5 years

What was I doing 5 years ago at this time? If I remember correctly I was slightly uncomfortable and trying to sleep because I had been up most of the night before feeling slightly uncomfortable. It was actually the onset of labour, but I didn't want to believe it, lol.

I had been induced for both of my previous pregnancies, so I had never gone into labour all on my own. I wasn't actually having contractions yet, just cramps. Chris convinced me we should go in so I could be checked. We lived over half an hour from the hospital and my previous history of labours showed I like to get those babies outta there FAST. Not quite as fast as my mother who had her last baby, my little brother, in 45 mins from first contraction to babe in arms. But 4 hours fast, which is quicker than 'average'. I was worried I'd be like my mom and end up having a baby on the side of the road in a car, lol. Anyways, I grabbed my hospital bag and off we went. Katie had swimming lessons so we took her to the pool and left her with an overnight bag with friends of ours. I can't remember if Beth went with them also or if she went to stay the night at my sister's place.



We got to the hospital and I was still just having cramps. I was sure they were going to send me home, but I did not want to spend a bunch of time in the hospital only to get sent home so one of the first things I told them was if they were going to send me home to decide right away so I could leave, lol. Of course nothing can be that simple. I was there for hours. And I was on monitors that were not showing any contractions, yet I was still feeling cramps. I don't think they believed me, lol.



So we spent hours in the antepartum unit before they finally sent me over to the birthing unit. They told me that they didn't think I would be delivering any time soon, but they were running out of space on antepartum and needed to open up some beds. I was having contractions by this time, real ones, but the monitors were not picking them up, so of course they don't believe the woman in pain, they believe the monitors.



By the time I got over to the birthing unit I was feeling some really painful contractions. I wanted an epidural. It didn't help. They gave me more medicine in the epidural line. It didn't help. They gave me the same stuff you give for a c-section through the line. It didn't help. Nothing helped. Thank goodness for fast labours. Just like my last 2 labours, this one only lasted just over 4 hrs. When the baby was finally crowning, they discovered why I had been in so much pain. Her head was presenting sideways. They said in that position all my pain would have been in my bones and an epidural does nothing for bone pain. I wonder if that's true or they were just trying to make me feel better? They also said that was the reason no monitors were picking up that I was having any contractions at all.

At 10:10pm on August 19th, on her due date, Anna Renee was born. Today she is 5 yrs old. My baby, my last baby, is 5 yrs old. Wow.