Molly's Birth Story

I woke up around 1:30am on April 3, 2012 with what I thought was a stomach ache. Before I went to bed I had a pickle and lemonade and thought maybe the combination didn’t agree with me. I had 1 “cramp” around 1:30am and laid there until the next one around 2:20am. I felt my stomach and realized it was not a stomach ache and they were contractions. I headed down stairs to finish up Ellie’s “Big Sister” t-shirt that I had started the night before. Jason came down stairs to check on me and I told him they were for sure contractions. By the time I finished the t-shirt the contractions were about 30 min apart. It was now about 4am and I decided I better get in the shower and start getting ready. Jason sat out in the living room on the computer doing a bit of work. I finished getting ready and came out to tell him he better get ready because contractions were now about 5min apart. He showered, called his mom and we were headed out the door around 5:30am. Contractions stayed about 3 min apart all the way to the hospital. They checked me in and around 6am I was measuring 5cm and 90%. By 8:45am I was at 7cm and 100% and my nurse told me if I wanted an epidural now would be a good time. I got the epidural but it wasn’t a good block so I was still feeling everything, which wasn’t too bad. I was still breathing through them but I was so worried about tearing that I really wanted the drugs to work. Around 9:30am the anesthesiologist came in with something a bit stronger and that seemed to do the trick. It was 10am and it was time to call Dr. L. She was in the hospital doing a hysterectomy on a woman so she had to leave that lady and come up quick to deliver Molly. I pushed during 1 contraction 3 times and the next contraction I pushed once and they told me to stop that her head was out. Molly was born at 10:15am. She came out and I looked at her and knew she was quite a bit smaller than Ellie. She weighed 6lbs 12oz and measured 19 inches long. She was perfect.

My parents missed her birth by a hour. They missed Ellie’s by about the same time. The weeks prior my mom kept telling me to give her more notice this time. Well I called her cell phone at 3:54am and she didn’t answer so I called the house and dad answered. He gave the phone to mom and I told her my contractions were about 45min apart. She said to call her around 6am because it’s possible that I could be like that for several hours. I called her again at 5 and told her we were thinking about heading to the hospital soon, she said she would get dad up and get on the road. There is something to be said about a mother’s intuition. With Ellie she said, “We’ll see you tomorrow” and with Molly my mom said Monday night before I went to bed, “now you are ready. I got the flowers done so let me know when contractions are regular." Guess next time both of us should pay attention to what she is saying.