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Alexianna Marie's birth

I had a somewhat complicated pregnancy. In March of 1996, I found out I was pregnant and due on October 27, 1996. I had gotten pregnant not long after my 18th birthday. Well the first few months were rather uneventufull. I did not even feel pregnant. When I was about 7 months pregnant I would go for walks when I got mad at my boyfriend........these walks seemed to bring on braxton-hicks contractions. Also I had problems with my balance, and was always falling down the stairs inside our apartment, so I was in the hospital a lot with premature labors and was eventually put on brethine to stop contractions. Well on my boyfriends b-day which was Oct 20, 1996, I had a feeling that the baby was going to come soon. That evening I started to have very mild contractions, similar to braxton hicks. All night that night I was unable to sleep. Earlier that day I had went and gotten everything for the nursery, so the next day we decided that we would put the nursery togetther. So on the 21st I felt the contractions all day long, they were still not painfull (I had been dilated to 2 for the past week or so). Later in the evening while my boyfriend and his friend were putting up the crib, I went to the bathroom to find brown stuff all over my under clothes. I had lost the mucus plug. I thought for sure I was having the baby on this night. So my friend and I went to the hospital and I was starting to feel pain now. They said I had lost the mucus plug. They kept me on obersation until 3a.m of the 22. They said I was still dilated to two, and they were pretty sure I was in labor, but since I was not dilated that much they sent me to the comfort of my own home. So my boyfriend and I went home. I was in quite a bit of pain now, and my boyfriend went to sleep while I cried out "I can't do this" all night long. I was pretty tired by the time morning came since it was my second night in a row without sleep. So the next morning I decided to "prepare" myself for birth. I made sure I had everything the baby and I would need packed. I bathed and put my hair up so I would be comfortable. Then I went to my doctors office and I had dilated 2 centimeters over night. He told me to go ahead and go up to the hospital. Well I did not listen. My boyfriend and I decided to go to Mcdonalds and eat first. We told the employees I was in labor and they looked kind of scared. They said try not to have the baby here. I enjoyed seeing the looks on their faces. While I was there I went to the bathroom, and I was glad because I did not want to do that while pushing. So after that I went to the hospital. It was about 11 am when I got there. I was still dilated to 4. Well all day I was in pain. At one point I screamed like 3 times and the nurse immediately brought in a shot of demerol. It helped somewhat because before i had it I did not get a break between contractions. I felt nostop pain that just got worse then laid off and worse and so on. The demerol just took the pain between contractions away. When I went to my docs office earlier I made him assure me that I would indeed get the epidural I wanted. Well all day long I kept telling the nurses I wanted it and they absolutely refused, so my mom and boyfriend had to call me doctor for them! That made me so mad, that is their job. Well I was still not progressing by 4 pm but they finally decided to give me my much needed epidural. I had been in pain for about 24 hours and I was tired. The main reason I got the epidural was because they were going to start me on induction medication. After the epidural kicked in and boy did it kick in, they started the induction medication. After about 3 hours I felt the strong urge to push. I told the nurses and they did not believe me since I had the epidural. Well I finally got them to check me and I was dilated to 9. Within minutes they had to check me and I was at 10. It was time. I made sure everything was clear with my doctor to have my firiend, boyfriend and boyfriends mom in the room. He said it was fine as long as my boyfriend and friend stood behind the doc and watched and the mom was there for my support since she had lots of kids herself. Well I started pushing and the doctor kept telling me how good I was doing. I knew when to push most of the time. About 10 mintues later my doc saw the babies head and wanted to do an episotomy. While trying to hide the scissors, he told me to stop pushing but I did not hear him, and out came my daughter so fast he had to litterally catch her! Since he did not have time to do the episotomy, I tore rather bad. I had third degree tears! Boy when the epidural wore off not long after she was born It sure hurt down there. Right after she came out they put her on my stomach to cut the cord and wipe her off. Then they weighed her and cleaned her a bit and everything else while I got stitched up. Then they gave her to me and my boyfriend called everyone to let them know. I got to hold her for about 2 hours then they took her again to give her a sponge bath. While I did have her I breastfed her and she did just perfect. That was almost 2 years ago. Now I am due with number two on October 3, 1998. I will have to write about that one when it comes along.