I went into labour on January 12 around 2:00 am. I rolled around in bed. I got up and paced. At first I thought I had eaten something bad. When I laid down again I realized that the pain was coming in waves. I began to check the time and noticed they were about 5 minutes apart. Then around 4:00 they stopped. I had contractions on and off most of the morning. My poor husband spent so much time wondering if he should go to work or stay home. Finally around noon I told called my mom and said I was heading to the hospital. We took my son over to my parents and headed to the hospital.
We got to the hospital around 3:00 pm. I was taken into triage and checked out. Sure enough I was in labour. They found me a L&D room and I settled in to get comfortable. Now I had made some decisions with this birth. My son's had been hell, back labour and too many drugs. Well, this one was going to be different. Oh it was different all right. I was hooked up to monitors and machines due to my rising blood pressure. When could I get up and walk around? Only to hit the bathroom, if necessary. Well, that wasn't in the plan.
My progress was very slow but I hadn't required any drugs. It was recommended that I have an epi due to my blood pressure but I didn't want one yet. I breathed through my contractions and began chanting "relax" as each one hit. Around 7:00 they decided to break my water, hoping to speed things up. The nurse said she would go on a break because she doubted anything was going to happen.
Around 7:45 I asked the nurse to call in the doctor to do an epi as the pain was getting pretty intense. I waited until about quarter after 8 before the doctor got there. I kept wondering where the hell he was. Then I had to sit up on the edge of the bed while he prepared everything. Sitting up was excruciating. The contractions were now coming hard and fast. The doctor kept telling me not to move. It was pure torture. He finally got the epi needle in and prepare but before he had time to actually administer any drugs I was falling onto my back screaming. The nurse tried to check me to see what was going on and immediately said "page the doctor this baby is coming now". They tried to get me to stop pushing and pant. Screw that. I could hear the one doctor say that he would inject a little drug to "take the edge off". I really didn't feel any pain relief but by the time I was pushing the pain was very different. I even remember saying "I'm crowning".
I gave birth to Ashlyn Elizabeth at 8:49 pm on January 12, 2011. She popped into the world a crying and beautiful baby. She weighed in at 5 lbs. 9 oz. We had expected her to be bigger. They placed her on my tummy and I looked down into her tiny little face. Her eyes were wide open and looking at me. At first I could only see my beautiful girl but within a few moments I could see that there was something different about her.
They took her over to the warming bed and the doctor and OB looked her over. I was then asked if I had known about any problems she might have. I said that we had been told there could be a possibility of Down Syndrome. The doctors looked her over and said that she had alot of the characteristics of a DS baby. She would have to be seen by the Pediatrician in the morning. I took the news pretty much in stride. I think the hormone soup I was swimming in had alot to do with that. I had my baby girl and for that moment in time I was blissfully happy.
