Lily's Birth Story

As much as I hoped the stork would drop a baby on our doorstep, it turned out that I had to actually GIVE BIRTH to this baby. Here’s the story of her birth:

I woke up at 2:25 a.m. on Sunday, October 19, with mild contractions. Around 4:30 a.m., I woke up Ethan and we just laid in bed trying to get back to sleep. I never really slept, I think because of the excitement of possible being in labor. Having never been in labor, I wasn’t sure if it was the real thing.

On Sunday, my contractions continued to get stronger but were still manageable. We had brunch plans at 1:00 with Carrie Albee and decided to go. It was better than sitting around the house waiting for the next contraction to hit. I had to grab Ethan’s hand under the table to get through them, but otherwise, it was brunch as usual.

Once we got home, the contractions were coming harder but not to the point where I couldn't talk. I wanted to be up moving around, so we went outside and washed the car. I would periodically have to run into the backyard when a contraction hit because I did not want to be doubled over in my front yard.

By 10 p.m., the contractions hit the magic number - every 5 minutes for at least 60 seconds. I called my midwife and she told me to come on in to the hospital. One thing I was not expecting was how incredibly painful it would be to go over speed bumps, manhole covers, potholes, etc. on the way there. I just about jumped through the roof when Ethan hit one!

We got to the Alexandria hospital around 10:30 p.m. and I slowly got checked in. The midwife told me I was ZERO cm dilated. I almost cried. I assumed after having contractions for 20 hours, I would have made SOME progress.

The midwife recommended a small dose of morphine because I was so tense that it was causing me not to dilate. I had not planned to get morphine but decided if I ever wanted to start dilating and not get pitocin, I had better do so. I was hooked up to the morphine from midnight until 4:30 a.m. Note: low-dose morphine, while relaxing, does NOT numb the pain. I would fall asleep for 4 minutes then wake up for a painful contraction. This went on for 4 hours! When I woke up, I would also be talking complete gibberish from the previous sleep's dream. Just ask Ethan.

Finally, they checked me at 4:30 a.m. and I was 7 cm dilated. I asked for the epidural at that point. It was great—I couldn’t feel a thing. They let me continue to labor with the plan to start pushing at 8 a.m. Ethan and I took a nap and were awakened at 9 in the morning.

At this point, the midwife broke my water. Then they let me labor down a bit longer. At 9:45 a.m., I started pushing. Lily Kathleen was born at 11:28a.m. on October 20--her due date!

The staff at Inova Alexandria was very nice. Of course, since it’s a hospital, someone was coming in my door at all hours. On Tuesday morning, the nurse came in my room at 5:30 a.m. to draw blood and it was a revolving door after that.

Lily is wonderful and I’d do it all over again in a second!