Sunday, July 06, 2008

15 years ago today...

** Sorry it took me a little bit of time to put this together so it was not posted on July 6th as it should have been. Thanks to blogger, though, I can back date. :)

15 years ago today I had my baby girl. I remember a lot about that day, but not much about the morning. In the afternoon, her dad had decided that he wanted to go fishing at a pay lake in Monroe so I took him and dropped him off since he did not have a car.

On the way to the pay lake, I felt some tightening in my stomach, but having never had a baby before, I didn’t know if it was labor or not. I had been given 2 different due dates – July 1st, and July 3rd, both of which had past. I had also had some false labor and so I had no clue what was going on. I told him that I thought I might be having contractions but I wasn’t sure. I dropped him off anyway.


I had no plans for that evening and so I met his parents at the Bingo hall they went to and played Bingo with his dad. His mom worked there, so she wasn’t playing. About 45 minutes into playing I knew I was in labor, but my contractions were not very close together. So, yes, I finished out the half. I told his parents that I was in labor and that I had to go. I was able to get a refund for the second half of Bingo that I didn’t get to stay and play. They don’t usually do that, but they made an exception for me.
I drove home (which was my mom’s house at that time) and called my sister – who was my Lamaze coach. Well, kinda anyway. We kinda skipped a few classes to go shopping. It was about 7:30 pm or so, I don’t remember the exact time, and I sat on the edge of my bed waiting for my sister. I remember thinking, “I am NOT ready for this. I can’t do this.”

I remember I shared that thought with my mom. Her response? “It’s a little late for that, you have to do it.” True. But. Ummm. I was scared as hell.
Anyway, Molly came over and we all went to the hospital. I had paged her dad to let him know that I was in labor, but he had no way to get there. So, my sister’s friend (Tammy) offered to go and pick him up to bring him to the hospital.


By the time we arrived at the hospital, my contractions were one minute apart. I remember being in the wheelchair and being wheeled to the labor-delivery room. Now, as my Lamaze coach, Molly was supposed to help me breathe. And, when they attached a monitor to let her know when the contractions were coming – she was supposed to tell me that they were coming. Well, I think that is more for the people who have epidurals or something. Because you know what? I could FEEL them coming. I already knew when they were starting. And Molly telling me? Well, that just got on my nerves really quick.


She said, “You’re having a contraction.”
I growled through clenched teeth, “I already know that – I can feel them you know.” I think I scared her. She left me.
At some point, Tammy and Kevin (Allie’s dad’s name, I don’t know why I avoided using it before) arrived at the hospital, and they asked if Tammy could stay. Sure, why not? So, in my delivery room I had my mom, my sister, my sister’s friend, and her father.

I remember them getting on my nerves at some point because someone turned the TV on and I think it was MTV. Anyway, they all left to get a snack or something and my mom was the only one there with me. I was glad for the quiet.
The contractions were less than a minute apart, and I chose to have natural childbirth (no way was I having a needle stuck in my back for the duration of the childbirth), so I can say that the pain? It hurts. A lot. It made the whole remembering anything part hard because all I can remember mostly is how exhausted I was in between the contractions. How much I wanted to sleep, but couldn’t.

A nurse finally came in to check on me and I told her that I felt like pushing… so she checked and sure enough, it was time to push.
My labor was only a few hours. I don’t have any horror stories about 2 days in labor or anything like that. The few hours I had were enough, thank you very much. I also don’t know how long I pushed, but it wasn’t very long. What I remember about pushing was the doctor telling me to push for 10 seconds. I would start pushing and he would start counting. One, two, three, come on, you’re doing good… four, five, just a few more seconds, keep pushing..

And I was thinking, “YOU ARE CHEATING! DON’T TALK WHILE COUNTING YOU ARE MAKING ME PUSH FOR MORE THAN 10 SECONDS!!!”

Eventually, my baby came out. And she was a girl. And oh, my gosh, I didn’t pick out any names for a girl. I was SURE it was a boy. (They were unable to tell from the ultrasound I had and they didn’t do more than one back then.) I don’t know why I was so sure, but I was. I had a boy name picked, and had not even thought about a girl name. So, I was a bit panicked because, in my mind, I had to name her RIGHT THEN. I couldn’t think about it and leave her without a name for hours or days. They said I could wait – that it just had to be done before leaving the hospital. But I wasn’t going to do that.

So, I named her after my mom (Alice, I just lengthened it to Allison) and my Grandma (Elizabeth). I love the name Elizabeth anyway; it was the name of one of the characters in a book series I read when I was growing up. And it was my grandma’s name as well, so it was perfect.

And thus began my life with my new name. Mommy. Then Mom. Lately it has been just “hey.”

I took a picture of Allie with Poppy, but it was blurry.

So, I took another one... and they weren't looking at me! So, I'm posting both.

And this just wouldn't be a proper birthday post for my little girl if I didn't get a picture of her putting food in her mouth. heehee See how dressed up the girls got for the party? Well, it wasn't much of a party since everyone was on vacation!

Happy Birthday Allie! Next year she will be driving. Dang.

1 comment:

Deb Ellsworth said...

what a nice birth story. It's good to see that even after 15 years you can still remember how the day of her birth went. I've been wondering if I will be able to tell Colin about my 60 plus hours of labor giving birth to him... LOL