Gabbie's Birth Story
 
This is the story of the most wonderful day in
the earth has have known, otherwise known as the
day I, princess Gabrielle Elizabeth, was born!
Here it is, told by my Mommy.
I was due on August 30th, but on the night of
August 22nd, I went to bed with just a general
feeling of pain and discomfort. When I woke up
in the morning (August 23rd), I was feeling mild
contractions. They were slightly painful, but I
didn't know if they were real, so I decided to go
househunting with Matt since our move from the
Bay Area to Sacramento was just a month away!
By the afternoon, my contractions were stronger
and much more painful. We ate an early dinner
at Black Angus and I was having to breathe through
contractions between bites of my brownie sundae.
By the time we were driving home, they were about
10 minutes apart. We decided to rent a movie to
help pass the time, since we knew it was going to
be a long night. By the middle of "What Dreams
"May Come", my contractions were 5 minutes apart.
About 12:30am I called the doctors office and they
said to wait another hour and then come in. We
tried to rest and relax but were way too excited
and I was in too much pain to relax. After an hour
we drove to the hospital, nervous and excited and
scared about what was about to happen! At 1:30am
I was admitted at 5cm dilated and 100% effaced.
I tried to walk around for a while but it was just
too painful. I couldn't relax in any position but
laying in bed. I got an i.v. with a Stadol drip
which helped me relax between contractions. After
awhile, I was actually falling asleep between them!
My second checkup showed I was at 8cm! Unfortunately,
my progress stopped right there. I stayed at 8cm for
the next four hours, and soon was having the urge to
push. The pain was more than I'd ever imagined possible.
Since I wasn't fully dilated, but my body was pushing
without me being able to control it, the nurses tried to
push my cervix out of the way so the baby's head could
slide past. Finally, her head got past enough so I could
start pushing her out!
After about an hour of pushing, they put a mirror up so
I could see her head come out. It was amazing seeing
this tiny little person squeeze out, head, then shoulders,
then fingers and toes! She was so tiny - yet so big! Her
loud cry filled the room. She had quite a set of lungs!
She weighed in at 9 lbs 0 oz, and 21 1/2 inches. Looking
at her all swaddled up on my chest was like being in a
dream. It was the most amazing moment I'd ever known!
We were crushed to hear that they decided she wasn't
breathing well enough and needed to go down to the
Special Care Unit. When I went to visit her, I wanted
to cry. She had an i.v. in, and oxygen, and just looked
so helpless. They said she would be just fine after a day
or so, but we still went back to our room and cried. They
were right, though. After the fluid in her lungs cleared up,
she began breathing perfectly normally, to our great joy!
The afternoon of the 25th, she came back to our room and I
spent my first night as a real mom, nursing her all night
and feeling exhausted. Now, almost two years later, she
is a big, healthy, beautiful nursling who is the absolute
light and joy of our lives!
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