Friday, December 10, 2010

Welcome little Camryn


Camryn Riley was born on October 21st. She was little, weighing in at only 9lbs 1oz. This birth weight only seems small because Ashton was 10lbs 7oz.

In the weeks leading up to her birth, I felt as if I had a whole medical team. I was seeing my doctor once a week, plus the obstetrician on a fairly regular basis due to the fact that I had Ashton by c-section only 23 months before Camryn's due date. I really wanted Camryn to be born naturally. I was advised that she seemed to be large and we could run in to the same problems as last time so I didn't get my hopes up. On the Monday (the 18th), it was my due date and I went to the obstetrician. We booked the c-section for the 26th and I was totally bummed out. Seeing as Ashton was 12 days overdue and was induced, I didn't have much hope. Two days later, I woke up minutes after Jesse left for work. I knew that things were happening. The contractions were brutal but short and further apart. I got Ashton up, changed him and we had some breakfast. I didn't want Jesse to come home yet because I wasn't sure how long this labour business would take this time and felt I could hold down the fort. I mostly laid around and Ashton played. Jesse took an hour break and came home for lunch and helped out a bunch. Ashton had his nap and the pain got worse and worse. Finally, even though the contractions were far apart, they were so insanely painful that I called Jesse home 30 minutes before he was off work as we had a 40 minute drive ahead of us. He came home, tossed the bags in the car and put Ashton in his carseat. We dropped him off at my parents and went to the hospital. I got a shot of morphine and went back to my parents. The morphine dulled the pain a little bit. It was amazing how different this was from last time. I was in back labour with Ashton but not with Camryn. They both hurt so badly but they were different kinds of pain. I lay around because when I moved it hurt. When the morphine wore off, I went back in and was 6 cm dilated and in labour. 4 hours later, Camryn was in my arms at 3:35 am.

In comparing the two, Ashton was a c-section and she was not. Ashton's labour was 14 hours, hers was 4. I pushed for 3.5 hours with Ashton and 30 mins with Camryn. Ashton was back labour, she was not. For his birth I had morphine, laughing gas, an epidural and finally a spinal; with hers, I had morphine and fentanyl. His delivery itself was virtually painless, hers was painful. His recovery was painful, hers was less painful. I have had two completely different births. I think I'm good with that. Pretty sure I don't need a third at this point.

My pregnancies were brutal. Hers was much worse. I went in to my second pregnancy in fairly good shape. I was doing ballet and being active a lot. I danced for part of my pregnancy but I started having back spasms that sent me off work and in to physiotherapy. They hurt a lot and I couldn't do a lot with Ashton so I felt really guilty for that. We got out of the house but I felt bad for not being able to run around with him. Funny because everything was immediately better once she was born.

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