This pregnancy with baby Gilbert 3 has been a crazy ride. It was such a different pregnancy than with my first two. First we were not able to find out the gender which drove me crazy, and second everything just seemed different. I had never really had pre-labour with the first two, but I felt like I could go into labour at ANY minute with this pregnancy.

My due date according to my last period was December 20th, according to my dating ultrasound my due date was December 21st. I of course went with the first date because it was the closest date, but the doctors went with the 21st. So on December 19th I went for my 40 week appointment in Bridgewater, which is where I was suppose to deliver and also happens to be an hour and 20 minute drive from our house. While at my appointment I asked for a sweep and was told I was 3cm, so I was excited and hopeful that something would start fast or at least within a few hours like my last two pregnancies.

We went out and walked around Wal-mart and went to supper and nothing was happening so we decide we would head to Halifax to stay with my parents instead of going home. My parents were planning on meeting us in Bridgewater when I went into labour so we figured if we were already at their house we would have one less thing to worry about (getting 2 toddlers up and ready while mommy is in labour). Stefan and I dropped the girls off and went to the mall to walk around. I was not feeling any closer to labour after walking for a while and I just wanted to go back to my parents house. Nothing happened that night and I was so sad. Friday came and again nothing happened. I convinced Stefan though that we should stay in Halifax just one more night because this baby WAS GOING TO COME!!! I played Wii Tennis, I danced, I bounced on a ball and the only thing that led me to believe that a baby could come soon was that I was slowly losing my plug all day, but besides that I had nothing to go on.

I ended up falling asleep on the couch around midnight and sleept for an hour and half when Payson woke up crying, so I went into the bedroom and nursed her for a bit and put her back to bed. I crawled into bed and then all of a sudden I got a contraction that I knew was for real. I looked at the clock at it was 1:47am. I stayed in bed for the next few contractions that were coming every 3 minutes and finally I told Stefan that I was pretty sure I was in labour and I was going to go out into the living room to walk a bit. I didn’t even make it past the bathroom when I had to run back in to pee, and I lost my plug. I quickly let Stefan know that we needed to leave as my contractions were getting stronger and were still 3 minutes apart. We were on the road around 2:20am and made the 20 minute drive into the hospital.

We arrived at the IWK hospital (the one I was not suppose to deliver at), and went in to register. Since I was not suppose to deliver there I had to answer a ton of questions to register myself (I was pre-registered at my hospital). I kept apologizing when I could not answer questions and the girl registering me told me I was the politest lady in labour she had ever encountered. After that a nurse came down and took me into a triage room to ask me a few hundred more questions. She suggested we start heading upstairs so I could be checked to see if I should be admitted. I got into an exam room and was checked and she found out I was 6cm. My contractions went from 3 minutes to 1-2 minutes apart within a few short contractions and Stefan had to put a cold cloth on my neck. The nurse quickly took us to a delivery room. On the way I had to stop multiple times for contractions and again I kept apologizing, I also had Stefan stop and get me a huge cup of ice because I was really thirsty. We got into a room and I changed out of my sweat pants and into the skirt I would wear to deliver (much comfier than those hospital gowns). I was leaning over the bed and I quickly told the nurse that I thought I had progressed since my check a few minutes ago, so I got onto the bed for another check and I was now 8cm and having contractions on top of each other.

The intern doctor and nurse realized that the baby was coming fast and called the attending doctor to get down into my room as fast as she could. As soon as she was there I had a contraction and my water broke which is when they realized that there was meconium in my water and they then had someone call the NICU doctor to come to our room. I pushed for a few minutes and her head came out which is when they realized her cord was around her neck and I was told to stop pushing. They took the cord off of her neck and I pushed the rest of her out with one more push. She kind of slid out and fell onto the table in her own poop. They quickly cut her cord and had to rush her over to have the meconium pumped out of her. She only made a couple of noises before they had to stick a tube into her mouth to suck everything out of her stomach and sinuses.

They were also looking at her umbilical cord because they thought it looked like it was only one artery instead of two, but after looking it over really well they discovered that it was all good. If it had been only one they would have to do a bunch of tests to make sure she was okay for a bunch of different things.

They finally put her on my chest and soon after she had her first feed and did excellent. I had a few tears which they stitched up, and told me that I had some of the straightest tears they had ever seen. She was born at 3:44am on December 21st, just 1 hour and 56 minutes after my first contraction. She weighed 8lbs and 2 ounces and was 20 and 3/4 inches long. If we had gone home to Shelburne we would not have made it to Bridgewater in time for her to be born, and with the complications I am very thankful we decided to stay in Halifax for one more night instead of having her on the highway. She was also nameless for a day because we only had a boys name picked out. After going through many name ideas we picked Lyra Nadine (Lyra is pronounced like Lyric but with an “a”, and Nadine is pronounced Na-dean). Lyra was a little girl I met in a village in Ukraine while I was there in 2008.

We got settled in our room and after Stefan went back to my parents and slept a bit he brought Capri and Payson in to meet Lyra. They love her to death and are being amazing big sisters. My parents also came to visit and to take the girls back to their place. We decide to get an early discharge and were on our way back to my parents by 5pm. We had to go back to the hospital the next day for all of her bloodwork, which we did after we went to my home church for service (Lyra is a keener like that, she is a great pastors kid).

She is a great sleeper so far and some how sleeps through her sisters crazy screaming and hugs and kisses. She is a very relaxed baby which is very wonderful.