First of all, remember when I was induced with Landon because he had passed his meconium while in the womb, and had inhaled it? And how he wasn't practicing his breathing so he had to get induced? And with Tucker, remember how he was also induced because we wanted to let Mike's teachers know he wasn't going to be able to come to a few days worth of classes because his wife was having a baby? Well, this time around I didn't want to get induced. It's no fun, takes longer, and I wanted to experience labor on my own.
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It started on the night of Tuesday the 16. I kept getting really weird cramping on my lower stomach that was super painful, and kept coming every 15 mins or so. I didn't know what they were, and thinking I needed to go to the bathroom, I got up and went every time I had the pain. Nothing ever happened, and after about 3 or 4 hours of the cramping they stopped and I finally went to sleep.
The next day I would get them every so often, but they were painful enough I would have to stop in my tracks and wait for them to pass. On Monday I had an appointment with my doctor who said I was dilated to a 3, so on Wednesday I was getting more and more anxious for Baby Girl to come. I would do squats with Landon and Tucker, and bounce gently on my exercise ball. Wednesday evening came, and my cramps came back around dinner time. They were coming more and more frequent, so I called my doctor (after calling my mom for her opinion) and he said to come to his office first thing in the morning and he'll check out what's going on.
We put the boys to bed, and went into the living room to watch a movie. Still cramping, I finally decided to just go to bed and sleep it off around 9. During this pain, I said a prayer asking Heavenly Father what I should do, stay home and wait it out, or go to the hospital. As soon as I said 'amen', I got this really strong feeling that I needed to go to the hospital. So I got out of bed and told Mike we needed to go to the hospital because either I was in labor, or something was wrong with me or the baby. He quickly got up and dressed and asked me to call our babysitter to come over, but since I was in such pain I could hardly talk, I had him call while I struggled to get my things together. Babysitter was on her way, and Mike went to turn the car on and get some heat going.
We checked into the hospital at 10:30 and put me in a triage room to get checked out. The midwife came in and checked me and said I was dilated to a 6 1/2! Yay! In between contractions (they were coming every 1-2 mins now) I told them I want my epidural ASAP because last time I ran out of time and I didn't want to go through that again. So they took my blood to be sent to the labs, and once that was cleared I could get it. I was taken to my labor and delivery room where I met the nicest nurse! Her name was Sumer and she was by far the best nurse I've had with all 3 deliveries. Not long after getting to the room, the anesthesiologist came in to give me the epidural, thank goodness! Since the nurse knew I didn't want to wait to get it, she had me sit up to get into position in between contractions. And while contracting, in went the needle and all that stuff for the epidural. Mike wasn't allowed to be by me while I was getting it, he could only sit on a chair and watch. But Sumer was so nice about letting me push my forehead against her shoulder and help me relax. While all this was going on my water broke! Later I told Mike how crazy that moment must have been! Constant contractions, poking of needles, and my water breaking all at the same time.
Thankfully the epidural started working within 15 minutes, and Mike and I were able to get a little bit of sleep. I tested positive for Group B Strep, so the antibiotics needed to be in my system for 4 hours before the baby was allowed to come. My nurse told me that she wasn't going to check my progress until that time came because she was confident that I would be at a 10 long before the four hours were up.
The doctor came in around 3:35am, and when he want to check my progress he could see the baby's head already crowing! He quickly got his gown on, and told me to push. One gentle push and out she came! She was this perfect purple little girl who was delivered with her tongue hanging out of her mouth :) Once she started to cry she quickly turned a healthy pink. I got to do skin to skin with her for over an hour and it was so sweet! The nurse came by and put a little hat on her head and she was not happy about that! She hated that hat and still does!
I still hadn't been able to get a good look at her since she was on my chest, so I asked Mike what her name should be. He smiled and said "She looks like an Annabelle". So Annabelle she became. We decided on no middle name because her first name is already a mouthfull. Mike calls her Belle, and I call her Annabelle. Landon calls her "the baby", "her", or "my sister" and Tucker calls her "baby", "sister" or "it". We love our new addition to the family and can't wait to see what she'll bring to us later!
This labor and delivery was everything I wanted. My goal was to go into labor at home (check!), head to the hospital around 10 at night (check!), have the baby around 2 or 3am (check!) and have Mike head back to be with the boys before they woke up (check!) They had no idea we had left until they woke up, and even then, not much had changed except I wasn't there. I couldn't have asked for a better birth :)
