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July 12th:

I took a nap when Anabel went down for her nap. When i woke up i felt very strange. I was achy, shaky and nauseous, but it didn’t feel like i was sick, it felt odd. Some of the ladies on babyfit.com said they thought i might be in pre-labor. I was hoping so but i was counting on it.

I was really nauseous and i figured it was because i hadn't hardly eaten since breakfast. I finally ate a peanut butter and jelly sandwich right before we decided on going on a walk. It was really hard to walk, my legs felt like they couldn't take it, but we managed like 8 blocks.

I was having a lot of back pain with all of this so when we got home i decided to do some squats and different things. While i was on my hands and knees i had a very intense contraction with tons of pressure (something i wasn't having with the other contractions) I told Bob maybe this was the real thing since they are getting more intense.
He then decided to call his parents and sister so they could be on stand by.... not something i really wanted him to do. I wanted him to wait until i was a little further along because 'what if' this isn't the real thing you know? I would look silly! Oh well!
Right after the really intense contraction i had to run to the restroom to throw up... all of my sandwich, boo for that! But at least my stomach felt better afterwards.

That night contractions were pretty much 10min apart on the dot and more intense. We went to bed and i tried my hardest just to ignore them and get as much sleep as possible. I was up a lot into the night but i didn't worry about timing them.

July 13th:

We did have a midwife appointment @ 8:30am but Bob said he was just going to call them and tell them that we thought i might be in early labor and that we were just going to cancel our appointment and come later if things got closer. It was an hours drive to the midwife and he didn't see the need to waste gas on them sending me home because the contractions were not strong enough or something.
I'm glad we didn’t go because my bag wasn't packed and i wanted to get things like the sheets cleaned and stuff. I had already got all the laundry done the day before so yay for that.

We decided to do some more walking. We tried going to the park for a little while but i quickly decided that we should go somewhere else. It was upper 90’s out and i didn’t want my whole body drained if this was the real thing. So we decided to go to Wal-Mart to be in the air conditioning. We were only there at Wal-Mart probably 1.5hrs because i was getting so tired and disappointed because the contractions seemed to be getting further apart and not as intense. As soon as we got back into the van i had a very intense contraction. I told Bob that i wondered if it was me being self conscious that was making them slower. I had heard of woman who felt put on the spot or nervous around people that it slowed their labor, and i was wondering if that was what was going on with me. Once home again everything went back to what it was, 5-10min apart.

After being home for awhile Grandma Risch came over and offered to take Anabel for the night. That way if something happened in the night Anabel wouldn’t have to be awakened and all that. So we let Anabel go for the night. (which ended up being the right decision aye? LOL)

After awhile, Bob called the midwife to update her. She told us some things we could do to try and increase the contractions to see if this was the real deal or not. That is when contractions picked up to 1-4min apart with a lot of pressure. It was crazy how quickly it all changed. After about 45min Bob called the midwife back. She said she thought we should come in as soon as possible.

We still hadn’t gotten our bags packed or the sheets washed like i had wanted, LOL. We quickly got things together and headed out. In the car the contractions went back up to about 5min apart.

Once we got there i started having the contractions really close together again. We got there about 9:40pm. Midwife checked me and i was at 5cm. I was soooo excited! They started my IV for the Group B Strep thing right away. Nurse tried putting it in my forearm first, but my vein rolled. Then she tried my inner elbow area, thought she got it, but the vein wouldn’t flush so she called the midwife in. The midwife put it in my right hand. It so didn’t feel good at all, but I'm a whuss like that. They put the antibiotics in my arm and i got a horrible taste and smell in my mouth it was nasty. Then all of a sudden i was having a hard time breathing, i admit i started to panic a little bit because i thought it must be the IV. Bob told them and they came to check me. She said all my vitals were fine, heart beat, blood pressure, lungs sounded clear. I don’t know what was going on but in a few minutes i was back to feeling normal.

Midwife said she would like me to labor out of the water for awhile until i was more dilated because sometimes the water can slow things down a bit. I labored for about 2 hours, she checked me and i was a 7cm. She said i could get in the big tub. I was in and out of the tub because i had to use the bathroom a lot. While out of the tub i would do some lunges during contractions because the midwife said it really helps things move along. With in an hour i went from 7cm to 9cm and i was so shocked! Midwife said the water sack was really bulging out big time and that each time she checked me she was amazed at how active the baby was. She said she was turning her head back and forth so much. Baby was moving a ton, it was very uncomfortable because after each contraction she would push and wiggle so much, it hurt!

Everything was going great up to this point. But over the next 1.5-2 hours i started to loose it. Contractions were so intense and something told me that things were not changing or progressing and i was getting to the point that i thought i couldn’t take it. I was right too, when the midwife checked me i was still a 9 and she thought the bag of water was in the way.

I voiced that i didn’t think i could handle this anymore. They gave me a few options, she could brake my water and/or give me morphine. I was scared to get my water broken because i knew things would get so much more painful LOL i was really close to getting the morphine. I kept asking for someone to tell me what to do. I was scared of being in more pain but i also knew i didn’t want morphine, not really, even though ‘taking the edge off’ did sound wonderful.

I remember saying something like ‘i gotta have something’. Later Bob told me that it sounded to everyone like i was asking for morphine, which Bob said ‘hold on, lets try braking the water first, then if you can’t take it, maybe the morphine’. Even though Bob thought i was asking for the morphine i later told him what was in my head, what i was trying to say. I was trying to say ‘something has to happen’ either they had to brake my water or i had to get morphine because i was about to loose it and i felt like i was out of control of my relaxing with contractions. I was glad when Bob voice what we should do, cause that is what i wanted him to do.

Midwife assured me that breaking my water would not hurt, but she had to do it while i was having a contraction. I thought i was going to loose it, but it wasn’t really any more painful then the contraction it’s self, so it was ok. After she broke it she checked me and said ‘ok when you have another contraction would you like to push?’. Both me and Bob were like ‘what the heck?’. She said that the water was the only thing holding me back, that now i was ready to push. It was crazy trying to push, i had forgotten how to do it. But after the first time trying it, i quickly remembered.

I pushed through like two contractions on the bed, then the midwife said i should head to the tub. Bob told me later i ‘ran’ to the tub and that it amazed him and the midwives how quickly i moved. LOL i just remember thinking ‘there is no way i’m going to have another contraction mid-way to the tub!’ LOL

I hopped in and pushing continued. I remember thinking about how long it took to push Anabel out and that even though everyone was telling me ‘it’s coming’ that the baby probably wasn’t. The midwife asked me a couple times ‘Amy did you move your baby down with that contraction?’. First time i said ‘i don’t know’ and she said ‘no, come on tell me did you move the baby down any?’ she had me check a couple times, which I was reluctant about but i am happy that i did now. So from then on out every time she asked i would say ‘yes’.

I was shocked at how quickly they said the head was almost out. I didn’t believe them. I remember Bob saying ‘There it is! One more push baby and the head will be out!’

I had my eyes shut so tight pushing that i didn’t realize what all was going on. I opened my eyes and the baby was out and they were working on getting the cord from around the neck. Midwife said that was what was making the heartbeat dip down while i was pushing. I started to freak when it took a couple seconds for them to the cord off it’s neck. Midwife also said that Abby had her hand up on her cheek when she came out so that might have made things a little harder.

Once Abby was on my chest i was bawling. I wasn’t even thinking about the fact that we didn’t know if it was a boy or girl yet. I was just bawling, LOL

I got the honor of getting the first look at what sex she was. And i remember saying ‘No one thought it was a girl!’. Another shocker was that the midwife said i didn’t tear at all. So shocked me! I do remember that the midwife noted that Abby nursed after 11min of being born. She is a good eater :)

One thing that makes me sad is that we didn’t have a camera, so we got no pictures of her being weight or foot prints taken or anything. But there is nothing i can do about that now.

So Abigail Raya Michelle was born on her due date of July 14th, at 3:15am. Bob said from the moment contractions picked up at home to when she was born, was like 7 hours. She weight 6.9lbs, 20.5in long and 13.75in head.

After she was born and i was out of the tub and laying with her in the bed… it all kinda ran together. We did place her in a basinet for awhile so i could try and get some sleep, but i didn’t really sleep at all, i was checking on her to much, LOL. I know that some time during that time the nurse did vitals and did the footprints and stuff.

In the morning a new nurse came in and wanted to see what we wanted to eat for breakfast. She cooked up waffles and sausages. That was very very nice.

Some things that happened that didn’t get put in the main story (because i’m not sure were it happened exactly). Was that the midwife and the nurses were awesome and they would pray over me. It was great. I adored my midwife and nurse, they were just to awesome, the way they pet me and reassured me through out the whole thing. They started to feel like family during the whole thing.

Over all it was a wonderful experience. Bob still acts like he is amazed at how great and fast it all went.