Alexia's birth story

Wednesday night I started having somewhat regular contractions, but nothing too strong or too close together. I took a hot bath to see if they would lessen or go away and when they didn't I decided to try to get some sleep in case they worsened overnight. I woke up around 1:00 AM to more contractions and slept off and on until about 4:00 AM when I decided to get up and start timing them. Since they were still pretty regular (though only 10 minutes apart) I suggested that Tom work from home and we kept Stasa with us, too. Finally around 8:30 I called the doctor to see what I should do and they asked me to come in for another cervical check. I hoped to have some sort of progress, but didn't want to jinx it so we left our hospital bag and everything else at the house. Of course that's when I learned that I was already dilated 5cm and Dr. Gopal asked if I wanted to have a baby today - YES! She told us to go home, get Stasa settled and then head to the hospital. 


We checked into the hospital around noon and ended up with the same Labor and Delivery nurse that we had with Stasa. Small world. AND Dr. Pickford was on call - just like last time. Dr. Pickford told us that it would be best for her to break my water so the contractions would pick up, only when she went to break the bag we found out my water had already broken on its own, I just didn't realize it because the baby's head was acting like a suction. 


I already knew I was going to get an epidural so we had the anesthesiologist come to place the epi before the pain got bad. Well, the epi made the contractions sloooooooooow down, so they started a bit of pitocin to get them going back to back. I quickly went from 5 cm to 9 cm and then I started feeling a lot of pressure and pain, so they called the anesthesiologist to give me a boost. Then they cath'd me to empty my bladder and BAM I was 10 cm and ready to push.


After only 2 pushes Alexia Lee was born. She was 7 lbs 14 oz and 20 3/4" long. 


I was told it was a "dream delivery" and ended up not tearing or swelling at all, which will make for a fast and easy recovery.