Allyson's Birth Story

Allyson is 4 months old, and I really feel like I need to get her birth story written down before I forget it!

We moved into our new house in October 2008. Then began the house renovations. The master bedroom and Braydon's room were major projects and began after Christmas. Allyson was due March 23rd. When Braydon was born we were rushing to get his room finished. His room was finally completed April 21st, Braydon was born April 22nd. Braydon's room in the new house was finished and then work on the master bedroom began. Our old mattress and box spring wouldn't fit up the stairs of the new house, so we bought a new two-piece box spring and a big mattress. My goal was to sleep on the new mattress before the baby was born and my sleep was compromised for who knows how long.

So, the room was finished and the new bed was set up March 14th....do you see where this was going?

I went to bed on Saturday March 14th. I woke up around 4:30am with stomach cramps. Nah, I thought, it couldn't possibly be labour, I'm not due for a week. Braydon was one day early, but I still have time. But nope, the pesky cramps were 10 minutes apart and not going away. I can't remember what time I woke Wylie up, it may have been close to 5:30 or 6am. I told him I thought I was in labour. Because of how quickly the first labour progressed, we were definitely going to make it to the hospital this time before I was 10cm dilated! Around 7am I called my dad and asked if he could come and get Braydon soonish. He was still in bed when I called, he was at my house (a 10 minute drive) by 7:20am. By this time I was freaking a little because my contractions were pretty strong and 5 minutes apart. When my dad got to our house with my sister Erin, they practically grabbed Braydon and threw me out of the house....no time for long goodbyes, they were worried I'd go fast.

We got to the hospital before 8am. When I arrived at the hospital I told them I'd only been in labour for 3.5 hours and I know I probably am not very far along, but last time it went really quick so I didn't want to go home even if I wasn't far along. They took one look at my chart (not even at me) and said, your doctor says you have precipitous labour, you're not going anywhere. Remembering that I was having contractions every 5 minutes I was like 'precipi-what?' Not going anywhere? Great!!!!

So I was sent into my labour and delivery room, hooked up to the monitors and all was good. When I was first checked, somewhere around 8:30am, after just 4 hours of labour, I was already at 7cm. Craziness!!!! No wonder it hurts so freaking much.

At this point time frames start to get a little fuzzy. Since I progress sooooo quickly and my water hadn't yet broken, the on-call decided to break my water so that they could control when things would happen more. More progression and water breakage later it was shortly after 10am (maybe 10:10ish?) when I was ready to push.

I don't know if this is typical, but when I'm not allowed to 'push' all I want to do is push. Then when they let me push I decide I don't want to cause it hurts too much....women in labour are not rational! Also, I am not a screamer apparently. I just said 'ouch, ouch, ouch, ouch, ouch' the whole time there was pain. Fun....anyway, after a bit of pushing at 10:25am on March 15th Allyson was born! Then the fun began.

First, as soon as Allyson was born they placed her on me. This is normally a wonderful thing, but they were delivering my placenta at the same time, which involves a lot of uncomfortable and painful pushing on your tummy. I was completely stressed out that I was going to drop her. And then she peed all over me. Ah babies.

I required stitches this time, fairly common but I didn't have any with Braydon. So once everything was delivered, they realized that my bleeding was not stopping. They also discovered during my pre-birth blood work that I was severely anemic so this was a pretty big problem. I ended up on blood clotting iv stuff and we had to stay in labour and delivery until the bleeding was 'under control'. We were in l&d for 4 or 5 more hours....yes, that's right, I was in l&d for longer after birth than before the baby was born.

So all in all, Allyson's labour took 6 hours start to finish.....I'm scared what will happen if I have a 3rd kid....