Ainsley Renee's Birth Story

My due date was November 3rd and I had been getting pretty anxious pretty much the whole month of October. I was feeling miserable most days. Not sleeping great at night and not feeling good during the day. I was ready to meet this little girl. A week and a half before her due date, I started having contractions. I thought, "here we go, this is it!" I was able to time out the contractions to every 2-4 minutes apart and Aaron wanted me to call the doctors and go in because he thought we would for sure go quickly! (Need I remind you of how fast Atley Mae was actually delivered????) He wasn't confident in his ability to deliver a baby roadside and quite frankly, I didn't have much faith in that either! :) I never ended up calling and I took a shower and we went to bed thinking that we should get some rest before I will be up with contractions that will be more intense. They went away. Seriously, I was soooo sad and disappointed! I had an appointment that Monday and I ended up seeing Dr. Naylor who said I was only dialted to a one and not really softened or anything. So basically those contractions I was experiencing did nothing! So frustrating! He did say, "I don't believe we will see you next week, though. I have a feeling you will go into labor before that." Well, that felt like a million bucks to hear him say that! I didn't care that he couldn't tell me for sure, just the fact that he was telling me there was an end and it was coming soon was all I wanted to hear! That Saturday I started my "Bloody show" and I was excited! I did this same thing with Alivia so I knew that labor would be close. It took me four days with Alivia before I went into labor but at least I knew something was happening to my body. Well, next Monday came and I was still pregnant. I cried and cried because I had taken his words to serious and thought I would for sure be holding a baby at that time and not still miserably laying around. I went to my appointment that Monday, late afternoon and because they were short-staffed that day, they sent me to the mid-wives side. I was a little irritated because I wanted to be able to talk about induction and I wanted someone that knew me and my body and someone I had been seeing already. The mid-wife checked me and I was now at a three and almost completely effaced. Yea! At least I was hearing some good news that day! I had a few contractions going on, but nothing that was timeable and intense. We had dropped the kids off at our friends house and the mid-wife had suggested that we go walking and get the contractions going. Aaron and I set off for the mall and we walked. I was miserable! We decided to go out to eat and it was there that I felt "wet." I went to the bathroom and I was but I dismissed it because I had just gotten checked and I was still have the "show" so I didn't think much of it. We left the restaurant, picked up the kids and then went home to bed. Aaron had taken a few days off here and there because of the "false labor" that I had so on Tuesday, he decided to go back to work. I agreed that he needed to because nothing was happening. Wednesday came and I didn't feel any different. I actually felt a lot better than I had in a while. I went and put the girls down for a nap and I went to the bathroom. I had a small amount of bright red blood and for some reason it freaked me out a bit. I decided to be better safe than sorry and call the office. They called me back within a half hour (which NEVER happens!) and the nurse was asking me questions and then she said, "do you think you are leaking water?" I had leaked water with Atley and never knew it so I told her it is possible but I don't think I have. She wanted me to come in right away so they could test it. I went and woke up the kids and tried calling our friends to watch the girls but couldn't get ahold of any one. So I threw them in the car and drove straight to the office. They tested it right away and sure enough, I had been leaking amniotic fluid. When we finally configured when it could have happened (we were thinking Monday night or Tuesday morning) he told me I had to go straight to the hospital. My face must have had pure shock written all over it because he looked at me and said, "I take it this is not what you were expecting!" I guess I just figured they would send me home since I had been so disappointed the past week. Couldn't believe it was actually going to happen now! We told the Dr. that we wanted to take the kids back home and get our bags and he said, "Um, why don't you have your husband do that. I need you to get to the hospital now and we need to have that baby." I really didn't expect him to have that much urgency to him. It made me a bit nervous. We went and dropped the kids off and grabbed our bags (obviously not listening to the dr! ha!) and we drove straight to the hospital calling all our family to let them know what was happening. I then remembered that it was October 30th and my birthday was the next day and I couldn't believe that I was going to share a birthday with our baby! I was so excited! When we got to the hospital after 5:00 p.m. They started us on paperwork and all that good stuff. I told the nurse that I was hoping to have her on the 31st because of my birthday and she said, "I'm sure we can do that!" The doctor came in and said, "We are going to have this baby as soon as we can because of risk of infection. So let's not wait around." Ugh! Fun hater! Just kidding! Around 6:00 they started my IV and wanted to get fluid in me since I told them I was going to want an epideral. At 7:00 p.m. they started the potocin. Oh.My.Goodness! Ouch! I remembered all those labor pains I had with Alivia and Atley. Not fun at all! At around 8:30 p.m. I asked for the epideral. This was the first time I had a different dr. for that and I had to sit up. The other two I got to lay down and I enjoyed that. I guess I was a bit nervous since it was different. Once that kicked in I felt much better. I still had control of my body and I felt things (unlike I did with Atley) which I liked. They came in and checked on me a LOT! They knew what had happened with Atley and they didn't want me to deliver and not know it this time. When I got to an 8 I realized that I was not going to make it to my birthday. I was ok with that. I wanted to have that happen naturally anyways and not forced. At 11:00 p.m. the Dr and nurse came in and asked if I would be ok to start pushing because otherwise she was just going to slide out on her own. I was at a 9 at this point and I said, "Sure!" You should have seen how hilarious it was to watch me push her out! Aaron and I were pretty much making fun of how inexperienced I was at it. I pushed for about 10-12 minutes and she was out! She made a sweet litle cry (seriously for about one second) and then she was completely silent! I thought maybe she wasn't breathing, but no, she was just observing everything and was just quiet as can be! I definitely thought that maybe this child was going to be my quiet, calm child. No, no she wasn't. She cried, no she screamed, every 10-15 minutes the first 24 hours. She was amazing at feeding though so that was good! We named her Ainsley Renee Wood. Renee is my mother's middle name. Ainsley is a name I found online that I really liked. We decided to continue with the "A" theme. She was my tiniest baby at 6 lbs 12 oz and 18 1/2 inches long. She was born at 11:22 p.m. almost making it to my birthday! How fun is that! I will forever remember my 32nd birthday now! She is absolutely precious and the girls are just smitten by her as are we! As I write this, she is now almost 3 months old (so hard to believe!) and she is my calm baby. It took a good 8 weeks of being colicky and now we are past that. She started sleeping through the night right before 2 months. Yea me!!! That made so much of a difference in our lives! I think she looks identical to Alivia's baby pics. I will post some pics to show the resemblences. She definitely looks like our family though! She is a mixture of all of us. I love it and I love her.