Ruby Ann Harvey

But you spell your name with an e. Ha ha. The name Ann comes from my mom and grandmas middle names being Ann without and e. I know, kind of confusing. Anyways, as you all know, Ruby made her grand entrance on Thursday, January 29, 2015. I thought I would share her birth story with you.

Starting on Monday after my doctors appointment...yeah the one where I found out zero progress had been made since the week before. Anyway, I got home and started to feel a little crampy, but didn't look into it too far. That evening when Ben got home I started to have some very mild contractions. I didn't realize it at the time. Ben kept asking if that's what they were and I just laughed saying your guess is as good as mine. We went to bed that night and I would wake up about every hour with a contraction. Again, I still didn't quite know that they were contractions. The same thing happened on Tuesday, but they were very spread out. Same thing on Tuesday night, but with a little more intensity and a little closer together. Wednesday morning they were more sporadic, so I told Ben to go ahead and head to school. He got home and the contractions started to pick up again starting in my lower back and moving to the front they were getting a lot more intense to the point where I couldn't talk through them and I had to use some breathing techniques. The night went on and they were about 6-8 minutes apart so Ben called the hospital and they told us to wait until either my water broke or they were 3-5 minutes apart. Ohhhh they were painful. At about 4:00 we took off because they were coming every 3-5 minutes. We didn't head straight to the hospital though, we went to Ben's school because he had to get sub plans and materials set out. He is lucky I too am a teacher and understand that you can't just say I won't be there. So, Ben went in and I stayed in the car and dealt with the contractions. Finally, we get to the hospital and first got checked out by a nurse named Monica. She was great! I was skeptical thinkin maybe they would send us home or my cervix would still be closed. Well, I was wrong bi was dilated to a 4. We got checked in to our labor room and got introduced to our new labor nurse, Ashley. She was awesome! They hooked me up to some fluids and  the fetal heart rate maching along with a machine that said when I was having a contraction, which was pretty much constant. I could no longer talk, just breathe in and out. They checked my cervix again and I wS at a 7. Yahoo! I asked fo an epidural. I know there are many anti epidural people out there, but can I just say that it was a God send for me and in the end, still got Ruby. Well, as soon as I got the epidural I had instant relief. I just giggled because I couldn't believe it. My doctor was in a different town but would be at the hospital by 11:30. By about 11:00 I was at 10 cm. and we basically just waited around for my doctor to get there. She got there and I started pushing. The nurse would tell me when I was having a contraction and then I would push. We did this for about an hour before Ruby came. It was kind of awkward in between contractions. We would all just kind of wait. So, what does Anne do? Breaks into song of course. Yep, I started singing Push it.  Push it real good. Then, the labor nurse Ashley starts singing oh baby baby ba baby baby. It was hilarious and fun. At 12:44 Ruby came into the world. It was the most amazing feeling when she came and they sat her on my tummy. I heard her cry and Ben and I also were in tears. Ben then cut the cord. I will spare some of the other details from delivery for your own good. :) I will share more about life with Ruby in the next post.

Thank you soooo much for praying for Ben and I. It was such an amazing day and I wouldn't change a thing about it. 2 days of home labor and 8ish hrs in hospital to get out perfect daughter, Ruby.