The Birth Story

This is the Bracelet I mentioned in the last post.

At around 2 am on October 26th, I woke up to go to the bathroom.  Pretty much the same as I did every other morning that week.  I tried to go back to bed but I was having some pretty strong contractions.  Again, pretty much the same as every other morning that week.  After about 30 minutes of trying to go back to sleep and not having any luck, I decided to play on my kindle in the living room for a bit (aka Facebook stalking).  Since not very many people are posting about anything at 3 in the morning, I had to move on to reading blogs.  I spent a good 3 hours reading about everything that my sister Sheri was doing in 2009.  By 7am I was still having contractions but I really didn't think I was in labor because there wasn't any consistency with how far apart they were.  By this time, I decided Nate should wake up so he could entertain me until the contractions calmed down enough to go back to sleep.  My contractions started to last really long (up to 3 minutes) even though there was still no consistency with how far apart they were.  I decided to call the nurse at my doctor's office because all the times I'd been having contractions before this, they didn't last more than 90 seconds.  The nurse on the phone told me I needed to get to the hospital asap.  We got to L and D around 8:45 and found out that I was 5cm dilated!  Only 2 days before at the doctor they measured me at barely 2cm.  Since I tested positive for group B strep, they had to get the IV with antibiotics started.  By the time they found a good vein and had everything going, it was 9:30 and I was dilated to 6cm.  Things were definitely progressing!  I was lucky enough to get the delivery room that had a tub in it so as soon as my first round of antibiotics finished, I got to get in the tub, which really helped with the contractions.  After that, things had REALLY picked up, so they checked me again and I was at 8cm.  I decided at that point that I'd be a lot happier with an epidural, which I really was!  Just after the epidural started working, they went to check me again and my water broke.  At 12, it was time to start pushing and 29 minutes later, our little Olivia was out!  From here, you should refer to the previous post for pictures right after she was born.