So on November 11
th around five or so I thought I was probably in labor. The contractions were pretty erratic, so I went to
Walmart with my Mom. Nothing says classy like spending part of your labor in the
Walmart. At any rate nothing serious started to happen until about nine o'clock or so.
I had contractions coming every five minutes around nine-thirty, and I waited for them to continue for an hour. While that was happening I thought maybe I should finish packing stuff for the hospital. Before I know it, it has been an hour and my contractions abruptly decide to come every two minutes. That seemed like a good time to go get Daryl and go to the hospital. Down I went to the basement to get Daryl off the X-Box.
We got to the hospital around eleven and the nurse said I was four to five centimeters dilated. She asked what my birth plan was i.e. did I want an epidural. I told her yes I wanted one, but apparently Avery had other plans. The nurses got us settled in our birthing suite and started me on some antibiotics because I was positive for group strep B. The contractions were not fun, but I was living through them and eagerly awaiting my epidural.
The nurses were finally done with all their questions and Daryl and I were left alone for the first time since we got there when suddenly the contractions felt different and I was pretty sure my body thought it was a good time to start pushing. Now I must also add that the anesthesiologists cart was in our room and we were just waiting for the anesthesiologist to show up to give me my epidural. That was not to be.
The nurse came in as I was done having my pushing contraction and said oh do you feel like pushing? I hadn't been checked since I got there because they were waiting to get me comfortable and all drugged up before they checked me again. She checked and said I was ready to go and she told one of the other nurses to get the kit ready (I assume all the crude they need on hand for the actually delivery).
Daryl asked if I was still going to get an epidural and she said no. The epidural wouldn't take effect before labor would be over. I wasn't really overjoyed to hear that. Then she told me not to push until the doctor got there. This was the worst part of labor- trying not to push. Apparently my body really did know what it was doing and it really wanted to push. Not pushing was not fun. It was too long until the doctor got there and Avery was out in about five or six pushes. As soon as her head was delivered I felt instant relief and the rest of the delivery was a breeze.
Avery came out and they put her on me, and it was crazy. I was expecting some alien conehead baby screaming at me, but instead there was this cute, alert little baby with a perfectly rounded head looking at me. She just lay there looking at me and looking around the room. It was a pretty shocking experience. It felt like someone had told me I just won the lottery or something, and I couldn't quite believe what I was seeing or hearing.
Well Avery got all cleaned up and checked over. I was happy to hear that she was six pounds twelve ounces since I didn't want to try pushing out a baby much bigger than that. I asked the nurse what time she had been born and she said 12:50 AM. I looked at Daryl and said when did we get here? We then realized we had gotten to the hospital around eleven, so our little girl had come in just under two hours.
Over the three days we spent at the hospital the nurses who would come in were amazed that this was my first baby. We came home on Friday morning. They kept us longer because I was supposed to get four hours of antibiotics and only got two. Avery did okay though and we were all happy to come home to our much softer bed.
