Catharine's Birth Story (allison7)

Catharine Elisabeth arrived on Wednesday, August 20 at 4:58pm weighing 8lbs 1oz and measuring 21.25 inches.

The story: Just before 9pm last Tuesday I got up fromthe couch and I had a slight cramp. Since I had been having light cramps I didn't think anything of it until the gushing started - my water had definitely broken! I put out a call into the on-call OB and then DH so he would come back from hockey. The doc said to get something to eat and then go to the hospital. We arrived at the hospital at 11. I was still having cramps (and a lot of fluid leaking), but I was only 1cm. I was in triage for a while because they didn't have any L&D rooms, but at 2:30 we were settled into our room and they started pit at 3 since labor had not started. Things got going then! I got sick during the contractions, so I had the epi at 5 and got a couple of hours of sleep. By 1 I was at 8cm,the epi was wearing off and the clicker wasn't really helping, so they we able to give me something extra. At 3pm, I was at 10 and they had me continue to labor until I felt an urgency to push - which happened at 3:30. I pushed for an hour and a half p. Towards the end I was pretty much out between contractions and the epi was once again not working, but there was no stopping. The OB did need to give me a slight episiotomy and that led to a 2nd degree tear, but I wasn't tearing on my own and she wasn't coming out if I didn't! At 4:58 she was here!

Just this evening DH commented on how there is a baby here and just 9 months ago we were scared we would never be able to have one. We feel so lucky and blessed to get to be her parents.