Avery’s Birth Story

I woke up abruptly at 4:27am.

Not being able to sleep was nothing new at this point of pregnancy. I mulled around for a minute then I got up and went to the bathroom. I had the random urge to pluck my eyebrows, HA! This should have set me off that something was up.

I headed back to bed and laid around for a little longer. My husband left for work around 5:30am and I decided to be productive and work on my blog.

Once I sat, I realized I was having contractions roughly every ten minutes. This wasn’t something new to me, they’ve been about ten minutes apart for the last few weeks but something in my mind must have set me off. I started focusing on them and downloaded a contraction timer app. After only a few rounds of ten minutes apart, they started happening about eight minutes apart.

At this time my son was waking up and it was about 7:00am. Normally when I start to move around the contractions would go unnoticed but as I played with my son through his crib rails I felt another one come on.

I started getting the feeling in my stomach that maybe this was it. Everyone says you will know once you’re in labor but I didn’t want to jump the gun and tell the hubby to come home.

I snapped a picture before leaving for the hospital! Last picture of the three of us!!

The contraction app started saying my contractions were six minutes apart. Around this time, my husband texted to say he would rather be safe and that he was heading home.

Before I knew it the contractions started becoming “deeper”. They were lower and felt different. I started getting that sense of urgency. Within minutes of my husband giving me the word he was leaving the contractions started to become three minutes apart. I called him frantically to get a timeline of when he would be home. I called my brother over to watch Asher and I anxiously tried to tend to my son while my brain was going a mile a minute.

By this time it was 8:00am, only about two hours since noticing the contractions coming on. They were painful and I was starting to panic. I called my husband to see where he was. I was trying to cook my son’s scrambled eggs between contractions while he sobbed hungrily.

As soon as the hubby walked in the door I jumped in the shower and put on some mascara. I finished packing my bag as my husband threw stuff in his own. We jumped in the car, grabbed a Tim Hortons bagel and made our way to the hospital.

We arrived around 8:30am and by this time I was struggling to talk during each contraction. Triage checked me in and were slowly taking their time getting me to see the doctor. I tried to keep my cool. The doctor finally came in and did a cervix exam where she surprised, exclaimed “you’re dilated to a six!”

They started moving me along quickly from there. We had to make our way to the Labor & Delivery side. The nurse asked me if I could walk and I slowly started waddling my way. Within just a few feet I stopped suddenly because I felt a crazy popping feeling under my belly. The nurse and my husband looked at me and next thing I knew my water broke in the hallway.

This is when I started to get a little panic from my nurse. She knew it was moving quickly and I needed to get all set up. They frantically started looking for a wheelchair but I insisted I still wanted to walk. By the time I made it to the delivery room I could barely breathe during each contraction. They were only minutes apart and I was sure this baby was going to make its appearance in no time. I couldn’t stop thinking about my friend who dilated so quickly she had her baby within 40 minutes.

There was much more fear in this labor than my first.

I felt out of control and anxious. I started becoming nauseated from the pain and light headed. I had to have oxygen to control my breathing as I worked through the contractions while they hooked me up. They did a quick ultrasound to confirm the baby’s head was in position and some bloodwork.

I finally got the epidural and with every contraction I was able to breathe a little easier. It had worked! With my first delivery it failed so this was a huge relief. Within the hour, the doctor came back and my cervix was complete. She casually asked do you want to try to push? I nervously laughed and said am I ready? She said well lets just see what happens.

When the next contraction hit, they had me push and the baby progressed, this was happening! It only took a couple pushes but it was the calmest and most chill experience I have ever had. Between pushes we laughed about how calm I was. My husband joked that he knew it was a girl because I was so crazy during my pregnancy and I laughed out loud and said you’ll eat your words when its a boy.

The next thing you know they placed my sweet baby boy Avery on my chest.

I guess you can’t blame the hormones of pregnancy on the baby 🙂