Happy birthday Rylee!!

Yep, I now have a six year old!! Wow, she's just growing up WAY too fast and I guess it's only fair that I write about her birth since Avery got her story told. So here goes....

The beginning of the pregnancy was definitely "not normal",lol! For about a week I had been having really bad abdominal pain at night but I ignored it until one morning I couldn't get out of bed. I called work to tell them I wouldn't be there and then I called Dale to come home so we could go to the ER. He gets home in record time and we take off. We get to the hospital, check in, the doctor does a quick exam, takes some blood and then tells me that they need to wait until the results come back before doing anything else. About 20 minutes later he comes back in and says "You're pregnant but the levels are really low. We think it's ectopic and you'll need surgery. Sorry, but we can't give you any medication for the pain.", and then he walked out of the room. Yes, this is exactly how we found out, crappy, right??? I wasn't due for my period for another week so even though we were trying being pregnant didn't even cross my mind. So, off to the ultrasound room I went. Because it was so early they couldn't detect anything. I was told to take it easy, go back for a repeat ultrasound in a week and I would also be required to get bloodwork done every other day for the next week to see how my levels were. Long story short, my levels went up like normal and two weeks later an ultrasound confirmed that everything was okay. My ovaries just decided to flip out because of the pregnancy and that's what caused the pain. I was told that it's totally normal, kind of rare and very painful (no crap!!). The rest of the pregnancy went great. I felt wonderful and loved every minute of it. Christmas Eve was my first internal check. I was 1 cm dilated. Wohoo, I thought!! New Years Eve was my second check. 3cm dilated and I'm told to "stay close to home, it won't be long now". Umm, yeah right! My due date (Jan. 13th) came and went. I went in for an (overdue) check-up and on the way out one of the doctors stopped me and asked me about my weight gain. When I told him what I had gained me told me that I looked "too big" to have only gained that amount and that he'd like to do a quick ultrasound. Okay, no problem. I bee-bop into the room and hop onto the table. He does the scan and says "I'd like to induce you tomorrow, I'm estimating this baby to be over nine pounds already" WHAT?? TOMORROW? NINE POUNDS??? So, he tells me to be at the hospital around 7:00am for the induction. I go back to work, call Dale and my mom and then my boss tells me to go home for the rest of the day to relax. I spend to rest of the afternoon calling everyone that I know and I get no rest. That evening Dale and I go out to dinner and when it comes time for bed he went to the spare bedroom so I could get some uninterrupted sleep (he snores, bad!). Around 2:30 I wake up, go to the bathroom, lay back down and realize that I feel quite crampy. I brush it off thinking it's from the internal exam earlier that day. Hmm, now the cramps are coming and going. I lay in bed for about an hour and time them. Yep, I'm in labor!! I spent the rest of the night watching TV and timing contractions while Dale slept. Around 5:30am the phone rings "This is the XXXXX hospital, you are scheduled for a 7:00 induction but we are extremely busy right now Don't' come in as scheduled, we'll call you when we're ready for you". Dale tells the nurse "too late, she's already in labor". So they go back and forth on the phone, how long are the contractions, how far apart are they, are you okay being at home, etc. and it's decided that we are okay with staying home for now. 6:30 the phone rings again, it's the hospital telling us that a room just opened and we should come in. So we head to the hospital all excited, park in the garage, walk across to the entrance and up to the 2nd floor. I get checked in and my doctor comes in to do a quick exam. Yep, active labor and I'm 6-7 cm. HUH??? But I still feel fine?? I'm still laughing and I just walked across the parking lot and into the hospital by myself. How did that happen so fast?? She asked me about medication and although I still felt great it was my first baby,I had a "fear of the unknown" and got the epidural right away. 1:30 come and I start to feel like crap. They had turned my epidural off at this point, they wanted to me be able to effectively push. 2:00, time to push!! At this point my body takes over and I push 5,6,7 times in a row before stopping. I kept thinking, just cut me open, I can't push a nine pound baby out! 2:30 comes and she's crowning but not moving down much. I push again and feel a huge "pop", and she comes out with the next push. It's a girl!! We were so excited because up until this point we didn't know the sex. They weigh her, 7lbs. 12oz. WHAT?? What happened to "over nine pounds". Oh well, she's healthy, that's what matters. I found out later that the "pop" I felt was her shoulders getting "unstuck" in my pelvic bone. I had shoulder dystocia, which is where the baby's shoulders are too wide to fit past the pelvic bones. Because of that she required some extra stimulating right after her birth (she wasn't breathing) but the nurses did a GREAT job of not letting us know. I found out later that night that her first APGAR score was a 2, had I known that right away I would've freaked out. From that day on she has been one of the strongest little girls that I know. Now she's an energetic six year old who loves school, loves swimming and loves her family. She's become somewhat of a tomboy over the years but still loves to climb into our bed every morning for a quick snuggle before starting the day. I'm still amazed when I watch her play. How did she get so big so fast?

So, to you Rylee, HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!