Abby's Story

Wow - it might be a little harder to post than I thought it was going to be. I am so in love with this little girl - I don't want to put her down!!

So on Tuesday after I posted, my contractions started getting a little stronger, but nothing I couldn't talk through. We left to go to the doctor with our bags packed - I knew that even if it wasn't right then, it was coming soon. On the way to the doctor's office, I was timing the contractions about every 5 minutes, and they were starting to hurt. Right before we got there, I thought that I should have called to see if they wanted me at my appointment, or if I should just go to L&D since I knew I was close. Since I didn't call first, we went up to the office (which is just across the street from the hospital) and asked them. The receptionist went to find the nurse to ask, and came back and told us just to go to the hospital, since the doctor I was going to see that day was actually over at the hospital. So over to the hospital we went.

We went up to labor and delivery, where they showed me to a room and got me hooked up to all of the equipment. They told us that it was really busy that day and that they were having a hard time finding rooms for everyone - which made me worried that they would send me home. The nurse checked me, and I was a bit disappointed when I was still at 3 1/2 cm - same as the Friday before. But the good news was that my contractions were every 2 -3 minutes apart, and getting stronger. I was ecstatic when they came and and told me they were moving me to a delivery room!!

From here, it all went pretty smoothly. The doctor - Andrea Smith (who was on call for my doctor who was out of town) came in and checked me again - up to a 4 at this point. She broke my water to speed things along a bit. When she broke my water, she noticed that there was meconium in the water, so I had to have a tube put in me that flushed water through to try to clear it out. It wasn't bad, so they weren't too worried - just a precaution. I have to say, it was quite weird, laying there in a bed with fluids running in and out of me!

Shortly after that, I got my epidural, which was pretty painless. It took a little while for it to kick in, so I got to experience some good contractions. Once the epidural took over, my contractions did slow down just a bit, so they supplemented me with pitocin to keep things going. From this point forward, I progressed fairly quickly.

At about 10 to 8, I started pushing. I had Josh there on one leg, my mom on the other leg, and my mother in law holding my head. I have to say, I had the best team there. It was really a different experience, because I couldn't feel a thing because of the epidural. I didn't really know where or how to push because I couldn't feel anything, but they were the best coaches, cheering me on when things were good. The nurse told me I would probably end up pushing for 1 1/2 to 2 hours since it was my first, but just under an hour later, at 8:43pm, Abby came into this world.

It was all such an amazing experience. Josh and I both bawled like babies, and I haven't been able to keep my eyes off of her since. I am so in love!!

Things are going fairly well right now. Josh has been great - taking such good care of both of us and the dog. My feet are really swollen, so I've been trying to stay off of them, and I ended up needing an episiotomy (sp?) so I'm trying to heal from that. If it wasn't for those 2 things, I would feel great right now!! She's a good eater, although my milk hasn't come in yet, but she's still been a trooper. I actually had 2 periods of 3 hours of sleep in a row last night, so hopefully that will continue! The only trouble we have had so far is that she doesn't like to get put down, so one of us is basically holding her all of the time. I'm sure once she gets used to this new place that will get better.

I'm sure I'll have all kinds of photos coming up. I told Josh we will need a new hard drive to store them all becasue I've already gone crazy! And I'm planning on using this as my way to keep a journal of everything.

I love my little girl!