A Year to Celebrate!

It's hard to believe that at this time, ONE year ago today, the doctor was breaking my water and a few hours later I would have my baby girl. I cant wrap my head around the fact that she has been in our lives for that long. It seems like just yesterday I was bringing her home from the hospital!

Here's Lily's birth story:

I woke up Wednesday morning (June 11) with contractions that were 10 minutes apart. As the day progressed, so did the pain and contractions. By 1am, Thursday morning [June 12] they were 2-4 minutes apart.

Even though the contractions were tolerable, the hospital still asked me to come in and get checked since she was my 3rd baby and I have a history of fast active labour.

We got to the hospital, the nurse checked me and I was still only 3cm. No change all day. So disappointing!! She called my doctor who said to send me home to rest. She gave me the option to either meet her at the hospital at 8:30am to be reassessed, or continue on with my 11:30 appt in her office.

Once home my contractions were a stready 2 minutes apart and the worst they had ever been ... but still tolerable. I breathed through them and got a bit of rest.

I was going to just wait until my 11:30 appointment but couldnt sleep. Jim and I took Brendan to school and then headed up to the hospital.

My doctor checked me and I was still the same. As she was checking me the nurse was opening up a hook they use for breaking the water! I was so shocked!! I was not expecting anything to happen.

She broke my water at 9am. The water was green, Lily had her first bowel movement inside.

Contractions slowly got stronger. At 11am I was at 5cm. Contractions from there got ALOT more intense. Just after noon I asked for drugs because it was sooo painful. I was given fentanyl - "very groovy" as I referred to it. It helped make the contractions more tolerable.

At 1pm I was a "very stretchy" 7-8cm. The pressure was sooo intense. By 1:15pm my doc arrived and I felt I had to push so bad, grunting so hard through each contraction. It turns out I still had a li'l lip of cervix left and couldnt push yet. It wouldnt go away because Lily was laying the weirdest way inside and her wasnt putting enough pressure on my cervix to make it completely dilate.

My doctor decided that she would let me push while she pushed the lip of cervix to the side. OMG what an intense feeling!! So many sensations all at once, I didnt like it at all. Owiieeee!!

Lily finally flipped her body around inside. With a couple pushes I got her head out, her shoulders were the hardest because she was so broad!

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Our big baby girl was born at 2pm on the dot! Weighing in at 9lbs 11oz, she was 21.5" long.

I was told before giving birth to her that she may not be placed directly on my chest because of the concerns that come with passing meconium in-utero. She was taken away right away to the paediatrician, still in the same room. I was okay with it because they had a good talk with me before about it, it wasnt a shock and I understood what was going on. She scored 7 on her first apgar test, and then a 9 on the second one.

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She let out her first cry a couple minutes after birth. Shortly after she was sucking so hard on her fingers!

A little bit after birth the nurse was listening to her chest and it didnt sound good. They took her for xrays, which later came back good. We didnt sleep the first night. She seriously ate for four hours straight. The nurse took her to the nursery to allow me to sleep a bit. While in there Lily was shaking, they checked her blood sugar level, which came back very low. They supplemented her with 40cc of formula and she was okay after that. They said that there was a small chance I had undiagnosed gestational diabetes, not to mention Lily's size, her body needed that little extra.

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