As I was up and moving around the contractions increased to be about 3-4 minutes apart. I had to take several breaks while getting myself dressed and packed. I called my in-laws to ask them to come to the house, finally got a hold of Brian who was already at work, at a job site that is over an hour away, and had been texting back and forth with my friend Jane, who was going to come into work to be my labor and delivery nurse at the hospital. I also had been calling my friend Allison, who was our doula, and she wasn't answering her phone! I finally got a hold of everyone, had my bags packed, ate breakfast, kissed the boys good bye and by the time we left the house around 10, contractions were consistent!
My doctor's office wanted us to come to the office first to confirm that I was for sure in labor--and at 4cm dilated they wheeled me over to the labor and delivery department of the hospital. It was ON!
Jane arrived shortly after we did---I walked the halls, bounced on the labor ball, ate some ice chips and made my way to a 7...I got an epidural right before the doctor broke my water and although we thought the epidural was slowing my contractions down, I went from a 7 to a 10 in about an hour. By the wisdom of our great labor nurse, she didn't have me start pushing right away. She wanted to wait for the baby to come down a bit more first so that I wasn't pushing forever. That was fine by me since I pushed for an hour each with both the boys.
She finally had me push, and the plan was to push for 10 seconds....Jane told me to stop at 4 seconds...baby was crowning...time to bring in the doctor!
All suited up and ready to go...doctor, baby nurse....I pushed 3 times and much to our delight, out comes our sweet BABY GIRL!! Even though I had a feeling she was a girl the whole pregnancy, I was still in shock as I held her in my arms...and Brian thought she was going to be a boy, so needless to say tears of joy were shed by the father of this miracle! JOY truly filled our hearts and nothing compares to those tender moments of holding your child for the first time. With in about 5 seconds of being out, she had her thumb in her mouth! =)
We were so blessed to have our friend Beth there to be our birth photographer and she did a FANTASTIC job capturing all the sweet moments of Abigail's arrival. This was the first birth she ever photographed, and by looking at the images, you would think she has been doing this for years!! I can't thank you enough Beth! We will always treasure these images!
The boys are loving their new baby sister, even though for the first 2 days of her life, they insisted on calling her Daniel, after their favorite show, "Daniel the Tiger." Now they correct anyone who calls her Abby...."No her name is Abigail!"
Meet Abigail Catherine!
