Holly's Birth Story

Hello! Holly is almost three weeks old, and I thought it was about time I sat down and tried to write out her birth story. I did the same for Griffin (here's a link, if anyone wants to check it out: Griffin's Birth Story) and it was kind of nice to go back. Anyway, here goes:

Things started out much the same as they had for Griffin. I woke up at around 3 in the morning, and could tell right away that we were going to be meeting our baby today. It was very exciting, and I didn't wait too long before waking Jai up and saying, "It's happening." Jai got up and started getting everything ready to go to the hospital, while I tried to rest a little longer. We called my parents, and told my Mom to start heading over. It takes about two hours to get from her house to ours, so our plan was to call our friends Brandon and Jo to come over and stay with Griffin until my Mom could get there. Unfortunately, we couldn't get ahold of them! And then we couldn't get ahold of my Mom.

So we packed Griffin up to go with us (luckily he fell right back asleep as soon as he was put in his car seat.) We were hoping to get in touch with my Mom, and tell her to meet us at the hospital, instead of coming all the way into town (the hospital is about half way between our houses), but she wasn't answering her phone, either. We decided that we might be able to see her passing us on the highway, and somehow flag her down. So, off we went, straining our eyes in the pitch black to try and see the cars going the other way as they passed us at 110km/hr. Finally, most of the way to the hospital, we passed one that we both thought might be her. Jai did a U-Turn, and started weaving back and forth behind her, and getting really close to her, flashing our lights, and honking. Did she pull over? Of course not. Finally, we got to a place with a passing lane, and pulled up beside, where I frantically waved out my window until she looked over. Thank goodness it was her! So she followed us the rest of the way to the hospital, and then took our van and drove Griffin back home. He slept through the whole thing.

In all the excitement, though, my contractions had slowed from 2 minutes to 4-6 minutes apart. We had expected to get to the hospital and be rushing in to deliver the baby (see Griffin's birth story.) Griffin was so fast, for a first baby, all the doctors said we should get straight to the hospital this time. But my contractions seemed to have stalled out at about 4 minutes apart. They hooked me up to the machine for a while, but I was only at 3cm, and the nurse told us we could leave the hospital and get some breakfast if we wanted. A little disheartened, we left and had breakfast and did some shopping.

By now, it was after ten in the morning, and I'd really expected to already be holding a baby. We went back to the hospital after another hour, and she hooked me back up and checked me - 3-1/2 cm. It was almost noon, and still things were not really progressing beyond where they were when we arrived at the hospital. We kept telling her, the first one went so fast, but she said she was not able to admit us, and was comfortable sending us home - even though it was an hour each way.

Well, there was no way I was going home! And it's a good thing we didn't! Very quickly, everything sped up. Jai and I walked around the hospital, and spent some time in the visitor's room, pacing around. It didn't take long before I could barely stand during the contractions, and we went back to the admitting room. Only now we couldn't get anyone to come and see us! Everyone was busy. I finally told Jai to go and tell them I was about to start pushing, and that quickly produced results, as nurses came rushing over, and rushing to get me and the room ready. There were people taking my blood, and trying (and trying, and trying) to put an IV in, all during crazy contractions. Thank goodness for laughing gas! And for husbands who don't mind if you crush them and scream at them at the same time. I had to do a lot more work to get Holly out than I did with Griffin, but still it wasn't too much longer before we were holding her in our arms. The nurse kept saying "he" and it was a few moments before I knew that she was actually a girl because she was pretty blue at first (the cord was apparently wrapped around her neck when she was born), so everyone was busy with that.

Anyway, while it felt rushed and, at the same time, like it took for-freaking-ever, it was almost exactly two hours between when the nurse tried to send us home, and when we were holding Holly in our arms. She was born at 2:16 p.m. And I think the extra time for pushing was actually better for both of us, because Holly didn't have all the problems with mucous that Griffin did, and I didn't need as many stitches this time, either. They made us stay in the hospital for 48 hours, because the stupid IV antibiotics that they wanted to put in need to be in place at least four hours before birth to have any effect. So why did they stick me (again and again and again) if it wasn't going to work? Anyway, that's a bit of a side rant. Everything went well, and everyone was happy and healthy at the end of it, and that's really all that matters.

I'll be back soon with a more general update!