Hannah is here!

We'll I have yet to get anything up about our latest change- HANNAH. Mainly because things have been a whirlwind.


For those of you who are interested in her birth:
On Saturday night, August 12th Brian and I went for pizza with my cousin Ross and his fiance Liz at Satisfactions in downtown Durham. I felt slightly weird at dinner and had a little back pain. At dinner I announced that I felt like I was going to have the baby that night. Of course I had been saying that every night, so Brian did not really believe me. We came home and did our normal lounging around the house. I was really tired at about 11:30 and got in bed to rest. I played Hannah some baby Einstein CDs which was our nightly custom for a little while. Brian came up at 12:30 to go to sleep. I had a sharp pain in my stomach and went to use the bathroom. It appeared that my water had broken, but not really knowing what to expect- I was not sure. I called Caron, the midwife on call and told her I thought that my water had broken. It became evident as we were on the phone that it did indeed break. She replied that my labor would probably be a long event and I should try to remain at home as long as possible. She advised us to go to sleep and call her at 8:00am. She asked me what my birth plan was... of course I was thinking- Ummm, well it's 1:00am I can't remember what my birth plan was. Who do you call for support at 1am. Brian and I got ourselves together. He put everything in the car and called our parents. Then we prayed together and tried to get some sleep. I laid down for a total of maybe 10 minutes and that was about all I could handle as I was in a great deal of pain. We went downstairs and I tried to sleep in the Lazyboy recliner. Eventually, I realized I was having contractions, and we started keeping track of them. They were consistently 1 minute long and six minutes apart. I called Caron again around 2:30. She said I could come to the hospital any time I felt I needed to, but that my labor could be really long and I should try to stay home as long as possible if I wanted to deliver the baby naturally. At 3:00 am I was in a lot of pain and decided to call my mom. In the middle of the conversation I threw the phone to Brian and made him talk to her. As he tried to use all the nifty soothing techniques we learn in our childbirth class I started screaming "Don't touch me" "Don't talk to me"-- poor guy. By 3:30 I was screaming through my contractions. This was pretty embarrassing because we thought I was in early labor. I was convinced I would need an epidural. At this time I screamed to go to the hospital. I tried to keep control of myself on the drive to the hospital and we made it there by 4:00am. Brian got a wheelchair and wheeled me into the lobby. I then let out another scream and two guards come running to us. Someone had delivered a baby in the lobby the week before so they rushed us through all the security doors. I made it to the examination room. I could not even put on my robe before I fell down in pain. All the nurses started taking bets as to how far along I was. Caron came in and managed to get me on the table to examine me. She announced I was 10 cm dilated and ready to start pushing. It took about an hour of pushing to get Hannah out, and she was born at 5:18am. I had to have an episiotomy(sp?) and then got a fourth degree tear (I thought the highest tear was a third degree). They had to call in a doctor to stitch me up- which took an hour and a half, so I could not see Hannah right away. Meanwhile, Brian had a whirlwind experience. At one point he had to leave my side to go pray because he was worried about me and Hannah. One plus about having a baby at 5:00 am is that there was plenty of staff to assist me. Only one other person was in Labor and Delivery at the time. It was an answer to prayer that she was born when she was (thanks for all you who were praying she would be born before Monday- especially Carla who I gave such a hard time to) otherwise I would have had to have a series of ultrasounds and be induced. She came out 7lbs. 9ozs. 20 inches long. We loved the UNC Hospital and would definitely deliver there again. I have had a slow recovery (I have just started to feel like I can walk okay and I have not really left the house), but I can't complain because Hannah is healthy and a great source of joy for our family. Brian has been home this week and last week- he goes back to work on Monday. It has been two of the greatest weeks of our lives.