Allison's Arrival

Allison Kristine joined our family on Friday, January 8, 2010 at 10:14 PM. She weighed 8 pounds, 11 ounces and was 21 inches long.... and absolutely beautiful. She stole our hearts immediately and Dave and I can't believe how blessed we are to have two healthy beautiful children!

I went to the doctor on Friday morning for my scheduled weekly appointment. I arrived at the doctor's office at 8:15 AM and they hooked me up to the monitors for my non-stress test (NST) because I was "post dates" meaning.... 5 days past my due date. Basically they put a monitor on my belly to measure contractions, another monitor on my belly to monitor the baby's heartbeat and give me a clicker to push every time I feel the baby move. As I sat I had contractions about every 7 minutes but Allie was a little non-reactive, meaning her heart rate dropped slightly during contractions but otherwise stayed pretty constant and she wasn't moving much. The doctor determined that I was already in early labor, 80% effaced and 2 cm dilated but the baby was still high. She decided that it was time for the baby to be born and told me to go home, get my things and go to the hospital for admission.

I called my mom as soon as I left the doctor's office so she could get on the road and then called Dave and told him what was going on. I stopped by the grocery store on the way home to get a couple of things for JD and headed home. While waiting for my mom, I packed a few last minute items and Dave made lunch. JD was all too happy to see Grandma arrive as he loves playing with Grandma. I was sad when I left him, of course but knew he was in good hands and would have fun while I was away.

Dave and I arrived at the hospital around noon and got situated in our birthing room. They hooked me up to monitors, an IV, blood pressure cuff, etc.... all the normal things but determined that my contractions weren't doing much in the way of making progress. Once Allie started becoming a little more active they started the Pitocin to get things moving along. That was 1:15 PM.

Around 4:00 PM the anesthesiologist came in and did my epidural. I was pretty anxious about this part because the epidural for JD's labor and delivery was a nightmare. Luckily the anesthesiologist let Dave stay in the room this time which I think helped me relax. He got it placed correctly the first time (the guy who did the last one had to stick me 6 times before getting it right because I had so much swelling) and it took effect almost immediately. After that was done, the doctor came in and determined that I was 4 cm dilated but didn't want to break my water because Allie was still high and she didn't want to have any complications so we decided to let the contractions push her down a bit further.

At 6:15 the doctor checked me again and I had progressed to 7 cm. Allison had also moved down a bit further so the doctor broke my water. From there I progressed fairly quickly. At 8:15 I had dilated to 10 but, in order to prevent another marathon pushing session (I pushed for 2 hours with JD and was exhausted), the doctor decided to let the contractions continue to do their job and push Allison lower.

Two hours later it was time to push. I pushed 3 times, less than 10 minutes and Allison made her big arrival! She was all tangled up in the cord. It was around her neck twice, under her arm, across her abdomen and around her leg.... but the doctor did an excellent of unwrapping her and getting her here safely! As we were getting ready to push, our nurse informed me that they had bets on how big she would be. My guess, based on her last ultrasound and the fact that she "cooked" 2 weeks longer than JD, was 8 pounds, 12 ounces.... I was off by just an ounce!