So with Abilynn I had a false alarm 9 days before she was born. And this was a true false alarm...she had been really active and that mixed with contractions made me think she was coming. I got to the hospital and nothing. They picked up one contraction in 30 minutes!! Soooo, we waited. I woke up one morning and turned to Brenan and told him I couldn't wake up pregnant another day. This was Thursday, the 12th. So I did something unexpected and I took the dog for a walk around our neighborhood. I got back and was having contractions. I didn't want to get my hopes up so I casually had Brenan timing them, starting at 9 am. I was so paranoid about another false alarm that I denied this was happening. So I cleaned. If it was happening, the house needed to be cleaner. Then I showered and took a really long time doing my hair and makeup (totally unusual for me, I just needed the distraction). I text my friend at around 10 to see if the kids could go to her place since my contractions were every 3 minutes solid. She wasn't home, luckily I had a plan B friend that I could call. Jess was absolutely amazing, above and beyond fabulous. She rushed home from where she was, rescheduled her whole day, and took the kids at 11. Then Brenan and I drove to the hospital. I just kept taking my time doing everything not wanting to get my hopes up again. So I got hooked up to the monitors and sure enough I was having real contractions every 3 minutes. But I was only dilated to a 3 and about 75% effaced so the nurse asked if I wanted to go home and wait it out or if I wanted to take laps around the hospital. Obviously we chose laps. So we walked around L&D for an hour and she checked me again. I was at a 4 but hadn't effaced anymore. Everytime they gave us the option, we chose to stay and do laps. I was NOT going home. She also had me rock in a rocking chair, drink lots of water, and do more laps. The nice thing about that hospital (versus Utah hospitals) is that they didn't admit me and put me on an IV right when I got there. Just a side note. Anyway, I took a break and Brenan ran off for lunch. While he was gone the doctor came in and asked what I wanted to do since I was dilated to a 5 and about 80% effaced; He said there was no "if" the baby comes, just a matter of when. He could break my water or let me go home. I tried calling Brenan, who didn't answer just then, and ended up making the decision on my own to have my water broken. So at 4:15 he broke my water, then wished me good luck and left. Up until this point we hadn't told anyone we were in the hospital, we were trying to play it cool. So we finally called our parents to let them know baby was coming (and also that we had been there all day). Around 6 the baby still hadn't come so they started me on Pitocin and at that point they finally put me on an IV (which I was glad they waited). Contractions came stronger and I was at the point of no return for any pain relief, so I got a shot of something around 7 and that was it. Whatever drug they gave me was like magic. My pain went down so much that I was ready to take a nap, like literally had my eyes shut through about 20 minutes of contractions. I was at an 8 so the nurse went to go report to the doctor and let him know how I was progressing. Since I was just chilling Brenan went to the bathroom. All of a sudden I felt some serious pain and was holding on to the hospital bed for dear life. I was alone, screaming. She was coming. Brenan gets back and runs to my side and about 3 seconds later the nurse runs in and asks if I can feel the baby. Yup. Nurse calls in people and turns to me and tells me she has delivered babies before and not to worry. Then an intern walks in and tells me she is going to deliver my baby and she takes a peek down there and says, "oh, she has a lot of hair." Like...what? Cool, get her out. I start pushing, not even realizing that they're not done setting up. The nurse kept telling me to breath. Let me just say that if I have the ability to yell at you, I'm breathing. I think I did 3 real, full force pushes and baby was here! She came so quickly that they didn't have time to sit me up, put up stirrups, remove the bottom half of the bed, none of that. It was kinda crazy. Something I hadn't had happen before was holding the baby right away. In Utah they whisked both babies away right away, so it was kinda cool to hold her immediately. Our little miss was born at 19:53 on February 12th, weighing 7 lbs, 2oz. We didn't have a name for her until about an hour after she was born. Then it kinda just came to me and I turned to Brenan and asked what he thought of the name Abilynn. He loved it and we sat for about 5 minutes trying to decide how to spell it.
My last belly shot
All hooked up
Check out those awesome contractions
Us
Her cute going home outfit
