Madison's Birth Story

My husband and I have always known we wanted children, but we wanted to wait until I finished graduate school. We had been married just over two years when we found out I was pregnant. It was a surprise, but one that we welcomed with opened arms. My pregnancy was a breeze. I had no complications, no aches, no pains, and I only gained one pound. I was one of those lucky women whose metabolic rate skyrockets during pregnancy. Five days before my due date I went to my normal doctor's appointment. I had some bloody show that morning before going to the office. My doctor noted that I had dilated further than I was the previous week and I was 95 percent effaced. He thought it could be anytime.

I couldn't just sit around and wait, so I went and got my hair cut and walked around Target for a little bit. All morning I had been having the usual contractions but wasn't sure if this was labor or more Braxton Hicks like I had been having for about two weeks. I finally starting timing contractions and at 4:30 PM, I decided to call my mom for a ride to the hospital. Contractions were four to five minutes apart and had started to hurt in my lower back and thighs.

When I arrived at the hospital just before 5 PM, the nurse checked me–I was almost five centimeters with a very bulgy bag of water. She immediately admitted me. By 6:15 PM, I was in my room, with an IV and my epidural. By 7 PM, I was already at eight centimeters. Now all I had to do was wait for them to give me my second bag of penicillin and for my husband to arrive from Tucson.

At 10:20 PM, the nurse broke my water and by 10:45 I was ready to push. As the nurse put the stirrups on the bed she gave me instructions on how to push since I was a first-time mom. Once she finally finished, I got to push with the next contraction. She immediately yelled for me to stop and my mom yelled, "She has hair!" The baby was right there. There was not going to be an hour and a half of pushing for me! The nurse immediately called the doctor.

While we were waiting patiently for the doctor, another woman arrived at the hospital at eight centimeters and her bag of water had just broken. There was no time for pain management for her. Since it was her second, the doctor decided to deliver her first because he thought she'd be done faster than me.

Finally, he arrived in my room and I was very ready to go after almost an hour of panting. The last 20 minutes were agonizing. I thought I'd be crying from exhaustion–not because I needed to push so badly but couldn't. It was just three pushes in one contraction and my Madison made her grand entrance into the world. She was born on September 20, 2005 at 11:44 PM weighing seven pounds and three ounces, and was 20 inches long. It was a picture-perfect experience for me, except for the doctor's late arrival, of course! We joke about how next time I may have to sit in the hospital parking lot before I go into labor because if we had broken my water when I was eight centimeters, we would have had a baby within about three hours of arriving at the hospital!