Princess Anya

See her Photo Gallery here.

Birth Story
Arrival Date: May 10, 2005

On May 10th I was scheduled to be induced, since at my last ultrasound she was supposed to be a HUGE baby (estimated at over 9 pounds – EEK!). I called the hospital at 5 am to find out what time they wanted me to come in, as my doctor instructed. It wasn't a complete shocker to find out that he never put me on the list to be induced that day -- sometimes he seemed a bit scatterbrained. Thankfully, the hospital had room and told us to come in at 8 am. Whoo Hoo – we were in the home stretch!

As most women know, when you are 9+ months pregnant, the thought of labor no longer scares you. It really doesn't matter how the child is going to exit your body, as long as they leave in short order. Your joints ache, your skin aches...even your teeth ache. Having children is not kind to your body and I do believe that God made the last month of pregnancy so uncomfortable that you relish having to go through labor just to have an end to it all. But I digress...

We dropped Kai off at daycare on the way to the hospital and called to let his aunt Susie know to pick him up that day. He would soon be a big brother -- but his understanding of the situation was minimal. For all he knew Mama was just getting really fat.

Once we got checked into the hospital it took until about 9:30 am for them to rupture the amniotic sack, hoping that would trigger labor to start. It unfortunately did not work, so on to the dreaded Pitosin. Pitosin is supposed to make your contractions more painful, and since I planned to go drug free as long as possible, I wasn't happen about that development. Luckily, I was already at 4 cm dilated without starting active labor.

At about 11 am they started the Pitocin drip and I started to get contractions. I was able to handle them pretty well with no drugs -- we just sat and watched TV and I had a little snack and some cranberry juice. After about 3 hours the pain was getting hard to bear, and after a short soak in the tub, I threw up all the nice water and cranberry juice the nurse had been giving me. That was not a pretty sight!

At that point I was dilated to a little over 8 and they started to get the room ready. The nubane they gave me made me a little woozy (like I was drunk, but without the side effect of having fun). I was still able to concentrate on what was going on, but I still felt a pretty decent amount of pain. I'm not sure how much it really worked.

At around 2:30 pm I got the urge to push (as in "God Almighty this baby wants to come NOW so get the damn doctor!") and after about 4 contractions and a lot of primordial screaming she was born! Brian seems to think I may have scared any other mothers in the maternity ward that were there having babies. Hey, it felt good to scream...so I screamed.

It seems like it was a bit more painful than when I had Kailan, but it was much quicker and I felt a whole lot better afterwards. I only had 2nd degree tearing this time and wasn't completely exhausted, so that helped a bit. I had a few problems with bleeding after the birth, but with some medication they were able to get it under control. We came home a little over 24 hours after she was born.

Anya was born covered in vernix, but she is still one of the two most beautiful sights we have ever seen!

Growing little girl progression