Norah’s Birth Story:
On Friday, May 13th I went to sleep around 10pm just like any other night. I was tired, unbelievably swollen, and so ready for my baby girl to come. I had a strong feeling that Norah would come at 38 weeks (mother's intuition?), but it was my first baby and the chances of that happening weren’t likely. My older sister had her son three days past his due date, and I figured that might be more of a possibility. Just before 12:30am on May 14th I frustratedly woke up to use the restroom yet again. I went pee and headed back to bed. As soon as I was about to get into the bed I felt a gush of liquid. Feeling confused I grabbed a new pair of underwear headed back to the toilet. Then I got up and headed back to the bed for a second time and then another gush of liquid. I told Pat that I thought my water might have broken and headed back to the toilet. I texted my friend, Crystal, after I did a quick google search trying to confirm if my water had indeed broken. Crystal called and we chatted and decided that my water had broken, but since the contractions hadn’t started she said I should try to go back to sleep. Well, within a minute of two of hanging up my contractions started at five minutes apart lasting about a minute long. I had not expected this at all! I thought maybe we were timing them wrong, not actually believing that they could start out so quickly! They then quickly went from five minutes apart to four minutes apart to TWO minutes apart at around 1:50am and SO VERY INTENSE. I was in contact with my doula, Charlotte, as the contractions were happening to let her know when she should head over. At 2:15 after they had been happening at two minutes apart Charlotte headed over to our house. She got to us just after 3am and I was losing it. The contractions were literally sending me to the floor crying out in agony. I couldn’t understand why they had to be so strong! I wanted to die and said so many times haha! Charlotte helped me work through a few contractions when one hit that felt very different. I felt like I had to go to the bathroom and that’s when charlotte checked my underwear. The bloody show happened and I was ready to push and didn’t know it! She said we needed to head to the hospital immediately (this was around 3:15am). Pat grabbed our stuff and we headed out the door (apparently I apologized to Nash for having to leave him in the middle of the night haha). Before I could get in the car I fell in the driveway because of a contraction. I could not get in that car, but I had to. I had FOUR contractions in the car on the way to the hospital and yelled for Pat to floor it because I thought that baby was going to be born in the car! She was coming QUICKLY! We got to the hospital just after 3:30 and the walk to the L&D ward was AGONIZINGLY LONG. I had like two or three contractions before we could make it there. We got to the desk and the triage nurse who was not very nice made me sign some paper and took me to the triage room to do a urine sample and change into a gown. I could not do a urine sample because of all the contractions. She had no idea that I was so far in my labor. Laverne (one of my nurses during delivery) did my cervix check in triage and found out that I was FULLY DILATED and READY TO PUSH! She kept me in the triage bed and rolled me in to my room and her and Pat helped me roll into the other bed. We waited a few minutes for Dr. Turner before I could start pushing (they hooked me up to monitor Norah’s heartbeat and got my IV put in for fluids). The pain was unbearable and I didn’t think there was any way I could actually do this. I wasn’t strong enough. I was nervous because we didn’t have our birth plan with us, but we didn’t need one. I had planned and prepared for a natural birth, and at that point it was going to happen whether I wanted it to or not. I just wanted to make sure that Norah and I had skin to skin IMMEDIATELY and I wanted a delayed cord clamping. Dr. Turner, Laverne, Lyndsay and Charlotte were simply the most amazing team Norah and I could have had for this birth. Everyone was SO encouraging! They kept telling me how amazing the whole time and I needed that. “Push girl, push!” “I can see her head!” “She’s coming!” . I started pushing just a bit after 4am and Norah Avary shot out (literally) at 5:02 am! The doctor actually barely caught Norah--Pat watched the whole thing happen and it's so funny to hear him talk about it! Norah was SO pink (the doctor and nurses kept commenting on her color!) and squishy and looked so much like her daddy! Within seconds she was on my chest and I was SOOOOO in love. Immediately. I couldn’t believe she was here! I couldn’t believe that after all the months of waiting, after all the contractions and pushing that she was in MY ARMS.
Highlights of the first 365 days of her sweet life:
