I suppose this all started on Feb 29th.. I had an appointment for a massage at noon. It was fantastic and I was able to fully relax. By the time I got home and got out of the car I noticed the baby had dropped significantly. Nothing more exciting than that on that day, and I went to bed.
I had a rough time sleeping that night, having to get up to pee what seemed like every 45 minutes. By 5:30 I couldn't get back to sleep because I was crampy.
DH had taken an extra shift that day so I hesitated to tell him right away so he wouldn't freak out and skip work for nothing. Well by 5:45 the cramps were coming every 5 minutes apart, so I decided to tell
DH just in case. Well by the time I had a chance to fully wake him up, I sat up in bed and felt my water break. I said to him "I think my water just broke!" and shifted positions, felt more leaking and said "Yep, that was definitely my water". I hopped over to the bathroom (which is 2 steps from my bed) and sat there for a few minutes while I decided what to do.
DH was already running around the house trying to find the rest of the things for my hospital bag. I wiggled myself back to the side of my bed with my pjs at my ankles, while the fluid basically ran down my legs... so I grabbed the bed sheet that was already needing to be laundered and basically used it as a towel while I hobbled downstairs for a shower. Once I showered, I grabbed some comfy clothes and helped
DH finish my bag. He called his parents, my best friend (who was my other support person), and my mom. It only took 1/2 of a ring on the phone for her to pick up at 6
o'clock in the morning
We got everything together by 6:15 and were on our way. I made
DH stop at my parents' to pick up my gameboy and my mom practically freaked out because the contractions were 4 minutes apart and we live a half hour away from the hospital! Well we got there just fine, and went directly to the registration office so they could send up my papers while I checked in. Well while I was fishing around for my health card, the fluid was almost pouring out, so she said to nevermind and just go up and to send
DH back downstairs after I was settled in.
We got upstairs and the nurses were having a chat because it wasn't very busy.. only 1 other lady in labour. They took me to their triage and a very nice nurse was going to check for rupture with a swab.. a very noticeable positive result (I could have told her that
) so they got me a gown and a pad and a bed in one of their 2 birthing suites. The nurse checked me and I was 1-2 and still thick. She said she wasn't convinced it was a head she was feeling...It was just before 8am by the time we were settled in. Literally within a half hour of
us arriving, there were 6 other women in labour that showed up! By midday they only had 1 more bed left for a labouring woman!
My contractions were consistent right from the time I started getting them, and by 10am they were every 2 minutes apart, some coming back to back. The pain was getting pretty bad, and
DH kept calling people and I was getting really annoyed hearing him talk on the phone while I was in pain!!! He even had the video camera going during contractions, and I put a stop to that in a hurry!
We walked the halls for a little while and I sat in the shower for about 45 minutes. The doctor on call came in to check my progress once we were back in the room. I was at 2cm but fully effaced! Finally some progress! He also put a heartbeat sensor right on the baby. That hurt really bad. It looked from my angle like he had half his arm up there! That was around 12:30pm.
I laboured until 1:30 when they came in and started an IV for me to be able to get an epidural. The anaesthesiologist came in at 2pm for my epi! Yay! It didn't hurt at all, and I felt great after! They let me labour (and sleep) until 4pm when the doctor came in to check me again. He had with him a midwife in training. So he checked me (I was 4cm) but he had a puzzled look on his face. My baby was breech! He said he was feeling a bum, not a head! So they put a heartbeat monitor on her bum instead of her head. They were concerned as wel because thee was thick meconium coming out of me at this point. But since she was breech, they were doing a c section, and were prepping me for surgery. I think i was honestly more worried about throwing up on myself during surgery than I was of the actual procedure!
They moved me to a stretcher (I think) and wheeled me into the OR. They were counting instruments and prepping my skin with iodine, and I was FREEZING! I had the shakes so bad I couldn't control my own limbs. I was so relieved when they put that cover on me (the one with the hole in it) because it kept me a little more warm.
DH came in before they started and he was freaked out that i was shaking so bad, he thought I was having a seizure or something! Well they started surgery just a few minutes before 5pm. One of the doctors politely reminded everyone that my 1 request was for
DH to announce the sex, and for everyone else to just let him figure it out! So he stood up a little early and saw some of the surgery, but he was ok with it which surprised me. Then they said the baby's out and he said to me "It's a GIRL!!"
It was honestly the happiest moment of my whole life. I started crying! And then I had to remind him to GO TAKE PICTURES! They really needed to suction the meconium out of her mouth before she cried, which they did, and then she let out a huge cry! And she cried and cried for what seemed like 10 minutes
While they were stitching me up the doctors were chatting about someone's boat and fishing. LOL. They wheeled me into recovery, and our parents were able to come in for a short visit to meet our little Chloé!
Finally... the birth story! 
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