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Audrey's Birth Story

I promised I would have a birth story on here, so here goes. It all started on Thursday afternoon about 4:15 when my water broke at work, yes at the Mortuary. It's not ideal to have your water break at work, especially during a visitation. Imagine me in the office sitting at the desk and having to make my way past the entrance to the funeral home to the bathrooms becuase I am sort of panicking at this time and am not certain if this is the real deal, so I didn't want to tell anyone. I get to the bathroom and then realize, this is the real deal, now I must make my way back to my bosses office and get the heck out of here. Thankfully my boss is female and she knew exactly what to do after just having a baby a year ago. She loaded up her things and off we went to the hospital. I called Brent at work on the way to the hospital and he immediately left work. At this point I was in no pain whatsoever and everything was fine, except I was leaking all over and it was a really weird feeling.

Once we got to the hospital I was checked right in and brought up to a labor and delivery room. My boss stayed with me until Brent got there and was so nice the entire time, she even bagged up my nasty clothes. I am thankful for her being at work at that time. I got changed into my gown and they checked and I was 3-4 centimeters and having no pain which was awesome. One nice thing about your water breaking is knowing you will have that baby within 24 hours, they will not let you go too long after.

The pain never started to get real bad until later that evening, maybe around 9-10 p.m. My plan going into this was no pain medication and I was determined to stick to it. I am not sure if it was more because I didn't want the big shot in my back, I had heard you could get nasty headaches from it, how it might affect the baby, or just for the simple reason that I told many people I was going with no meds and I really wanted to say I did it. Around midnight I think they started pitocin to get my contractions coming closer together to progress things along and it seemed to be working. I was in tons of pain and having lots of back pain too. I was able to stroll the halls and try different positions to make the pain more manageable, but I honestly felt horrible. Brent describes the whole thing of the water breaking like a tornado. Our babies home lost its roof and everything was just flying out. The nurse came to me around 2am and said it was my last chance to have medication if I wanted it and their would be no more opportunity. So, I seriously thought about it and worried that things would maybe stop progressing and I would be sorry, but I said no to the meds and kept going. Thankfully things kept progressing and Audrey Jeanne was born at 4:44 a.m. with only about 1/2 hour of pushing. Pushing was nothing compared to the pain before hand.

I don't think I could do it again, honestly, people say how easily you forget after the baby is born, but I have not forgotten about it, it sucked. I think I forgot at the very moment she was born , but now looking back, uggghhhh, not fun. I guess it's rare anymore and all the nurses were talking about it, which makes me feel like He-Man or something, so I am incredibly glad I stuck to my original plan and was able to get through it. Brent was awesome and helped me out the whole time and he was incredibly brave, I was worried he might pass out. He even cut the cord, woo hoo.

This is just minutes after Audrey was born.

Brent holding Audrey for the first time.

This is me enjoying my slushies I got during labor, I could have ice chips or flavored slushies, I took advantage. I had 3, grape, blue raspberry, and cherry.

Grandma Sonnek visiting Audrey just a few hours after she was born. She hated to leave and go to work.
Grandpa and Grandma Wood visiting. Grandma got to leave work early to come and visit her new granddaughter.

Introducing Audrey Jeanne

Audrey Jeanne was born on Friday, July 11, 2008 at 4:44 a.m. She weighed in at a whopping 9 lbs 9 ounces, she is a big girl. She was 20.5 inches long. She is doing really well and here are a few pictures to show everyone of our stay in the hospital and I will update soon with the whole story. For now we are safe at home and glad to be here.

Here is when I was still smiling.

Here is Audrey, all sprawled out.

Dad and Audrey. We are working on him keeping his eyes open now that their are going to be many pictures.

Cuddling in the hospital with dad.

Cuddling in the hospital with mom.

Friends

On Sunday we enjoyed a barbecue at my friend Bonnie's place in St. Peter. It was a high school friends gathering, it was awesome. Our friend Leslie and her husband were home from Arkansas, it had been so long since all of us had gotten together. It was great to see everyone, just too bad that Leslie had to leave before Baby Wood arrives.

Marcy and Cole at the party.

Bonnie and Leslie
Here we all are, minus Marcy, we were bummed that we didn't get a picture with all of us.

4th of July fun!

We had a great 4th of July, I finally got some sun and didn't get too hot carrying around all of this extra weight. We enjoyed the parade in St. Peter with my parents, Trent, Marcy, Cole, April, Logan and Owen. It was a great parade and got lots of candy. At one point they were handing out freezies and everyone started pointing at me and my pregnant belly and they ran right over to me with a freezie, I guess I took advantage of it yesterday:) We went to Randy and Rachel's for a barbecue in the evening and let of some fireworks, then Brent and I went to the fireworks at MSU to end the night. I was hoping some of the loud noise and booms would stir baby Wood, it probably freaked the baby out and now it doesn't want to come out, bummer.


Here we are enjoying the St. Peter parade.

Cole had a great time, of course he is happy here, he is eating.

Brent at Randy's testing out the bubble machine, he couldn't resist.

Grandpa Wood sporting a goatee, Terry, Richard, Rachel, and Bev.

Here it looks like the blue smoke bomb is coming out of Richard's head. Abraham and Richard love the fireworks.

Whoa

These are the two bare belly pics I have during my pregnancy, 9 weeks and 39 weeks. Check out how much I have grown, wowser.

Walk

We went on a walk tonight on the Red Jacket Trail, I am not one to walk too far these days, I don't even wear tennis shoes anymore, ha.



Here is Brent on Randy's bench on the trail.