Deja Vu Delivery: Avery’s Birth Story

As I approached the end of my pregnancy, I was extremely surprised at how well I felt. I wasn’t tired, had no trouble getting around with Harlan, and was having minimal contractions. All of the “greatness” was driving me crazy, because it has me thinking that this little girl was quite comfortable in my belly. The waiting was killing me and I was having the hardest time taking my mind off of just wanting to go into labor.

Last Friday I went to my doctor for my routine weekly visit and was not surprised for her to tell me that there was little to no change to my current status. I had dilated a 1/2 cm more, but that was about it. With the lack of progress, the doctor suggested that I come back on Monday morning to get my membranes stripped to hopefully get something going. I was hesitant, but was willing to do anything at that point. As I left the office and said goodbye to the nurses I mentioned to them that I would see them on Monday, one of the nurses joked that she hoped she didn’t. I was hoping for the same, but seriously doubted that that would be the case.

On Saturday I had absolutely nothing to do so I opted to stay in my pajamas all day and rest with Harlan. I did some things around the house, watched a movie with Har, and was having absolutely zero contractions. On Saturday night we decided to get out of the house and head over to Barnes and Noble for a quiet family night out. I wanted to do some walking that night hoping it would start something so we walked about 20 blocks towards our house and stopped a resturant to get some dinner.

When I went to take Harlan to the bathroom and decided to go myself (because I feel like I have to go all the time) I noticed a little bit of blood. I wasn’t having any contractions but decided to call my doctor anyways. She told me because it was so little and I wasn’t experiencing any other labor symptoms it could have easily been my mucous plug which didn’t really mean anything.

That night I went to bed without having any contractions. Around 4am I noticed that I was having some contractions but they weren’t strong enough or close enough together to start timing, so I went back to sleep. Around 5:30am the contractions had not disappeared so I decided to start to time them to see how far apart they were. They were only about 20 minutes apart and weren’t progressing. At that point I didn’t want to wake MacKay up and get him nervous about something that was probably nothing, so I went back to bed.

About an hour later I went up to use the restroom and noticed more blood. This time there was quite a bit. This is exactly what happened to me for Harlan, so I knew that we needed to head to the hospital soon. I called my doctor, who said to head over to the hospital and called my sister to come over to watch Harlan.

While waiting for my sister, I took a shower and got all of my things ready. I still wasn’t having strong contractions but they had progressed to around 10 minutes apart.

When we got to the hospital and told the nurses why we were there, I noticed a panicked look on their face. When they did an exam (I was 4 cm) and saw how much blood I was losing they decided to run tests. Even though I assured them that this was exactly what happened to me with my first, they still looked concerned.

After the tests came back normal they decided to admit me to the hospital because I was, in fact, in labor. An hour later they did another exam and I had progressed to 7cm. My contractions were getting stronger and I knew that I wanted an epidural. I don’t tolerate pain well and knew how great it made me feel with Harlan’s delivery, that I just wanted to go ahead and enjoy what I could of the delivery process.

After the epidural I felt amazing and had thought I had plenty of time to kill before the baby got here. When my doctor showed up, she said we only had about an hour that this baby was coming quickly. I wasn’t aware that my water had broken earlier, but that is likely what caused me to progress quickly.

An hour later my doctor showed up to check on me, and without surprise, it was time to push. Five pushes later, and only 3 hours after I got to the hospital, our second daughter was born.

Avery Rose Jimeson weighed 6 pounds 3 ounces and was 18 inches long. Although she spent more time in my belly than her sister, she was a little bit smaller.

We decided on the name Avery Rose shortly after we saw her sweet face. Avery was my grandfather’s (who I unfortunately never had the chance to meet) middle name and Rose is part of MacKay’s grandmother’s name. We couldn’t be more thrilled with our choice.

It was so eerie how similar both of my labor and deliveries were. They started the same way and both were very short and easy. I feel very blessed that I can say “easy.” MacKay joked after I had her that maybe my body was just made for having babies. I just think that after all of the pain I went through during both pregnancies, these little girls just wanted a quick and easy exit!

We just made it home yesterday and are slowly getting adjusted to life as a family of four. Harlan is loving having a baby sister at home and is doing well with the transition so far. I will write another post about their meeting later. For now, I am going to enjoy spending time with my TWO little girls.