Birth Story

Audrey's birth story was a lot different then what I experienced with Ryan. It ended up being a lot quicker and more manageable then what I had pictured which was an unexpected but much appreciated suprise.
Here is a quick preview of what happened:

I started out with "prelabor" contractions for about 24 hours before active labor began. They were noticable but I was still able to functions enough to get through my day, the stayed about 7-15 minutes apart and progressed me about 2 centimeters in 24 hours. My brother David slept over at our house in case we needed to head out quickly to the hospital so someone would be here with Ryan. It turned out to be a wonderful blessing because he was able to help me take care of Ryan for the day as the pre-contractions continued.
Of course my real labor started about 30 minutes after David left to head back to his apartment during rush hour traffic and Don was still at work. When Don made it home he called my brother back (giving my brother a really great almost 2 hour rush hour car ride to no where- he hadn't even gotten out of his car at home yet).
When he finally got back Don and I hopped in the car to head to the hospital. My contractions were seven minutes apart and strong- my doctor had given us the go ahead to either come in or wait until they were five minutes apart. I thought it was possible that we left too early and wouldn't meet minimum requirements to be admitted to the hospital, but it turned out that wasn't something I should have worried about! From the second we parked at the hospital the contractions jumped to 3 minutes apart, I had to take 3 breaks just to get to the first security check in desk!

When I was checked I had jumped to 4 centimeters dialated and was given my room. I answered a million questions, got my blood tests, got set up in bed and started in on my antibiotics. After my blood tests came back I was able to get an epidural. After Ryan I knew I wanted an epidural (and yes I feel good about my decision) I would say it took about 2 hours for all this before I was checked by the doctor and I was already 8 centimeters! They left me alone for about another hour until I started to really hurt- which with an epidural made me think something was up. I called the nurse back, she checked me and I was 10 centimeter and ready to push! She asked me to try one push to see how it would go- she made me stop half way through because she was afraid the baby was going to come out without the doctor.
The doctor was called in (luckily I was his only patient), I gave one push and out she came! It felt completely unreal after the 2 1/2 hours of pushing I had to do with Ryan. She was so much easier and a day later I can tell you she did a lot less damage on my body. The labor ended up only being about 5 hours as opposed to the 13 hours of Ryan's labor... I can tell you in this case shorter is better!
Her APGAR score was 8/9 which is very good! She looks a lot like Ryan in my opinion except for a lot smaller. She is about a pound smaller then when Ryan was born but she feels a lot smaller. She is a great eater and everyone including Ryan just adores her.

I haven't gotten more then 2 hours of sleep at a time since the day before Audrey was born so excuse me if this description wasn't as well written as it should be... maybe I will go back if I ever have time again :), I just wanted to get things down before I forgot anything! Pictures will soon follow once I get them off my phone- we even have a few videos which are super cute. I will post everything as I have a chance.