On Sunday, November 9th, contractions began in the afternoon and lasted th entire day and into the night. They were stronger than the Braxton Hicks contractions I had been feeling for weeks, but they were still inconsistent in timing and length. So I knew I wasn't in real labor, but it was certainly a warning sign.
Early Monday morning, around 3am I woke up in discomfort. I laid in bed and watched the clock to see how often the contractions were coming. By 4am, they had been fairly strong and about 6-8min apart. Since I couldn't fall back asleep, I went downstairs to lay on the couch, watch TV and time the contractions. By 6am they were pretty consisten 5-7min apart. I was thisclose to calling my mom to head down by us (to watch the girls). I went upstairs and woke Tim up to let him know my status and took a shower. But low and behold the contractions mellowed and I didn't have one for 20min and some were weaker.
I was supposed to go downtown for a team meeting all day, but I decided to play it safe. Even if I wasn't in true labor, I definitely was not feeling physically up for tooling around downtown and being in a business meeting as I was still having contractions relatively frequently. So I set myself up on the couch and worked for the day. Contractions continued and around 3pm I went for a long walk. I didn't have contractions for most of the walk, but when I got back is when I believe that real labor began. The contractions were stronger and about every 6-8min and continued like that for the night. We decided to call my mom around 5pm, just to be safe in case it continued and we ended up heading to the hospital in the middle of the night. Having my mom come down and sleep over was going to be much easier logistically than dropping the girls off at my brother's house in the middle of the night.
The Middle of the Night
We went to bed around 10pm. I had been having some painful contractions but knew it wasn't quite time yet. I wanted to try to sleep for a couple hours and see what happened. Well, shortly after midnight I couldn't sleep through the pain anymore. I laid awake for a bit, but then decided to take a hot shower. I continued timing the contractions and they were about 5min apart or less. I woke Tim up and told him to take his time, but that it was time to go to the hospital.
We headed to the hospital around 1:30am, calling the doctor on the way. I was able to walk from the car to the hospital at which point I knew I was going to be in a wheelchair and then a bed the rest of the time.
We're Ready!
I was about 5-6cm when we got the hospital. With Addison and Eden I was at 7cm and in much more pain, so this was nice to have some time to settle in and try to take it easy. For the first hour we were there I was only in pain when I had contractions, the nurse was so impressed because I didn't seem like I was in pain at all, but I told her eventually I would be showing it.
I opted to go drug-free again, as I did for Eden and very happy I was able to do it! The pain got worse and I knew I was getting closer, but it wasn't until I was about 9cm that they broke my water manually and then it really kicked in.
I felt the urge to push so we went for it. Minion wasn't coming on her own, whereas I think Eden came out on her own because it was so quick. So Minion required more pushing. I also was much more tired with Minion than with Eden, since that labor didn't start until the afternoon and I had a full night sleep the day before and much quicker labor. So when the pushing started, I realized how truly tired I was! So it took a few tries for the muscle memory to kick in on how to do this. Then, I finally started having good progress. After about 20min of pushing, Minion was born.She's Here!
It was my hardest delivery being that she was my biggest and she was face up. Knowing it would be my last was what motivated me in the last few pushes. We told the nurse we thought we were having a girl, so in those last few pushes, the nurse was "cheering" me on by saying "She's almost here!" So the fact that it was a SHE made that a pretty cool experience. Like we knew without having to know :)
Ivy Maureen O'Neill
Our last little girl was born on November 11, 2014 @ 4:57am. She weighed 8lbs. 3oz. and 20".
The date is significant, other than being the cool "11/11 make a wish" date, it is also the date of my parents' wedding anniversary! It would have been 47 years!
Another, more minor, significance is I won the Baby Minion Pool! There were 7 other guesses on 11/11, mostly Girl - but I won due to only being 1oz off from Ivy's actual birth weight!
Instantly we thought she looked more like Addison, which I think is still true, although she may have Eden's nose. We lucked out again with another beautiful, healthy, sweet little girl as we complete our family. Big sisters Addison & Eden were so thrilled when they met their little sister later that morning.
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