Hannah is Here!

Hannah Elizabeth Peterson
March 3, 2008
5 lbs 14 oz
19 inches

HOW IT HAPPENED:

After a great weekend hanging out with my husband, hanging out with friends, getting baby stuff done, and getting a lot of work done for school, I was off to bed to get ready for the week ahead. At 12:30 on Monday morning I awoke to my water breaking. I went into the bath room and stayed there for about 15 minutes. I knew what it was, but I was afraid to tell Kyle. I don't know why, I thought he would be mad! Finally I went down stairs, where Kyle was doing laundry. He was very calm and suggested that we go for a walk around the park to see if it really was my water breaking (instead of me just peeing all over myself, I guess)! Before I could even get my shoes on, I knew that it was in fact my water breaking, and not me just peeing on myself. Kyle called the doctor and I gathered up the things we needed to take to the hospital. The bag was packed but one thing on my to do list was "pack the bag better." I didn't get to it over the weekend. We arrived at the hospital and got settled in around 3:00 am. Nothing was happening and I was only 1 cm dilated so they let me sleep until about six. My doctor came at 6:00 and since nothing was happening and the baby has to be born within 24 hours of my water breaking, they decided to start pitocin. It didn't take long for the contractions to start but they weren't that serious. Kyle needed to run home and let the dogs out really quickly so I told him to go ahead because the contractions weren't that strong. The nurse came in several times to up the dose of pitocin while Kyle was gone. The contractions started getting stronger and stronger and by the time he returned, I was in a lot of pain. They checked me at 11:30 and I was only 3 cm dilated. I decided that it wasn't worth it to suffer through ten more hours of labor so I asked for the drugs! The epidural didn't hurt at all and it is truly a miracle drug. It took about 20 minutes for it to kick in and then I went to sleep for an hour and a half. They came in to check me and I was 9 cm! The doctor said we would have a baby by dinner time! It didn't take long and I was ready to push. I pushed for about 40 minutes and out she came. It was hard work, but an amazing experience. Since Hannah was barely full term she had a little bit of trouble getting the fluid out of her lungs but she was checked out by the doctor and she was fine. She was so tiny and just perfect!