Addison Grace

3:00 AM February 28th 2011: Caylee woke up crying...this is not unusual at all. She hasn't slept through the night for approximately two weeks before Christmas and since then, has been waking up at least 1 to 3 times a night again. So, in doing my motherly duty of soothing her back to sleep, I started with the braxton hicks contractions again. As I sit next to Caylee's bed staring at her wide eyes, she was quietly looking around as if something were different. She would close her eyes a few times and sense my presence fading out of her room and call me back. I laid my hand gently on her belly like I do every night when she wakes up. Normally she goes back to sleep within 2 minutes, but this night it wasn't working! I knew I'd been in there for at least 30 minutes and within that time I felt like my Braxton Hicks contractions might have been following some kind of pattern. They were not any more intense than they usually were, but the fact that they didn't change when I changed my position made me sweat. So, I decided to take Caylee back to bed with me so that I could keep an eye on the clock.

3:30 AM: I laid Caylee down inbetween my husband and I and she clung to me like a little monkey. This was unusual because the past week, she had played favorites with Chris. She had been his little sidekick and she wanted daddy for everything. I grabbed my phone as another contraction hit and I found the stopwatch. Pretty convenient! Pushed the start button as I tried to pry Caylee off of me and I calmly told my husband that I had been having mild contractions and I was going to time them to see if they were real or not. His eyes popped open and he tried to take Caylee from me but she would have nothing to do with him! So, I calmly rubbed her belly and soothed her with my words wondering if it would be the last time she would be my only daughter. I kissed her face and she just gazed into my eyes as the glow of the stopwatch on the phone softly illuminated her precious little face. I was so calm that I convinced myself that this must be a false alarm ...7 minutes is a long break for me during labor, so denial was inevitable. But 7 minutes passed again and another contraction set deep into my back suddenly grabbed my focus and set off an immediate feeling of anxiety. So, I frantically told my husband to take Caylee regardless of her tears and I went to the bathroom to see if that would stop the contractions. I took my cell phone in with me and called my mom as I sat down.

3:42: One ring..."hello?" my mom said in an almost confused and very crackly voice. "Mom. I'm having contractions 7 to 10 minutes apart. I don't know if it's real labor yet, but will you please just come sleep on my couch just in case? If it's not real, I'm sorry. I just don't know yet."

I immediatly called the birth center which has an answering service have a midwife call back. It took about 15 minutes to get a call back and during that 15 minutes the contractions went from 7 to 3 to 4 minutes apart right away. The midwife finally called and I explained that my contractions didn't feel much more intense than the braxton hicks I had been experiencing for the last 2 months. They were only lasting for 30 seconds and they were mostly in my back and lower abdomen. She told me it was up to me and I could come get checked if it made me more comfortable. We then mutually decided that it was better to be safe than sorry since my last labor start to finish was only an hour and 40 minutes long! I told her I'd be there in 25 minutes or so after my mom got there to watch stay with the kids.

For about 10 minutes after I got off the phone with the midwife, I walked around the house still wondering if labor was real or not. The consistency of intervals insisted that it was, but I still wasn't sure. The contractions did seem to get stronger in intensity, but this just couldn't be it. My water hadn't broken yet and I was calm. My husband was anything but calm, though. He kept insisting that I was leading this and that if I thought we should go NOW we could call the neighbor to wait at the house with the kids until my mom arrived. He had already started the car. I hadn't even found my shoes, yet! I told him that everything was under control and that we could wait for my mom. "If this really is labor, it's just early labor. There's no way I'm in active labor yet, so calm down!" I told him with a smile. He was still holding Caylee and she was just quiet as can be with what looked like a smirk on her face. It was like she thought she was getting away with something by being up at almost 4 AM. Chris gave her to me and told me that I'd better give her some love because he was convinced that this labor was real and we'd be coming home with a baby. So, he went outside to turn the car off as we waited for my mom and I hugged on my little girl. As he walked back in 3 minutes later, I had been watching the stop watch and anticipating another contraction. I handed Caylee off to him just as I experienced another contraction. My mom walked in 30 seconds behind him and we said our goodbyes. I still wasn't sure I was in real labor yet. It was nice to be having breaks between contractions and I actually felt really good! I remember walking slowly to the car taking in the calm air of our neighborhood. I took a deep breath as I enjoyed the quietness of the night and opened the car door to another contraction. "hmmmmmmm....." I thought. And that was it. My husband drove alot slower this time, but every time I had a contraction, he seemed to speed up again. I remember asking him to slow down and telling him that it wasn't as frantic this time. I felt like everything was under control and was sure there was still a possiblity of being sent home after being checked. After 15 minutes of driving, the contractions started to intensify. I remember enjoying listening to Britney Spears sing, "Would You Hold it Against me?" The music was loud and there were no cars on the road but ours. It was just us, the music and the city lights. When we were almost to the hospital, Black Eyed Peas came on. I don't know what the song was, but Chris was singing it in his falsetto voice and I couldn't consentrate on my contractions as he was blasting his voice! So, I told him to Shut up. This is not a phrase that I ever use, especially on my husband, so later, I felt bad for it! He responded by asking me if I still didn't believe I was in labor. As we pulled into the hospital parking lot he asked me if I regretted telling him not to speed. He asked me if I wanted him to park or pull up to the hospital. I couldn't answer through my intense contraction and he pulled up, went inside and grabbed a wheel chair and told me to sit down in it. I told him I could walk and he told me no. We wheeled up to the front desk and he tried to check me in, but the old guy doing the checking in told him that I had to do it. My husband was outwardly annoyed by that and sarcastically said, "really?". Then the guy told him that he could wheel me in the check office if he wanted to. I stood up and walked in myself. The lady at the desk seemed unconcerned that I was in labor and slowly asked me my insurance info, my name, my address and phone #. Between contractions as I held on to her desk to breath through them, I answered with squinted eyes. I could barely consentrate on standing up, much less answering questions! As I was doing this, Chris was moving our car. When he got back inside, he wheeled me to an exam room where the midwife helped me undress, hooked a monitor up to me and checked my progress. Before she checked me, I told her that I still wondered if I was overreacting. As she checked me she laughed as she told me that I was 100 percent effaced and 6 centimeters dilated! So, I laughed as I realized that my husband was right. I was finally glad that we had left for the hospital when we did. I wondered how long I had been in active labor.

I focused on moaning through my contractions with relaxed hands, eyes closed and head down in a sitting position on the bed as my husband and the midwife talked about our first child's birth. My husband fanned me with a bedpan while I contracted and he told the midwife how during my first labor people in the room took turns fanning me with magazines while wearing jackets. I opened my eyes briefly to see a bedpan coming at me at 50 mph! And asked my husband (probably not so nicely) to fan me farther away from my face! That prompted a chuckle from the midwife and my husband. Seriously, was this really happening? We were finally taken to a labor and delivery room. I stopped to hold on to the wall a couple times during that short walk and I heard another woman in labor. She was screaming. This is when I think I started to freak out a little bit. My husband later told me that he heard the lady say she thought she was going to throw up and he made sure the midwife new that I was to be nowhere near that woman or I wouldn't do well at all. We arrived at the room and I remember the nurse telling me to lay down so she could hook me up to the moniters. I told her I didn't want to lay down and I stood up instead for a few minutes. I sat down to be checked again and was at 8 centimeters. I remembered outloud that it took me two contractions to get from 8 to 10 last time and I started to feel out of control of my emotions again. I mentioned that I was scared and I didn't know why... I really feel like the midwife lost me at this point. Instead of talking me through from the beginning of the contraction on, she would pick up about the middle when I was feeling like I wasn't in control and then start talking me through it. My husband thought she might have been out of her element being at the hospital. All I know is I needed a little more coaching and nobody was doing it. I frantically asked for ice. I remember grabbing a handful of ice and shoveling in down my hospital gown in the back and the front. The midwife got me a wet washcloth and that didn't do much. So, Chris started taking over a little...i don't remember what he told me, but it helped...and then he did something that would have shocked even a fly on the wall. He took the ice bucket and poured it on my head!!!!! It was love. It was perfect. I'm sure it was hilarious, too!!! About 3 contractions after sitting down I thought I might need to push and I mentioned this as best I could to everyone as I also yelled that I didn't want to do it anymore. The midwife told me to look at her in the eyes and she said that I was almost there. I knew I was almost there 3 contractions ago, but I felt like nobody was listening to me. All the while there was a nurse trying to get a heplock in my arm! Let me reiterate. She was sticking a needle into my arm that was causing just as much pain as the contractions. The pains were contradicting each other and I was getting angry. She couldn't find my vein. So, she pulled the needle out and held guaze on my unnecessary would until another nurse came in and put a heplock into my other hand. I was about 10 centimeters at this point telling people that I thought I needed to push. I remember telling the other nurse to stop and squeezing her hand through a contraction to make her listen to me. Finally, my husband and the midwife almost silmultaneously told me that if I felt like I had to push, that I could try it. So, I pushed every so slightly and felt relief with the next contraction. She checked me and confirmed that I was at 10 and told me to push again. My water spontaneously broke with this next push, so imagine a gush of water followed immediatly by a head and a body with one long push! I was in shock. There was a baby in my arms. A soft, warm little body just came out of me and I was holding it and kissing it's head. Someone called out that she was indeed a girl and her cries were just beautiful. They were not angry cries like Caylee's...they were more subdued, but almost confused, like, "Why did you bring me into this cold air out of that warm comfy place I want to be in?" My husband cut the cord after it stopped pulsing and I put her right to the breast to nurse. She was an angel. I always wondered if it were possible to love a baby right from the first moment I laid eyes on it. It took a litte more time with my previous two children, but this time, it was love at first sight. She was born at 5:42 AM. And to think, just an hour before I still wasn't sure I was in labor. Here's the kicker...a couple of nights before I went into labor, I was feeling anxiety about how short the labor could be, so I gave it to God. And I actually in all seriousness asked him to please give me more time than with Caylee. I told him that I needed a little heads up first and that I would appreciate at least 3 hours. He gave me 2 hours and 45 minutes. This makes me laugh and thank God for hearing me. I asked...I believed that he would give me what I asked for and HE DID!!