Birth Story: Early Labor (Yep this deserves 2 posts)

Ok, well I've been putting off writing Aubrey's birth story but if I wait any longer, I'm afraid I will forget (although I feel it's very hard to forget an experience like that). I debated on whether putting it on my blog, but my blog is basically like Aubrey's fancy online baby book so it's only fair to her and to me that I write it all down. Here is the forewarning, if you don't want to hear about labor or delivery then do NOT read on, haha. I want to get it all down so I never forget about the birth of our baby girl and so she can always know "her story".

Well labor actually started on June 17th techincally. We had an appointment in Knoxville so we got up bright and early and made the drive to Knoxville. I was excited to see if I had progressed any after the move to Cookeville. We packed up the car with our hospital bags and the car seat just in case. Little did we know that we should have packed a lot more because we didn't think we would be staying there until we had you. Dr. Vick checked me at my appointment and I hadn't changed any, but he did strip my membranes and he said I was a trooper. He stopped and said he didn't want to do too much. Well I was ready for you and I told him to keep going but he didn't. I was determined to get something started so I made Kyle walk around Target and East Town Mall. Well your Dad was dallying around and I was on a mission and that was to walk you out of me!! We did some major walking and then decided it was time to head back home.

We didn't make it to the Turkey Creek exit before I realized I was having contractions and we started timing them and they were about 5 minutes apart. Your dad didn't think I was in labor yet, he kept asking me what I thought. All I kept saying was I've never had a baby, I have no idea what labor is supposed to feel like. We decided to hang out around Turkey Creek before heading home to see if the contractions stopped or not. We sat at a Borders for 30 minutes and your dad was looking at a COMLEX review book and I was staring at the cover of a Glamour magazine. Your dad asked why I wasn't reading and I said because I "THINK" I am in labor! We decided it was time to call Dr. Vick's office. So we did and he said come back and they'll check me again. We went back and nothing had changed but they got me on a monitor and I was having contractions about 7-8 minutes apart. We thought awesome, this is it. Well then they told us this was early labor and that we should just hang around Knoxville and come the next morning to see how things were going.

We decided to get a hotel room in Knoxville and see if we would go in the middle of the night or make it tot he next morning. Well we definitely made it until the next morning. We went into the doctor at 9 am and the nurse practitioner checked me and still the same. She told us to go eat a big lunch and do some walking and come back at noon. We went and walked West Town Mall with all the morning mall walkers and kept up with them pretty well. We went and had our "big lunch" since they thought we might not eat for a while and went back to be checked. Annnnnndddd I was the same. They told us to come back later, do MORE walking, and eat another "big lunch/dinner". We did our walking and man did I make Kyle walk. We walked all around East Town Mall again and I was still having contractions about 5 or so minutes apart. We had walked so much that we were both tired and before going back to the doctor we went to rest at Kyle's mom's hotel downtown. I took a quick nap and Kyle tried some CV 4 before going back to the doctor.

We got to see our doctor this time and I told Kyle if nothing has changed and if we don't get to walk across the street to the hospital, I'm going to cry. The nurses were all shocked that I hadn't gone into "active" labor yet. My doctor checked me and he said I was still at about a 2 cm dilated, but a little more 2, whatever that means. Thennnn he said well let's go break your water. I asked him, you aren't kidding, right??? I felt like we had been in and out of the doctor's office 5 billion times and that finally we would get to see our baby girl. Well that part of "active" labor still took a while and that deserves a post all in itself. We were just so relieved to finally be going to the hospital after A LOT of walking and A LOT of waiting.