My 2 Hour Delivery

My beautiful baby girl arrived 5 days early, and only 2 hours after entering the hospital doors. Not bad for a first timer, huh?

My water broke on Sunday morning at around 8:30 am. I had spent the 2 days leading up to the event bouncing around on an exercise ball I borrowed from my mother (I highly recommend getting one of these FYI!) I started having contractions on Saturday, which were irregular but growing in intensity by Saturday evening. I lost my mucus plug throughout the entire course of the day (one glob after another. Gross, right?) When I awoke at 5 am, my contractions grew steadily more intense and increased from 20 minutes apart to 8 minutes apart while I was in the shower. When my water broke at 8:30 (with a very audible and distinct POP!), I called my OB's office and told them what had happened. My contractions were 5 minutes apart after I hung up the phone, and increased to 2 minutes apart during the 30 minute trip to the hospital. Bear in mind, my OB thought I was still in the early stages of labor. I was in intense, excruciating pain as we left the house and had decided I was done being brave and wanted the spinal as soon as we got to the hospital.

We checked in and headed to Labor & Delivery (by some coincidence the computer system crashed literally as I walked through the door). When the OB checked me, I was already 7-8 cm dilated and my bp was so high they ordered pre-e labs. After they decided they were going to admit me (good call on their part), they checked me before moving me to the delivery room, and I was fully dilated. There was no time for pain meds. They didn't even have time to place an IV.

By the time I got into the delivery room and in bed knowing I wasn't going to get any pain relief, I felt the intense urge to push. My body knew what to do, and with each contraction I barely felt any pain because I was so focused with each push. After 20 minutes of pushing, Ashley Jean was laying on my chest. She weighed 6 lbs 2.5 ounces and was 19 inches long. I have a small 2nd degree tear that was repaired with stitches.

I am still amazed at how fast the delivery went of my first child. I'm actually relieved I didn't have the option for pain medicine because I was interested in a drug free delivery as it was. We only stayed 1 night because thankfully my recovery was relatively easy and Ashley is an expert nurser. I couldn't be more thrilled by my birth experience.