Ginny Mae

SO she is finally here. The Dr. said the end of the week, and Ginny held out right to the end, Sunday July 3rd at 4:30 pm.

Saturday at around 9 pm I had a major dejavu moment when my water broke just like with Richard. Not really having any contractions, no big gushing, just enough to know it was time. We made it to the hospital around 9:30. On the way there the bag I had on my lap apparently had a leaking sippy cup in it so I ended up with water in my crotch from that so when I walked in to the Family Maternity Center I felt pretty silly. It was the highlight of the evening though. After all the initial monitering and check in stuff I still wasn't really having strong or regular contractions, so the nurse suggested we try and sleep since it was the middle of the night. So we fell asleep and when we woke up my contractions were less regular and strong so now we had been in the hospital for around 6 hours and still no active labor (I was dilated to a 5 when I got there). We spent the morning walking, running around with RW at the little playground they have, and sitting on a birthing ball, and still nothing seemed to trigger labor to start. As we neared the 12 hour mark we had to start deciding whether or not we wanted to start the Pitocin. I had hoped that I would not have to be induced with this labor since with RW I had to get the highest dosage before labor started and after 24 hours of little rest and no food before actually delivering. I also really wanted to not feel a need for an epidural like I did with RW's. We continued trying to get labor started naturally and finally around the 16 hour mark started a Pitocin drip. 3 or so  hours later and a 10 on the pitocin, labor finally started to show it's face. The contractions picked up fairly quickly, and it didn't take long for them to get to a regular pattern and increasing intensity. I spent some time sitting on the birthing ball until deciding that I would do some IV pain meds. So at 4 I got into bed they checked my cervix, now a at 6.5 cm and got my pain meds. A couple contractions after the pain meds I started feeling a lot of downward pressure with the contractions, the nurse checked me again and Ginny had started making some quick work of moving her way down. At this point the urge to push increased with each contraction and the nurse phoned for the Dr. The doctor made it just in time to deliver Ginny at 4:26 pm on July 3. She weighed a suprising 8lbs 2 oz. and was 20.25" long. Nobody thought she would be bigger than 7.5lbs, and RW was only 6lbs 10oz.

So all in all labor went well, I spent a long time sitting and waiting and thinking about the fact that it was odd that both of my pregnancies ended the same way. My water broke and my body some how didn't get the message that it was suppose to start going into labor on it's own. I was grateful that after sitting in the hospital for nearly 20 hours, my delivery was actually quite quick and manageable. We will be headed home at around 6 this evening and are super excited to take Ginny home to be with her big brother.