x-post Team green goes pink. Almost med-free story

My little girl (we were shocked, everyone had predicted boy) came into the world Friday morning at 3:44 am. She was 7 lbs, 2 oz and 21 inches long.

Contractions started around 4:30 am on Thursday, and were steadily 10 minutes apart. I wasn't sure whether I believed that this was the real thing, and since it's a major pain to find coverage at my job, I didn't want to call out until I knew. I continued to time them during my commute and decided not long after I opened the pharmacy that I was not going to be staying for my whole shift. Luckily my boss came in pretty quickly and I was on my way back home by 10am. 

Peter and I took it easy during the day, walked to the library, did some laundry and hung around the house waiting. The pain was extremely manageable until around 7 pm when I had to start concentrating to get through the contractions, even though they were still 7-8 minutes apart. By 9:30, they had been between 5 and 3.5 minutes apart for over an hour, so we headed to the hospital.

When I was checked in triage, I was only 1-2 cm, and the contractions slowed as soon as I lay down, back down to close to 10 minutes apart. They had me walk the halls for an hour (contractions picked up as soon as we got walking), but there was still no progress. At this point, they should have been sending me home, but my nurse was awesome, and had good intuition. She told the doctor that I hadn't progressed, but based on my comfort level, and how far we lived from the hospital, she thought we should stay and give me some iv meds to help me relax. ThankfuIlly he agreed.

had gone into pregnancy wanting to have a med-free birth, because I wanted to avoid as many interventions as possible. However, when my nurse Anne suggested the demerol and phenergan, I truly felt she had my best interests in mind. She had been very supportive of my birth plan, and had had natural births with her children, but she could see that my body was really not relaxing despite all the efforts we were making to have it happen. Knowing how things turned out, I know it was the right decision, and really think that if I had declined, I probably would have ended up having more interventions suggested, if not needed.

The demerol didn't really do much for the pain, I was still feeling the contractions, but at least I got to sleep in between them. According to my husband, they were still pretty spaced out, but I was moaning through each one. After an hour and a half, I woke up to a really strong one, and at the end of it my water broke with a huge gush. 

Knowing that the contractions usually get worse after your water breaks, and feeling like I had barely made it through the last one, I told Peter that I didn't want to go med-free any more, I really didn't think I could do it. Anne said that they had just called the anesthesiologist for the girl next door, and they would bring him over if I wanted, but she wanted to check me first. To everyone's surprise I was suddenly at 9 cm. Apparently my body really did just need a little rest!

After that everything moved pretty quickly, my sister called our parents while Peter called his (I was fine with my mom and MIL being there for the birth, but we thought we'd have more time to get them there) and I moaned through a couple more contractions.

By 3:15 I was pushing, and Gabriella Rose was out at 3:44 am. My sister was the one who actually announced that we had a girl (she happened to have the best view when someone asked what it was). 

We came home yesterday, and I just can't believe how in love I am with this little angel. She has such a personality already, and I could sit and watch her make faces for hours.