Bridget's Birth Story

Once upon a time, I was a poet, however I haven't written any poetry since I wrote my son's birth story as a poem. I pondered writing Bridget's that way as well, but drew a blank, so now you just get the story as it happened:

It was the day after her due date, at 1:50am. I woke up and had a contraction. A real one. (I guess I should preface that by saying I had only had Braxton Hicks up to this point.) So I waited to see if I would have another one and I did... only 5 minutes later. I waited again and sure enough I had another contraction only 5 minutes later. I was getting a little freaked out at this point. I wasn't sure what to expect because I was induced with Peyton and my water broke with Damon, so I never had labor start with contractions before. I thought I remembered reading that you should head to the hospital when contractions were consistently 5 minutes apart and lasting about a minute.

I woke up my hubby after the 3rd contraction to ask his opinion. The hospital was 45 minutes away, so I was worried about being able to make it in time. I seriously did not want to deliver in the car. Once I had another one, I got up and started getting dressed and my hubby did the same. The hospital bag was already packed, and after about 45 minutes of consistent contractions, my hubby called my mother-in-law to come and stay with the kids.

We headed to the hospital, my hubby driving as fast as possible. On the way, my contractions became 3 minutes apart. Call me a weakling, but all I was hoping for was that I had enough time to get an epidural before she came.

Once I was all checked in at the hospital, one of the first things I asked the nurse for was an epidural. I knew they took time to get them and wasn't sure how much longer this labor would be. We were moved into our delivery room around 4:30am.

It wasn't long before the anesthesiologist came in and my hubby was sent out of the room. It was during this time that he went to Wal-Mart to buy a camera (we had forgotten ours at home!) Once I got my epidural, there wasn't anything to do but wait.

I laid back and tried to sleep, but that didn't last long. Around 5:30am, I started feeling a lot of pressure. Like, a LOT of pressure. The next thing I knew, my water broke and the pressure intensified. I called in the nurse because the way I was feeling, I seriously thought her head might be peeking out already.

The nurse came and checked me and had me give a few "test" pushes. She then told me to stop because we needed to wait for the doctor. Let me just say, do you know how hard it is to stop pushing when every fiber of your body says to push? It's hard. 

So the doctor came in and several nurses, all getting everything in place. Finally I started pushing. It was the shortest time I had pushing in all my labors, but it was also the hardest. Miss B was so long that while she was coming out, her legs were still up in my ribs and it make it difficult for me to take a deep breath to push with. I remember distinctly saying, "I can't breathe!" 

After only 10 minutes of pushing, out she came at 6:18am! And in came my breath! Ah, it was sweet relief! The doctor said, "That's a big baby!" but I didn't take it too seriously. All my babies weren't exactly tiny (9 pounds and 8 pounds 12 ounces). My hubby cut the cord and they placed her on my chest for a few minutes before taking her over and cleaning her up a bit more and weighing her. I eagerly awaited the announcement so I could text my family and update friends and family via Facebook! When the nurse called out "10 pounds 4 ounces" I could barely believe it! No wonder I couldn't breathe!!

So that was pretty much it! A grand total of 4 hours and 28 minutes of labor. So happy to have sweet baby Bridget in our family!