Get The Scoop on The Russell's: Alison's Birth Story

The story of Alison's birth~

After making me sick for 9 whole months we were all excited to finally meet her. She was due to arrive on December 21st!

Saturday 12.18.10

I started noticing I was having consistent contractions as Ben and I were our out finishing up our last minute shopping before the baby arrived. They were definitely time-able at 7-8 minutes apart. We were hopeful that it may be labor as the kids were spending the night at Grandma & Grandpa's house so it would make the logistics of getting the kids somewhere easier if this was labor. I told Ben that the test would be when we go home and I lay down if they slow down then it wasn't it. And sure enough when I laid down they went up to 16 min. They kept coming all night but never progressed.

Sunday 12.19.10

I was trying to rest on Sunday after church, so Ben went to pick up the kids from G&G's at 3. Thinking labor was imminent there was one last picture I wanted, my belly with all of our hands on it! So as sunlight was fading Ethan took this shot with a remote. Though there wasn't much light to work with, I love how it turned out!

After that we headed off to church, it was baptism night! Love those!!!

Contractions continued about 10-15 min apart but still not progressing. SSoooo...

Monday 12.20.10

I woke up after 9 1/2 hrs of sleep and within an hour I felt like I'd been up for hours and needed a nap. I laid down for a couple hours and was feeling very fluish, headache, horrible body aches, and contractions that seemed pretty strong. As the day went on I just felt worse. When Ben got home around 5 I had just gotten up from another 2 hour nap. Thankfully I have wonderful kids that can keep the house running while I was out of commission for the day. I wasn't up long before I had to lay down again on the couch. I was in a lot of pain, and feeling worse. I decided to lean over the couch and try to rock my hips to maybe get her to put more pressure on my cervix to hopefully get things moving faster as I thought was in labor with contractions now coming 5-6min apart. I could only do that for about 10 minutes it hurt so bad! I thought a bath may help but I couldn't make it to the

bathroom without help. Ugghh 'this better be labor' is what I was thinking. It was then that I started getting a fever, I was shaking and contracting, not a good combination. By 10 that night my temp was up to 102 so around 10:45 I called the Dr and she recommended that I come in so they could monitor the baby.

Tuesday 12.21.10 DUE DATE!!!

A little after midnight we arrive at the hospital. Once on the monitors they could see that baby wasn't responding well to my fever. Her heart rate was averaging in the upper 180's into the 190's at times, which is higher than it should be. So the goal was to lower my fever fast. They started IV fluid, gave me Tylenol, and put extremely cold washcloths on me. If that didn't work I was going to have to lay on some sort of ice-bed, which they had waiting outside my door. I did not want to have to do that!! Thankfully after about 5 hours my temp was down and so was her heart rate. Too bad my bodyaches weren't gone ;-( , but the baby looked good. The nurses were talking about sending me home because even though I had been contracting continually for almost 3 days I hadn't changed from the week before, still 3cm and 50%. My Dr. came in in the morning and said that the L&D dept was swamped so she too thought she would have to send me home. But once she got the results from my blood work she said my white count was elevated and my platelets were low so she wanted me to stay (HUGE relief as I was ready to meet our little girl!!). She thought I may have a uterine infection and wanted to induce sometime that day!

They started me on Pitocin around 12:45pm(I think). Shortly after I got an epidural, and I couldn't have gotten it fast enough. Even though I would normally not want one this was definitely a not a normal labor. I was in a pain and extremely tired and could not have gone through it at that point. I remember telling Ben "it feels so good not to feel all the pain in my back that I've had non-stop for 3 days".

Around 2 they checked me again (4 and 50%- a little progress) and broke my water. They gave me a little nausea medicine and I dosed off for 30 min or so. The nurse and resident Dr. came in and said the baby was having too many decelerations and they were going to have to switch my positions to try to get her heart rate stable or I would have to have a C-Section if we couldn't get her to stabilize. (Also my BP was low but once they rolled me over it went back up.) After having me flip from side to side they had me sit up, and at that point they were looking a little more worried so I immediately started praying for her with each contraction and it was amazing to see her heart rate stay steady throughout the contractions! God is gracious! It was just a few contractions later that I pushed the nurse button because I was feeling pressure. Sure enough when the nurse came back and checked me I was complete, just 2 hours after them breaking my water. The threat of a C-section was over. We were going to meet our little girl very soon!

Once the Dr. got there it took only 3 contractions and at 4:20pm our little Alison Claire Russell came safely into the world! She was beautiful, bald and wrinkly. She nursed right away like pro. Her weight was 7lb 9oz and 20in long. As the Dr. was trying to deliver the placenta the cord tore off :-0 Yeah not good. But as they were trying to get the placenta out I was very thankful for the epidural!! Ben was busy taking pictures of her as I started feeling bad again. My fever started going back up again, eventually hitting 102.6 by 8pm. They gave me more Motrin and started IV antibiotics and the on-call Dr. ordered some additional tests: Chest x-ray, 2 blood cultures, a CBC, and a few others I can't remember. Yet none of those showed anything so my Dr. still thinks it was an infection in the lining of my uterus. After they got my fever down on Tues night it never came back and the Motrin helped with the aches. I was feeling a ton better!

My wonderful husband brought me these beautiful flowers! I love the vase!!

and these!!! mmmmm We went here on our last date before baby arrived, just 3 days earlier. The cupcakes there are so yummy and he surprised me with a dozen for our family to celebrate Alison's arrival!! I should have taken a picture of the contents but they were going rather quickly!!