Welcome to Our World

Hannah Meredith Garrett made her grand entrance into this world early Friday morning at 1:40am. She weighed 5 lbs, 9 oz. and is 18 3/4" long. She's a beauty :)

Here's the basic birth story. If you want a more humorous and detailed one, you'll have to chat with Daniel, haha.


I had been having mild contractions every evening starting on Sunday. They were usually about 7 minutes apart, and nothing serious. I went to the doctor on Tuesday, as you probably read, and he did an internal exam. He told me that I was 2 cm dilated, 80-90% effaced, and Hannah was at 0 station, so she was about ready to come out! He also told me that he anticipated that labor would be quick--and he was right!

Thursday morning I lost my mucous plug. But usually mucous plugs are just mucous with an occasional streak of blood... mine was like a big, large, nasty blood clot (sorry if that's too much information for you). Basically what that meant was that I was continuing to dilate. Once I saw that, I knew labor was coming soon. I was scheduled to get a reflexology pedicure to help bring on labor a little soon on Friday morning, but I rescheduled that to Thursday around lunch time because I was afraid I wasn't going to make it on Friday. So I got the pedicure, and the lady pushed on a few pressure points that can help your pituitary gland release oxytocin. Maybe it worked.... or at least helped. :)

Thursday afternoon, starting around 5 or 6, I started to having contractions every 5 minutes apart or so. They weren't horrible. I mean, they were intense enough that I couldn't ignore them, but it didn't stop me from doing anything. Believing that labor might be imminent, Daniel and I went to Ruby Tuesday's for dinner, while still having contractions every 4 or 5 minutes. Then, we went to Kroger to get some groceries, because we didn't have hardly any food in our house and I didn't want to come home from the hospital with nothing in my fridge to eat. Contractions were still 4 - 5 minutes apart and relatively strong, but again, not enough to keep me from doin my thang. :)

After we got home, the contractions slowed down to about 6 or 7 minutes apart, but were getting slowly stronger. Around 11:10pm, I was having another contraction but was uncomfortable in the position I was in, and while trying to get comfortable, my water broke. It felt like a water balloon popped inside my body! It is quite possibly one of the weirdest sensations I have ever experienced! We called my doctor, and when he called us back, he asked me how I was feeling--whether or not I really wanted to go to the hospital. I told him I was fine, happy at home for now. So he told us to wait until contractions were 3 minutes apart, and then to call him and head to the hospital.

Well, the contractions started kicking up again about 15-20 minutes later. This time, though, they were 2 1/2 minutes apart and were very uncomfortable. Because my water had broken, I was kinda leaky (and by kinda, I mean extremely), so I went upstairs and sat in the bathtub. No, there wasn't any water in it. :) I just wanted somewhere to sit that I could leak and not have to worry about it. It was also nice because the angle of the bathtub put plenty of pressure on my lower back during contractions, which helped relieve some of the discomfort. After about 6 or 7 contractions like that, I told Daniel that we needed to go to the hospital... I couldn't sit at home any longer. It took probably 10 minutes to get out of the door and into the car because the contractions kept coming closer and closer together, and I would have to stop wherever I was during them and have Daniel drill his fist into my lower back (he did a wonderful job!). Daniel had the car all ready to go, including putting plastic bags down on the seat so that the amniotic fluid wouldn't ruin the seats.

We arrived at the hospital in about 5 minutes, and I got wheeled up to Labor and Delivery while Daniel parked the car. Once here, at 12:40am, the contractions would start about 30 seconds after the preceding one, and they were almost unbearable. They got me in the bed and had to take my blood pressure and put on a fetal monitor and some other things to see how everything was going. That was SOOOOOOOOO uncomfortable because I had to lay down on my back, which made every contraction worse. Finally, about 25 minutes after we arrived, Dr. Wolanski came in there and did an internal exam to see how far dilated I was. Guess what--10 cm! Time to push! I was like, "WHAT?!" So, when the next contraction came, he explained to me how he wanted me to push.

With each contraction, I would get 3 - 4 good pushes in. The only thing that kinda stunk was that the contractions were so strong and were so close together that I felt like my "break" in between them was rather small.... not much time to relax. But Daniel was very good at reminding me to relax even when I felt like I couldn't. About 30 minutes later, Hannah was born!!! That was the best feeling in the world, I tell ya. Aaahhhhhh she was out. :) And it's amazing, because once the baby is born, it's all over. So, she was out and she was beautiful!! Here are a few more pictures.