This post is long overdue!
Hannah Grace was born on April 1st, 2009, at 11:15 p.m. And no, I couldn't 'hold off' so we wouldn't have an April Fool's baby ;) She weighed 8 lbs, 7 oz, and was 20 7/8" long (which is apparently long for a girl - the doctor said she'll be tall. I guess we'll have to wait and see).
I had a relatively 'easy' labour again. I had been contracting off and on since Saturday (this was Wednesday). At my appointment that Monday the doctor offered to 'stretch my cervix', which he did. At that point he said I was about 3 cm. This was already past the time I had delivered Nathan (he was born at 37 weeks and Hannah at almost 39 weeks) so I was anxious to have her (we knew she was a 'she'). He said that once he did the procedure I would most likely go into labour within 24 - 48 hours. I contracted pretty strongly Monday night ... nothing came of it. Tuesday I was bit crampy but nothing strong enough to worry about. Tuesday afternoon I decided to get on the treadmill and walk for as long as I could. It didn't end up being very long (2 miles with a break in between I think) but I felt better having tried something to get labour going on my own.
Wednesday I went to our church's Mom's group in the morning and complained that I was still pregnant - lol! I wasn't feeling much of anything at that point. Wednesday after lunch the contractions got a bit stronger, but nothing more than I had felt in the previous few days. By the time I left to get Peter at 3:30, though, I was starting to think something might be happening. By the time I picked him up it was getting difficult to drive through the contractions (I don't put much stock in timing them - from Saturday to Wednesday I had periods of time where my contractions would be 2 - 3 minutes apart lasting for about a minute, but they weren't painful). I told Peter what was going on and he suggested going right to the hospital. We had to drop Nathan at a neighbour's house anyway, so I said we should go home and see how I was feeling by then. I felt slightly better once I got out of the car so we decided to make supper. Big mistake! lol. Of course, I picked baked chicken and potatoes, which takes an hour. By halfway through their cooking time I was laying on the couch telling Peter I wasn't sure we could make it until supper was cooked. While it finished cooking I finished packing stuff for Nathan and our stuff for the hospital. As soon as the food came out of the oven we packed it up in two dishes (one for Nathan and one for Peter), took Nathan to our neighbour's house, and headed to the hospital.
We arrived about 6. We were planning on waiting to make sure I was staying before calling my parents to come up. I was pretty sure at that point this was the real deal, but the nurse said since the shift change was at 7 they wanted to wait until then to check me ... agh! I was in quite a bit of pain by this point. Throughout my whole labour, though, all the nurses said I was so calm, which is funny. Anyway, they finally checked me a few minutes after 7 and I was between 5 and 6 cm. At that point I got my fentanyl iv and tried to space the doses out every 15 minutes or longer. The nurses said I didn't have very much of the drugs at all and Hannah didn't need anything when she was born to counteract their effect so I think I took just the right amount of doses :) You're allowed to have a dose every 5 minutes, which I did for the last 30 minutes or so.
My water still hadn't broken and the contractions seemed to be less intense on the monitor once I got the drugs so the nurse was getting worried the drugs were slowing things down. The whole time I was there I still hadn't seen a doctor as she was out on supper break and then something else must have happened as she didn't come in until around 10:30. She was coming to break my water. Before she did I said I had to use the washroom and it's a good thing I did it then. She checked me after I was finished and I was at 9 cm! So, she broke my water at that point, which finished the dilation process, and it was time to push. I pushed for about 30 minutes instead of an hour with Nathan, which was great. I kept worrying because I had a fourth degree tear with him so I was trying to push slowly but my body wouldn't listen to me sometimes! She came out pretty easily, though, and I only had a second degree tear this time.
They brought her right to me this time and I got to hold her while they started to stitch me up. This whole period was such a blur when I had Nathan so it was nice to really feel 'present' for her. At the hospital it seems to be their policy to have the moms shower before going to their room on the ward, so I had a quick shower and we settled in our room for the night. Hannah slept most of the night but I had so much adrenaline in my system I couldn't really sleep.
It was nice that we had her late in the evening as we got to be together just the three of us until the next morning when visitors came :) Here's a picture I took of Peter once we got back to our room.
I also felt better during the recovery period as I had hoped I would. This was great, as with Nathan I was pretty much out of commission for a whole week!
Here's a picture of her today - almost two months old! I can't believe she's already grown so much!
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