my OB said I could turn over after this). My OB then suddenly asked for an u/s machine and I quickly asked what she was worried about (I was pushing through ctx by now, still on my back; did about 2 or 3). She said she wasn't sure baby was head down. I said, "You've got to be kidding! Baby has been head down this whole pregnancy!" She couldn't get a good view on the u/s and decided to go by what it looked and felt like instead. She said, "Nope, it's a head...there's hair!" PHEW! So, I turned over to my elbows and knees so I could get better leverage to push backwards since I knew that's how I felt the strongest. It took a ctx to figure out how to push effectively but after that my OB kept saying how strongly I was pushing and how well the baby was moving down. I was able to see the head on the next ctx and 2 ctx later, her head was out! I of course had a big mirror and watched the whole thing. My OB asked me to stop pushing so I did and then she told me to go ahead and push again. The shoulders came out super easy and I felt such a relief by this time that I really thought she was out. My OB said to give her one more push because apparently her tummy and legs weren't out. I barely pushed and out she came! I pushed for a total of about 20 min and ended up with a 1st degree tear, requiring only 2 small stitches that I didn't even know she'd done until after I delivered the placenta when she told me. I turned over to pull her to me and was met by DH right in my face and he said, "It's a girl!" I said, "You're kidding?!!!!" We were both shocked and couldn't stop giggling. We of course exchanged "I love you's, kisses, and he told me how proud he was of me and awesome I'd done. : I nursed immediately while we waited for the cord to go limp and to get a feeling that the placenta was ready to come out which I never got. She got a cord blood sample after the majority of the blood had gotten to my little girl and sent it to the lab for a typing (I'm Rh- and needed to know whether Rhogam was necessary). The cord wasn't very long. It was long enough that she rested comfortably on my chest but that's it. My OB checked to see where the placenta was and to her surprise said, "Oh! It's just sitting here waiting! Go ahead and give a little push." It turns out, my placenta had detached already and I just didn't ever feel the ctx that signaled to push it out. I gave one little push and it was out. She showed it to me and explained everything about it which was really neat. Even DH thought it was fascinating. So, we got little Alexandra's body temp up where it need to be, got me cleaned up just a bit and welcomed our family in at about 10:15pm. They left at 10:45pm and my nurse helped get me up and to the bathroom to potty and show me how to use the peri bottle, pads, Tucks, etc. While I was in the bathroom they took out the hospital/delivery bed and folded the family queen sized bed down from the wall and got it ready for us all to sleep in. I got comfy in bed and DH gave Ally her fist bath with some guidance from the nursery nurse. We didn't get much sleep of course with the nurse coming in all night for vitals and learning to BF. Ally's dr got there at about 10 til 6 the next morning and released her to go home whenever we were ready. We declined everything except the hearing test and got those paper signed and no one gave us a hard time at all. My OB came at about 8am and said I was good to go anytime we were ready. We decided to stay through the majority of the day and go home that evening. We got home at about 6:45pm and my Mom, brother, and sister had made us dinner which was so nice to come home to. Our kitties are still trying to figure out what the heck is going on in their house but they've sniffed her a few times. We all doing great, BF'ing has been successful and I'm just waiting for my milk to come in. She's nursing about every 3 hours (have to undress her to wake her up) and is taking both sides for about 15 min each. Thank you to everyone here for your wonderful support through my 1st pregnancy and I'm so excited to be able to share such an awesome hospital birth with you! It really couldn't have gone better. I'm thrilled with it all and would do the same thing again! I hope I didn't leave out any details!!! It was such a simple labor and birth but there still seems to be so many details.
What a short labor for a first birth! (Although I'm sure no labor really feels short when you're in it . . .)
:
Alexandra!!!
