The Harding Family Adventures: Welcome Abigail!

Abby minutes after her birth with our Dr: Dr Blair

For those interested here is the story of how Abby arrived into the world. Like all labour and delivery stories, it's a pretty crazy story. I'll try to make this short - but no promises.

As we neared my due date, we started going to the doctor's office every week. There were a couple of times I thought I would go into labour either before, or just after, my due date. Once was the full moon, then there was the Super Bowl, then our doctor was going to be out of town, then a large snow storm hit the area - but no... Abby did not want to appear. As we approached a week overdue, we had to make some decisions. I decided I wanted to wait and see - just let nature take it's course. I wasn't too uncomfortable at this point, so I as willing to let labour happen naturally. It did mean that I had to get another ultrasound to make sure the baby wasn't in distress (which she wasn't). In the middle of my 41st week, Dustin had a big swim meet in Burlington, and we were quite nervous that I would go into labour and he would have to miss the meet. Luckily, I didn't and Dustin was able to swim and swim well at the meet.

On the blocks

And he's off...

The Monday after the swim meet (41 weeks and 4 days), I had a doctor's appointment. Our doctor informed us that she was going to be leaving on Thursday, and we should probably think about inducing soon, as many doctors don't like you to go past 42 weeks. She offered to see if there were any inductions available at the hospital on Wednesday or Thursday and would get back to us with a date and time - but we hoped that I would go naturally before then. In the meantime, I booked another biophysical ultrasound for Tuesday.

Just before we left for the hospital

Tuesday morning: I wake up at my normal early time, because I couldn't really sleep all that well with my giant belly, reflux and cramping all over my body! I got up and put a pork in the slow cooker. Then at about 9:30, my doctor calls our house - there are NO induction spots open for Wednesday or Thursday (as it's a long weekend, most likely). But, there was a spot for a consultation and possible induction for noon today. My doctor also said she was leaving on Thursday night, so wouldn't be around if we waited and I didn't go into labour in the next two days! Well, that convinced me. I called Dustin at work and asked him if he wanted to have a baby today! He booked the rest of the day off and I was in a hospital bed by 12:15. The OB on call felt fairly strongly that we should induce that day, because he wanted the baby out by 42 weeks! So, after a not so long discussion, Dustin and I decided we'd have a baby. My water was broken around 1:15, and after waiting for the baby to calm down (she was kicking like crazy), I was put on pitocin at around 2. The OB thought it would take approximately 12h before I had the baby, and our doctor was putting it around 6am, so there was time to wait around. While the contractions built up, D and I chatted with the nurses and our doctor (our family doctor was delivering), we played cribbage and chatted. At first the contractions weren't too bad, just annoying; I was way more concerned about how hungry I was - you aren't allowed to eat. Around 6pm, D had to go home to take the pork out of the slow cooker, and by the time he returned at 7:30pm, the pain was a lot worse. I couldn't really talk during the contraction and had to start concentrating on my breathing. From there the contractions just got more intense and painful. Every 30 minutes I would feel like I couldn't take any more and D would tell me just get through the next 5 contractions and we'd reassess. At about 9pm, I was in pretty bad pain - I asked for the laughing gas, but it made me pretty nauseous and the mask made me claustrophobic so I only used it at the very worse point of the contraction and only a few times. It was about this time that Dustin also asked me for my top two names - we had decided we'd limit the list of 20 names to approximately 5 and D would chose from there. I don't really remember, but I guess I said my top two were Evelyn and Abigail - and D declared our daughter to be Abigail! That proclamation gave me a little more resurgence to keep working through the pain, but at about 9:45 the pain was so bad and the urge to push so overwhelming that we called for an epidural. The nurse informed us that the anesthesiologist was in surgery and would be there in 10 minutes, however, I still felt like I really needed to push, so the nurse checked me and I was at 10 cm. I was finally allowed to push - this started at about 10pm.

Our doctor came in at that point (she had been in and out of our room all afternoon), gowned up and declared that I had a lot of pushing to do! But I got right down to work, and apparently I'm a good pusher, because in 30 minutes we had a baby! At one point, D informed me he could see her head, and I had almost pushed her head out. The doctor and nurse gave each other looks but said nothing, because as Dustin was soon to find out, our little girl's head was a lot bigger than he thought!

So, Miss Abigail Jean Harding was born at 10:30pm. Weighing 8lb 1oz and 20.5 in long.

I was so happy to be finished with labour and hold our little Abby in my arms. I immediately got to cuddle skin-to-skin with Abby while I was stitched up. We stayed in the labour and delivery room for about an hour and half - before I was transfered to a recovery room. I sent Dustin home for the night so he could actually get some sleep. I didn't really get a lot of sleep as my roommates came into my room at about 3:30am and then they ended up being snorers. Not fun. So we got an early release from the hospital.