After a long crazy journey Arya Grace made her way into our family on December 28th at 1:54 PM 7 lbs, 15oz and 22.5 inches long
Arya’s birth story is a bit wild. Her pregnancy as a whole was a bit rough, but nothing could have prepared me for the process of her labor and birth.
23 days. That’s how long I was in labor with this precious little girl. I didn’t even know that was humanly possible until I experienced it myself. On December 5th, almost 4 weeks before her due date I went into preterm labor. After a short period in the triage unit of labor and delivery we were whisked into a delivery room and handed mounds of paperwork to sign before baby girl made, what seemed like would be, a quick appearance. My contractions were hard and close together and growing constantly stronger. After a couple of hours in the delivery room I got to the point I thought surely I was in the transition phase based on my other children’s labors. But, after being checked I found out that I hadn’t dilated any more past a 4.
After 12 hours in the delivery unit the Dr finally made the call to send us home for a bit. The contractions were staying steady but progress had stalled. We were assured that we would more than likely be meeting baby girl within the next day or two, but that they had never had anyone reach this stage with these types of contractions and gone more than 6-7 days without giving birth.
But…there’s a first time for everything I guess 😛
The next days and weeks were excruciating. I was in constant pain with severe contractions that would rage for 10-12 hours at a time, then let up just enough for me to sleep for 3-4 hours before starting again. We were in and out of the hospital every couple of days. Each time to be told that I was still definitely in labor but not progressing. They gave me things to try to move things along, but nothing seemed to help. Each time after several hours they would finally send us back home with the next thing we needed to watch for that meant “we needed to rush back”. Then that would happen…and still no baby.
However, and thankfully, because Arya was stable and my vitals were staying within a “reasonable” range the Dr made the call not to induce until the 39 week mark unless one of us had a change for the worse. Of course Arya’s 39 week mark landed on Christmas Eve so that meant waiting until the following Monday.
When the day finally arrived they started me on a pitocin drip at 7:00 am. But, since I already had a pretty strong contraction pattern upon arriving it didn’t really do much to progress things along. At 12:42 the Dr made the call to break my water.
Well, that was all we needed. Things went from 0-100 in an instant and 72 minutes later I was holding a beautiful baby girl in my arms. She was delivered all in one set of pushing. I think I only pushed for about 2 minutes total. (I guess she figured she at least owed me that after the insane labor process 😛 ).
Arya Grace is the perfect combination of feisty and so incredibly sweet. She fits perfectly into our little family and we are so very grateful that God has blessed us with her. Despite the challenging circumstances getting her here we would do it all again for our precious baby girl.
