Abby Lou's Birth Story

I'm a little behind on getting Abby Lou's birth story on here as she just turned one month old this past Saturday. But, it's crazy how fast the time flies. It seems with each baby we add to the family, that the adjusting phase takes a little bit longer. Hopefully, I'll be able to get all the kinks worked out sooner than later, lol. 

Abigail Louise's birth story begins on Tuesday, December 17th. I was 4 days past my due date. That morning after I exercised I started having trouble stabilizing my blood pressure. I struggle with low blood pressure when I'm pregnant and have had to be given shots to bring it up before. After a few hours of my blood pressure bottoming out, I called my doctor and they just assumed I was coming down with a cold and dismissed me. Since I wasn't having any pains or bleeding I decided to wait it out. 

Around 4:30am December 18th, I woke up with fairly uncomfortable contractions and some bloody show, I knew that we were going to have a baby that day. Normally my contractions start our slow and then progress over the day and at night we have a baby. Around 8am I decided to take a shower because my contractions were intensifying. By 9am the contractions were much stronger, albeit irregular, but the pressure was severe. I told my husband I thought we needed to go to the hospital.

When we arrived at the hospital they set us up in the triage area to examine me and evaluate if I was indeed in labor. As usual I didn't 'appear' to them to be in labor, so they were very slow and nonchalant in 'working me up'. By the time we got situated, I was 8cm dilated and they could not feel any bag of water, so we assumed I had slowly lost it, without me knowing.

There were no rooms available in labor and delivery, so they began to get the triage area ready to deliver our baby. All the while my contractions were still coming strong and fierce. Around 10:30am we made it into a room. Once in the room I was able to labor on a birthing ball as well as through walking around. After about 40 minutes I had terrible pressure and asked to be examined, I was 10cm but still had a 'lip' and they still could not feel any bag of water.

The nurse said she thought it would be fine for me to start bearing down/pushing if I felt like it at this point. With my next contraction, I pushed and my water exploded everywhere!! And Abby Lou came flying down the last of the birth canal. My husband had to run to go get the nurses and my doctor. Two pushes later, Miss Abigail Louise was born, screaming at the top of her lungs, covered in poop, and a little blue. The nurses said if she hadn't been screaming so much they would have been worried, but thankfully she was okay. 

The doctor handed Abby Lou to me immediately for skin to skin kangaroo care. But as is my norm I was in shock and barely could open my eyes. There's just something about natural, unmedicated childbirth that takes me a little bit to process. 

Unfortunately, since Abigail was such a big baby reigning in at 8 pounds 15 ounces and 19 inches long my placenta was fairly large and more difficult to deliver than Abby Lou herself. Once I delivered the placenta I had to have a few stitches. The lidocaine shots with no pain medication were extremely painful and they didn't work all that well, which meant I felt every stitch. {{OUCH!}}

I am very pro unmedicated childbirth, but because my after birth contractions are so bad (actually worse than labor itself) I opted for receiving a pain medication called Toradol via a shot for the first 24 hours. This was absolutely a life saver and I have zero regrets for choosing this route. 

Once we got into a postpartum room we were able to rest and get acquainted with our precious baby girl. Two days later we were released from the hospital. My recovery has gone fairly well with no complications. Abby Lou did have two bouts with infant mastitis, but both instances resolved themselves. Thankfully, now that her mastitis has healed, she is sleeping 6 hours a night, she nurses, and then sleeps another 3 hours. I truly believe her sleeping so well has majorly aided in my quick recovery. Of course eating healthy and maintaining a decent exercise regime throughout my entire pregnancy probably helped too. 

We are truly blessed and enjoying getting to know our sweet Abby Lou. 

With Love & Hope,
Jennifer