A new life begins: Baby Alena's birth story

Our new little girl has arrived! My entire pregnancy I was not sure if she was going to be a boy or girl, but I was certain near the end that it was going to be another boy. And as my labour progressed, almost exactly the same as Logan, I thought even more that she was going to be a he. But, what a wonderful surprise at 4:48 pm on September 2, 2011 when our little Lena entered the world.

the labour was not as long as Logan, but I had to be induced again. My water broke first and I had strep B. So, off to the hospital again. However, the big difference was that i got to have some rest for a few hours. We had our room, induction wasn't going to start until decent hours in the morning and hopefully I may start my contractions naturally. So, we just rested in the room and waited. By 8 am I did not have any contractions so the induction was inevitable. We moved from the birth centre to the hospital labour ward. We had 2 really great midwives, Kylie and Claire who were so supportive through my entire labour. I was checked at 9 am and I was only 2cm, so I had a long way to go yet, so the oxytocin started. Kylie was certain that my body would just click and I would deliver before 3 pm. They decided that I was in active labour (so, regular painful contractions) at about noon. Contractions were getting stronger and stronger, but no urge to push yet. I got checked at about 3:30 pm and I was only 3.5 cm dilated! I could hardly believe it. I for sure thought that I was farther than that. I was absolutely gutted. All my breathing, yoga birth practices had gotten me this far in a good way, and now I had hit a mental block. I was on the bed for a rest and the contractions started coming even harder and faster now. By 4:30 I got checked again because they wanted to put a heart rate monitor on the baby's head. I was only 4 cm at this point. I told Craig that I could not go on like this for 4 more hours, I was going to have to get an epidural because I was not getting any rest between body ripping contractions. The, about 5 minutes later I had a really strong contraction. All the pain was at the front and within the contraction the pain moved to my back side and I instantly wanted to push. I had dilated from 4 cm to 10 cm in literally the one contraction. I started to push because I just could not. Within 2 pushes her little head came out and then one big push and she came flying out, literally. the midwife pretty much caught her coming out. And that is it, that is how our little girl came into the world. It was a long, painful labour that ended up having a very quick ending. And the reward at the end, priceless.

Here is Alena, only a few minutes old