Birth Story (from Tiffanie's perpective)

on february 27 around 2:30am, i started feeling pains that lasted what felt like about 10 seconds at a time. i wondered if they were actual contractions since they felt so short, but i could definitely feel them start and stop, which i hadn't felt before. usually the pains i felt were more like cramps that stayed for a long time and had no clear beginning and end. i didn't time them very carefully at this point because i was still in bed, but i think they were like 15-20 minutes apart. after about an hour, i realized i wasn't going to go back to sleep so i went out to the couch. i decided to time one of the pains and it was exactly one minute long. hey, maybe these are contractions! some were about 10 min apart some were more like 7 minutes depending on whether or not i got up and walked around. by about 5:30am i was trying to decide when to wake up blake. i had about 3 in a row that were 6-7 minutes apart and pretty consistent. i decided it was time to wake him up since i figured it might take us a while to get ourselves together if we decided to go to the hospital. i went in and whispered: "i'm having contractions. they're 7 minutes apart." he said something like: "ok. are you doing ok? can i go back to sleep?" poor guy was so tired or he was being funny -  i wasn't quite sure. so i went back out to the living room and continued to time them. blake got up, and by that point they were about 5-6 minutes apart. blake started getting ready, putting some things in his bag, and folding some laundry. i started getting ready and we decided to call the doctor's office around 6:30am, told them i had contractions 4-5 minutes apart, and they said to go to the hospital. we got a little bit of cereal and juice and finished getting stuff together.

we were on our way by about 7:15am. we arrived at 7:30am and checked into the front desk. we got up to the triage area and i got into a gown and hooked up to the monitor. the doctor on call came and checked me and said i was 5cm dilated. he said: yep, you're staying! so once a room was ready, we moved into our room and one of my doctors, Dr. Emery (coincident - we didn't name her after the doctor) switched shifts with the on-call doc and came in to check on me. it was close to 9am by this time and she said she was going to her office to get some things done and would be back around lunch time. then she decided to check me before she left. i was 7-8cm by then and the head was "bulging" - she said: i guess i'm not going to the office! she asked if i wanted an epidural and if so, they'd do that before she broke my water. the contractions hurt but they were manageable, but i decided that they were about as much as i could handle and anything more would be too much. plus i was progressing so quickly that i decided to go for the epidural.

around 9:30am the anesthesiologist came in and got me set up. they laid me back to let the medicine work and i was pretty uncomfortable laying down, waiting for the meds to work. i felt tingly but still felt pain about an hour later. the contractions slowed down, so they gave me a little pitocin to get them going again. around 10am, Dr. Emery checked me again and i was 9.5cm dilated, and she decided to break my water, which turned out to be a pretty easy task - i think it took her about 5 seconds. the nurse explained to me that there was a little bit of meconium in the fluid, so when the baby came, she'd need to be cleaned first before i could hold her. i was fine with that. she let the pitocin kick in some more and get more regular contractions. my folks arrived around 10:15.

the pain was more manageable, so i decided to flip through a magazine. however, after about 30 minutes, i told Dr. Emery i could still feel the contractions and i think she thought i meant the pressure. i told the nurse they felt as painful as they did before the epidural so she quickly called the anesthesiologist to come back and give me another dose. once that was administered, she said it would about 20 minutes until it kicked in. i was hurting pretty bad and she said she could do one more dose at the end of the 20 minutes to make sure it worked. after the third dose, i finally stopped feeling the contractions. my dad decided to go down to the lobby at this point, which i was fine with - my mom said she'd call when the baby came.

around 12noon and the doctor said it was going to be time to start pushing soon. so around 12:25pm, i started pushing. after about 4-5 pushes, they brought in a mirror so i could see myself. i was surprised at how little of the baby we could actually see after all of that "you're doing great, way to go, good pushing." i figured she'd be halfway out by then! haha. i kept pushing and Dr. Emery said she wanted to use the kiwi cup to pull her head out. by the end of the head coming out, i could feel the pain and what i can assume was the tearing. it didn't take long to get her to come out after that.

Emery Annabelle was born at 1:01pm and blake cut the cord. (blake said 1:01pm is the same time he was born!) the first thing i said was: she's purple! (she was sorta grayish/lavender.) the doctor said she'd get pink once she got the oxygen in her system - that made me feel better. blake was trying to take pictures from the far side of the room and they told him he could go over and see her. they said her APGAR scores were 8 and 9 and that she was doing great. blake got to be the first one to hold her.

my mom kept calling my dad and he must have been somewhere without cell reception because he wasn't answering. i kept telling her that i was ok with waiting since i was still being sewn up. finally the doc finished and they gave me the baby. she was so warm and bundled up. we finally found my dad and he came in too. everyone got to hold her.

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we picked the name Emery because we liked it - it's a familiar enough name that people understand what you say, but it's not common or popular. plus, it's feminine and different.

we picked Annabelle for these reasons (and we realize this is stretching it a bit):
ANN = middle name of pat, missy, and cindy
A = blake's dad Alan
B = blake's brother, Brandon, tiffanie's brother, Bryan
EL = blake's mom's middle name: Elaine; sarah's middle name: Elizabeth
LE = Leon, laura's middle name: Lee