Annabelle Marie McClellan

11-11

20-20

01-1

06-6

05-5

19-19

May 17, 2017 8:56pm 20 1/4 in. 8lbs

Annabelle's Birth Story:

Wednesday, May 17th I went into the hospital at 7am to be induced. I was 4 days past my due date and the doctors felt that she was healthy enough and ready to come out. I went back and fourth so many times on Tuesday if I should be induced or let her come on her own timing. I didn't know how much more my body could handle the physical strain of being pregnant. Since I had a very healthy pregnancy the entire time and I was already 3cm dialed by my due date, I felt that she was ready to come into this world with a little bit of encouragement. The day of my due date and the following days I did almost everything I could to induce natural labor. NONE of it worked! So I decided to go through with my appointment to be induced the next morning.

With Joshua, I labored so fast on my own and didn't need any pitocin so I was convinced that with Annabelle as soon as they broke my water I would labor quickly on my own. So the doctor broke my water around 9 am and my water slowly started to leak out throughout the day. I was in labor for 12 hours. I felt minor contractions around 10-10:30 am which was a good sign. I was trying to avoid getting pitocin because I wanted my body to move on its own pace. Every 2 hours I would dilate 1 cm. That was good that I was making progress, it just made for a very long day. It was very slow and steady. I could handle the pain just fine and spent most of the day watching the office on my moms iPad and just relaxing responding to friends and family about my progress and update. Around 5pm I was dialed almost 6-7cm and was starting to get worse pain with the contractions. I wanted to wait until 7-8cm to do the epidural. The doctor came in to check on me and said that Annabelle had pooped in the womb. That is very normal thing in the labor process especially for babies that are overdue. Since she was sitting in that they wanted to get my labor moving a little faster so we decided to do pitocin. Right after starting the pitocin I was ready for my epidural. I wanted to get it sooner rather then later. Then my anxiety came full force.

Those of you who don't know, I have anxiety. During both of my pregnancies, the hormones spiked the anxiety and it took a while to calm me down. With Joshua things moved so fast I didn't have time to be anxious or think about anything other then breathing. With Annabelle I had a lot of time to think and a lot of decisions to make. I felt overwhelmed and very indecisive. With my mom and my husband's help, we decided to do the pitocin then almost immediately after start the epidural. There was a lot of people coming in and out of my room telling me a bunch of stuff. Hooking me up to things, moving me around and I felt so overloaded and paranoid of anything going wrong like the horror stories I have heard from women getting pitocin and epidurals. I started to feel super light headed and faint and I couldn't retain anything they were telling me because I was so focused on trying to lower my heart rate and calm down. Even the nurse noticed my blood pressure spiked and told me I needed to calm down. My mom and Patrick told all the nurses to give me some time after the pitocin and epidural were in. I am so thankful for that. My mom did a great job assuring me that I was okay and kept me focused on making sure Annabelle arrives safely by calming down so that she wouldn't get stressed in the womb. Patrick was massaging me while my mom was encouraging me and feeding me ice chips. I calmed down a little then started to feel the contractions getting closer together which was a sign that I was ready to start pushing soon.

Only an hour after getting the epidural at 7-8cm I was ready to push Annabelle out. As soon as the doctor came in to check me and said I was ready to start pushing, that relieved a lot of anxiety and I remember just resting my head and closing my eyes being so excited to finally meet my baby girl and prepare my mind to push. At that point they turned off my epidural. The numbness slowly started to ware off. After about 2 or 3 rounds of pushing ( about 5 min... you push through your contractions) I looked at Patrick and asked him to give me more epidural because I could feel more pain then I remembered with Joshua (with Joshua I got my epidural at 10cm.. I was already pushing... so I felt pretty numb pushing him out) . The doctor looked at me and said no more epidural, we turned it off, you got to push this baby out. I looked at my mom and she just said "You can do this". I remember thinking, I need to push her out quick... this hurts! So she came in the next 2 pushes! I remember Patrick on one side, my mom on the other and I just held onto their sides and pushed steady and strong. On the second push I pushed through the contraction and didn't want to wait for another contraction because it hurt so bad and I could feel her right there almost out. I did one final push after that contraction and that was it. The next thing I knew she was placed onto my stomach! I felt an instant relief and started crying! Patrick cut the cord and I just held my baby girl. When the doctor went to stitch me up, she said I barely tore. It was only a 1st degree tear! With Joshua, I had a second degree tear. When the doctor told me that I had only pushed for 10 min I was super impressed with myself! I was so happy to finally be holding her. Once they got her dried of and cleared out I just laid there limp with Annabelle against my chest and Patrick hovering over us giving our baby girl endless kisses.

I am so excited to have my family complete and to grow and bond from here.