♥ Annabelle's Birth Story ♥

Wow. What a whirl wind.

It all started on Tuesday, March 8th. I'd been having contractions all day long. I had a big test on Tuesday night so I was trying to fight the contractions, as if you can do that. I went as far as emailing my teacher telling him I might not make it to class. I couldn't focus on studying at all. But I really didn't want to miss the test. Not that I was ready, but I didn't want to do the make up test, which is an essay test and sounds way harder than the multiple choice test. So I went to class. I actually felt better too. I failed the test...but now I think I understand why. Ok I didn't FAIL, but close. It was hard. (I just looked it up...I got a 74%).

After class, I headed home. Class went a little later than normal and I hit the highway to go home around 9:05. I called Nick to talk to him for part of the drive. I just didn't feel good. I almost stopped to get food, but decided I'd rather just go to bed. I got home about 9:30 or so and basically just got ready for bed. Nick came up around 11 or so and we both fell asleep pretty easily. For awhile.

I woke up about 1:30 with a sharp stomach pain. Much different than anything I had ever felt before. It felt like severe gas pains or something. It passed and I decided to drink a little water and go back to bed. But I couldn't go back to bed. The stomach pains kept coming. I started timing them. They were coming ever 4 minutes. I tried going to the bathroom. I tried all the "false labor" tricks. You know, the things they tell you to do if you are in false labor. Drink water. Empty your bladder. Walk around. Change positions. Etc. Etc.

Things were not improving. If anything, the pains were getting worse. Now 3 minutes apart. At 2:40 I decided to call the exchange. At this point I was sitting in the nursery. I didn't want to wake Nick up if it was false labor. I called and the on call doc called me back immediately. I told him what as going on. I got a contraction during the call and couldn't talk. I was almost in tears. He told me to come in.

I got up and went back into our room. I asked Nick to call his mom and see if she could watch Dom. Then I went to get all my stuff together and make sure my hospital bag was ready. I put my contacts in and straightened my hair. (For the record, I had showered that night and went to bed with my hair wet and it was everywhere and my hair isn't long enough to put in a ponytail...that's why I straightened it. It only took like 5 minutes...).

Then we went to get Dom's stuff together. At this point, the contractions are hurting more than ever. I now know exactly what active labor feels like. We got Dom up and headed to Sue's house. In the car, I had quite a few contractions. Every time I would try my breathing and squeeze Nick's hand and I probably sounded awful. Dominick was up at this point and he kept asking, "You OK, Momma??". I would tell him that I was ok and then he would ask, "I kiss it??". I told him yes, he could kiss it and I would hand him my hand. He would kiss my hand and say, "All better?". He's such a sweet heart.

Of course, right after we dropped him off I realized we didn't have a camera, so we went back to Sue's and borrowed her camera. Then we were finally off to the hospital. My contractions were now about 2 minutes apart and very painful.

We got to the hospital at 3:30 am and went straight to Labor and Delivery. They checked me in and brought me back to a room. They hooked up the monitors and saw that my contractions were 2 minutes apart and measuring around 90. They checked to see if I was dilated at all, and I was at 2 cm. I was in pain. I was already asking for the epidural. They called the on call doc and we decided to do a c-section. I had the option of trying on my own, but I didn't want to at this point. I was exhausted already and we had no idea how big the baby was. Unfortunately, I was the fourth person to come in that night in labor...and the fourth repeat c-section. So we had to wait for the OR.

The anesthesiologist came in around 5 am for the epidural. Not gonna lie, it was still a little painful, and didn't take effect right away. But after about 30 minutes, I was ok. She left and came back at 6 am to get me ready for surgery. They thought the surgery would be about 6:15, but we didn't get into the OR until 6:50.

I remember being wheeled in and "Here I go again" by Whitesnake was playing on the radio. They said Annabelle was going to be a Rocker! They got me on the table and started prepping me. I could hear the nurses doing their counts of tools and what not.

Then they started. It was so much better than with Dom. With Dom I was throwing up and in pain and he was stuck after pushing for so long and it was plain awful. This time I was alert and it didn't hurt. I honestly just felt the pressure. After what seemed like hardly any time at all, I heard the vacuum. She was stuck (although I'm not sure where!?). But then I heard them say, "Here she comes!" and then it was over. She was born at 7:06 am. They pulled her back and she was COVERED in the white goo since she was so early. She was crying and it was beautiful. They brought her over to the scale to clean her and do her APGAR scores and I just watched her. At first I was scared because she wasn't breathing as well as they'd like. Since I didn't push, the fluid wasn't pushed out of her lungs. But then they got a good amount out with the bulb syringe and she let out a yell! Her apgar scores were 7 and then 9. So very good.

Nick went over to cut the cord and they weighed her...8 lbs and 11 ounces. Thank God I didn't try a VBAC. I couldn't get Dom out who was 8 lbs 9 ounces so I'm sure I would've had the same result with AJ.

It didn't take long to get me put me back together. I think I was in recovery by 7:20. They brought her back to me almost immediately and I was able to try and nurse her. She latched immediately. It was such a different experience from Dominick's birth.

I recovered a little slower this time around and I'm not sure if it's because it was my second c-section or what it was. But I'm feeling much better now. And how much better it was has been worth every second of pain.

I still can't believe we have TWO kids. Dominick has been fantastic. He loves his "baby sissy". He likes to hold her and when she cries, he brings me her binky. He's already a great big brother.

I also want to mention how great our families have been. Nick's mom, Sue, basically kept Dom for Tuesday through Friday. Nick watched him Friday night and then my parents took him Saturday morning and kept him until we were ready to go home on Sunday. They even brought him up to the hospital since I wanted a picture of the whole family at the hospital and forgot to take one before then.

We are so lucky to have such great family and friends and I'm so in love with my husband, my son, and now my daughter.

I'll update more later with more pictures but this is a good start...for me. With two kiddos, I haven't been on the computer at all. Hopefully I'll get to update more again soon.

But there's her story.

Annabelle Jean

March 9, 2011 at 7:06 am

8 lb. 11 oz.

21" long