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Ashley's birth.

It was midnight on May 10th 1991, I was 16 days late with my 4th baby. Three boys hoping for a girl. I also had gestational diabetes with my third son, but tested negative for this pregnancy (little did I know). So anyway at midnight I woke up to a small gush and I knew it must finally be time so I woke my husband and went to the bathroom felt a small contraction. I got back into bed and we started timing the contractions. They were 5 minutes apart but not very strong at all, I was afraid we wouldn't make it to the hospital in time because my last labor lasted only 4 hrs and I thought the more babies you had the shorter the labor would be(boy was I wrong). So since the contractions weren't that strong I decided to wait at home for a while. At about 5:30am we called the doctor and my mom and off we went to the hospital. We were taken to the L&D room, I was checked and was only 1cm dilated, I knew I was in for a long day. At about 7:00am the resident came in and was listening to the heart beat and watching the monitor and everyone in the room thought(me included) we heard 2 heart beats! They order and altrasound and thought they saw twins. To be sure they ordered an x-ray. My husband and I were flabbergasted! Thinking we were having twins and that we would need another car seat and crib and oh boy was I scared. They did the x-ray and it turned out to be only one. Were we relieved!

Finally at about 11:30am my doctor showed up I was only about 2cm by then so he broke my water. Then the pain really started! I don't remember much of the afternoon, they gave me drugs I slept between contractions and was really out of it. The next thing I remember it was about 6:00pm and my mom showed up and brought my husband some food and the doctor showed up. I was still only 5cm at that time. My longest labor before this one was my first and that was only 12hrs long. The doctor was talking about doing a c-section but she wanted to try a few things first. She had me lay on my left side which helped a little and had me push, then we tried this bar that they put across the bed and I had to get up and squat and push that didn't help much. By this time it was about 9:00pm. I was on my side again and only about 8cm and had been pushing for 3hrs and was sooo tired, the docter talked about the c-section again and I prayed for it at that point. She went to get things ready for it and the contractions got even stronger I didn't want to push anymore but all of a sudden I felt pressure and couldn't stop. The doctor came back in, still in street clothes I might add and looked me right in the eyes got my attention and said to me, "this is very inportant do not stop pushing until I tell you to this is a big baby and we can't use forcepts or suction to pull the baby out or we could rip its head off." Boy did she have my attention then. So I pushed and pushed, and the doctor decided I needed an episiotomy but had no time to numb the site, I felt everyone of those snips 3 to be exact. And I pushed and pushed until someone said, "it's ok it's almost over" well I thought that ment I could stop pushing, boy was I wrong. I had 2 nursed pushing on my stomach and 2 more pushing my legs up. Finally she was out at 9:57pm weighing in at 11 pounds 4 ounces, so bruised even the whites of her eyes were red. I couldn't believe it was a girl, I was crying and so was my husband.

The doctor said that she was the biggest baby she ever delivered vaginally. And it took her about a half hour to sew me up, I had a fourth degree tear to the rectum. Mean while the baby was being checked over and fed a bottle, they were afraid her blood sugar was going to drop too fast because they figured I probably had gestational diabetes with this pregnancy too. Everything went fine after that but she did have jauntice and had to be but on bili lights for a few days. But to look at her today at 7yrs old you would never know she started out being 11 pounds 4 ounces because she is such a petite little girl now weighing 48 pounds. I had another boy four years after her, labor lasted about 1 hour 30 minutes he weighed in at 7 pounds 6 ounces being the second biggest baby I had, boy what a difference a few pounds can make!!

DeeDee Olson