Ava's birth story, just for you Elana. :)

I copied and pasted this off of my myspace blog.


All day Sunday on May 31st, I felt super crampy with a punch of pelvic pressure all day, and I just hurt all around. We went to my grandma's birthday party, and got home at around 7:30 that night. I was sitting on the couch, and I went to stand up, and I felt a nice warm gush. My water had broke! That was at 10 to 8. Leonard didn't believe me, ha ha. But there was no doubting it when it kept gushing. So Leonard called my mom to come and get Matt on her way home, and I started to finish packing his and my over night bags. Contractions hadn't started up yet, and I remember that it took them an hour after my water broke with Matt for them to start up. So I called the hospital about an hour after my water had broke, and let them know, and also that I still wasn't having any contractions. I took a shower, and the hospital called back saying that I tested positive for Group B Strep, and that I needed to come in and get antibiotics. So we headed in and got to the hospital at around 10 pm. They didn't check to see how dilated I was or anything, and just started my on antibiotics through an IV. It takes 8 hrs for it to go through. Contractions STILL hadn't started. I was still gushing water, and I was starting to bleed, so it was obvious that I was going to have a baby soon. Apparently, I was having contractions every 2-5 minutes apart, I just wasn't feeling them. I didn't sleep all night, and since my contractions still hadn't started (they wanted ones that I could feel, which wasn't happening), at 7 am they started pitocin. The nurse kept coming in every 1/2 hr and was upping the dose of pitocin, but I still wasn't feeling/having any contractions. Finally at 10 she came in and asked if I was feeling anything at all, and I said no. I was at a zero on a scale of 1-10 for pain. She left. About 10 minutes later, I felt two pops, and I had my first super painful contractions. I don't know what the pops were, but oh my they hurt! It's funny because Leonard was just putting his coat on to go home and get some sleep. Good thing he didn't leave yet. I immediately called the nurse in and told her I wanted drugs NOW. I also really had to go to the bathroom, and I was having a ton of rectal pressure. She told me I could pee, but not do anything else until she checked me in case I was feeling baby related rectal pressure. I didn't want to have that baby in the toilet, lol. So I peed, and I started to get really shaky, so I knew I was in transition, and that this baby was coming soon. The nurse checked me, and I was at an 8. She hurried and called my Dr, and 5 minutes later she showed up and checked me again. I was at a 10 and ready to push! All the while contractions were kicking my ass and were right on top of the other. I was only in labor that I could feel for 20 minutes. Not too shabby! Her head was only at +1 station, so still pretty high. The nurse gave me some Stadol in my IV, just to take the edge off of the contractions, since the anesthesiologist was in surgery and couldn't come yet. All it did was make me see double, and feel like a very very alert drunk. So I pushed for awhile and I started to wimp out. I felt like I was being torn in two and was having horrible horrible back labor. It wasn't that bad with Matt. I only pushed for 20 minutes with him, and I pushed for an hour with Ava, just because I kept quitting. I feel like such a baby now, but at the time, I just couldn't do it. She finally crowned, and I delivered her head. I guess she had the cord wrapped around her neck once. Then I gave one more push and the rest of her came sliding out at 11:49 am. Just as her head came out, the anesthesiologist came in, but oh well. So I did it w/o any drugs, since I'm not counting the Stadol since it didn't do anything at all.

So, Ava Marie was born at 11:49 am on the 1st. She was 7 lbs 4.9 oz and was 19.5" long. Her head was 13" in diameter.

Oh, and the nurse thought I might be pre-eclamptic because my feet and legs were so so swollen, and only had just swelled up the night before. And my BP was really high. The highest reading was 198/85 at one point. But no protein in my urine, so I wasn't pre-eclamptic. Just super swollen and super high BP.


There you go Elana. I'm not on my computer, so when I get home, I'll upload pics of her so you can see.