Audrey's Birth Story Part 2

Ok, so where were we? I had just crawled back into bed after getting up with Elliott. It was now probably about quarter after 4. I've had two contractions that felt quite real and I'm laying there waiting to see if I can fall back asleep or if I'll have another one.

And I do. And it hurts. And then Elliott wakes up again.

Crap. crap.

So I get out of bed to see what he needs and he says he needs to go pee. I take him to the bathroom and then back to his room to rock on the rocking chair for another couple minutes. As we're rocking I feel another couple contractions. All I can think is "I need to get this kid back to bed because these really hurt!" I'm quite sure at this point that this is it. I feel excited, yet distracted by this kid that won't sleep! So I put him back in bed and go back to bed. It's past 4:30 now. Chris is awake and says something to me about how he's sorry Elliott keeps waking up. I grumble something back about how I wish he would just go back to sleep. I don't mention the contractions because I'm hoping that if Elliott goes back to sleep I can just labour quietly for a while so Chris isn't too tired when things really start happening. A couple minutes later Elliott calls out again. Chris offers to go this time so I lay there and try to figure out how consistent these contractions are. I'm not timing them, but I figure they are every 7-10 minutes and man they hurt! When I first went into labour with Elliott the first few hours were such a breeze! I could keep talking through contractions for the first bit, and even after they were a bit more painful I could still follow a movie plot no problem as I laboured on the couch. This time I feel like I skipped the easy breezy beginning and I'm in full on active labour. Ow.

Audrey's Birth Story Part 1

What better way to dust off the 'ol blog than with a birth story?

I'll start a couple weeks before my due date. I started experiencing frequent "practice contractions" at about 37 weeks. They would come every night- often as I climbed into bed, as well as in the middle of the night. I would describe them as strong braxton hicks contractions that had no pattern, rhyme or reason to them. They wouldn't interfere with my sleep too much so I wasn't too bothered by them. Given that I had Elliott at 39 weeks and I was experiencing these contractions I fully expected this baby to come early as well. At my 38 week appt with my midwife she also agreed that she wouldn't be surprised if I didn't make it to my next appt.

Then on Sept 16th (38 weeks, 3 days) my Dad fell off a ladder and was rushed to the U of A hospital with a skull fracture and brain bleed. All of a sudden I was praying that baby would stay put while we dealt with this emergency. And stay put she did! I am a big believer that a relaxed body will go into labour much easier than a tense, anxious body, and in my opinion the accident put my body into lockdown. I was fine with it because my focus was all on my Dad. I'm not sure I could have handled having Audrey directly after the accident because that first week-ish was so crazy up and down in terms of my Dad's recovery. Also, each day she didn't come meant one more day I could spend at the hospital visiting my Dad. I was grateful for each of those days.

Now fast forward to my due date. Tues, Sept 27th.