Avalynn's Birth Story

I wrote this 5 days after Avalynn was born and had posted it on a Message board that has now been deleted. Luckily before it was deleted I had saved the page so I can still bring it up. 

Warning: Some Parts of this toward the end are kind of graphic talking about the placenta.


I started having contractions about 15 minutes apart on June 1st at 1:30 a.m. They were uncomfortable at that time but not painful. I was able to go back to sleep untill around 4:30 when I had the first painful contraction. I laid back down for a while and then got up with Gabby around 6. We ate breakfast and my contractions were starting to get stronger. I put Gabby down for a nap around 7:30 and then took a bath to relax. When I got out I was feeling a little better. Sometime around 11:00 the pain started to get bad again so I took a shower. Then my mom and I went for a walk and the contractions started  to get very painful, I hardly made it back up the driveway! Kevin called the midwife because my contractions were about 6 minutes apart then and she said we should go to the hospital.  We got there around 12:30 p.m. and I was only 2-3 cm dilated and 60% effaced. They hooked me up to the moniter but the contractions were not showing up at all on there. (They never really showed up when I was in labor for Gabby either). Then they asked me if I wanted to walk the halls, so I did that for a while. At around 2:30 I asked them if I could get into the Jacuzzi tub for a while. As soon as I got in and sat down it was immediate relief from the pain. For the first 1/2 hour I was in there I was so relaxed and hardly felt any pain at all. When I started to hurt again I was going to get out but when I tried the pain was so much worse. I ended up sitting in the tub eating ice chips for at least two hours total. When I started to feel a lot of pressure I had my husband help me get out. We called the nurse in and she checked me, I was 7cm and 100% effaced. She said the bag of water was coming down and causing all the pressure. My husband called my mom and sister's because they were coming to the hospital and told them they better hurry up, they were also bringing Gabby and my niece with them and my dad was going to watch them in the waiting room. The nurse called the midwife to come in and when she got there about 45 minutes later she broke my water which hurt really bad. She said that was odd because it doesn't usually hurt but that she thought it was the head moving down as she broke it may have caused the pain.My family arrived right before she broke the water.  The midwife told me I could start pushing but I didn't want to because I was in so much pain and knew it was going to hurt really bad! I was laying on my side and wanted to stay that way because it was the only small amout of relief I could get. She told me to try pushing like that but I just couldn't figure out how to push. I felt like I was doing it wrong. She had my mom and sister each grab one of my legs and then I tried pushing again. After about 5 good pushes and 15 minutes later her head came out. She was already trying to cry even before I pushed the rest of her out at 5:32 p.m.. They put her on my belly but her cord was really short. I could hardly reach her at first. They waited until the cord stopped pulsing and then had my husband cut it. It was neat because I actually got to watch him do it this time. Then I was able to pull her up closer to me and look at her. My first thought was "She has huge hands". Then the midwife told me I needed to push the placenta out. She held on to the cord and as I tried to push it out the cord broke and kind of splattered all over. It was gross! Then she told the nurse to give me some pitocin and she was still trying to hold onto the placenta. She ended up having to reach in there and hold onto it as I tried pushing it out. It seemed like it took forever to push it out and I was feeling so crampy. When it came out she said it was abnormal and had two lobes. It basically looked like jello and they usually look more like liver. The cord also was abnormal and vascular. She sent them to the lab to be tested but wanted to put me on an IV antibiotic for 24 hours just in case I had an infection. I ended up having only two small tears and she didn't even put any stitches in them.

When they weighed the baby  I was so shocked that she was 9 pounds 2.7 ounces and was 20 3/4 inches long! She really didn't look much bigger to me than Gabby did except that her hands look big and her legs are chunky! Her features are a lot like Gabby when she was born though. She has really dark brown hair and blue eyes. I think her eyes may change though because they look darker today.

Since Avalynn was the first baby born in June at that hospital and June is National Dairy month a "Dairy princess" came to visit her and gave us a gift basket full of cheese and other goodies! The photo may also be in the newspaper.