Annaliese Jane Huff

Contractions started at 4 am on Sunday the 23rd. The day progressed fairly well. I was certainly feeling like I was in labor in the late afternoon. I tried to labor in the bath tub for a while, bouncing on a ball and having Dave and his aunt Teddi applying pressure to my back and pelvis. My Mom was here too keeping track of contractions and making sure that I was keeping hydrated and trying to eat.

At 7:30 pm on Sunday we tried to go to the hospital, but as it turns out I wasn't dilated far enough, so we made the decision to go home and keep laboring. It was hard and long. I made it until 3:30 am at home and then I just needed to know that I was making some progress, so we trekked to the hospital again. This time they didn't send me home. I was admitted. I labored all hooked up to monitors and sort of tethered to the bed until 7:30 am on Monday. Sydney's birth was a c-section, so I was shooting for a v-bac (vaginal birth after c-section) for this one. They have to keep a monitor on me to make sure that everyone is safe, baby and me. Finally at 7:30 I received the gift from heaven. I got the epidural. Fantastic relief.

At that time I was only dilated to 3 1/2 but now they could give me pitocin and turn it up. Laboring all day on Monday with my epidural we were hoping for change. At 2:30 they broke my water in hopes that it would help. Nope. So then at 5:30 pm they inserted a monitor to see how my uterus was handling the contractions. All along the baby was doing really well. By 7:30 there still wasn't any change, so we knew that something had to change soon or I was going to be looking at another c-section. I think the whole team (Dave, my Mom and Teddi) and I were all feeling a little defeated. At 10:30 the Dr, and midwife checked me again and I was only 5 cm - 40 hours into this and only 5 cm. Good grief.

Dave fought for me and suggested that we wait and hour and if I didn't move at least 2 cm that we would consider this c-section thing. Sure enough, I dilated 3 cm in an hour. Fantastic! Don't get me wrong, I'm very out of it at this point. So sleepy. My skin was itchy with the epidural so they gave me a half dose of benadryl and I couldn't keep my eyes focused on anything. I was feeling constant pain as the baby was getting lower and lower. At 11:30 I felt the need to push, so I tried a practice one and we were ready. I started pushing a little after midnight, and 50 mins later or so, we had a baby girl. It was a bit of a shock to us - guess we were convinced it was a boy. She was 8 lbs 10 ozs and 19 inches long, born at 1:07 am on Tuesday, May 25th. Syd was 8 lbs 4 ozs and 19 inches long. Guess we make them compact.

It did take us 5 days to name our sweet thing, but we're thinking that it's really suitable. She's just a doll. I'll post more pictures as I get them from my Mom and Dave's Mom too.
Thanks for all your prayers and love. We're doing well. Syd adores Annaliese and would hold her all day if we'd let her.