Judith Damaris Allison

Judith Damaris Allison was born at 3:43 am on, April 22, 2010. She weighed 6 lbs, 6 oz and measured 18 inches in length. That's considerably smaller than her brothers. Jonas and Judith were both 3 days early, but Jonas was a full pound heavier and 2 inches longer. Judith had a weight check today (1 day earlier than usual because she's so little), but is still only 4.3% down from her birthweight (allowable is up to 10%), so she's doing great!

Here's her story:

On Tuesday evening beginning about 4:30pm, I began having contractions. Throughout the evening they were about 10 min apart and uncomfortable. I went to bed and was awakened 6-8 times in the night by the contractions, but by Wed. morning, they had pretty much stopped. I had just a few throughout the day on Wed.

About 7pm Wed evening, I began to have uncomfortable contractions that grew increasingly more painful and frequent. For a couple of hours they were about 10 min apart, then for several hours they were about 7 min apart. It seemed like one would be a little more intense and painful, and the next would be less so, then another painful one--alternating back and forth. Mike and I tried to go to bed about 11pm. One of us was successful in that endeavor, and the other of us returned to the living room to pace. I watched TV, snacked, and paced the living room timing contractions.

Shortly after midnight, I called my friend Susan. She had expressed an interest in helping me through early labor and was also planning to stay at home with the boys overnight if we had to go to the hospital. She had just returned home from an "extended" vacation in the Canary Islands (where they had been stranded for longer than anticipated due to the volcanic ash situation). I told her that I was pretty sure it was actual labor, but didn't know if it we would be leaving any time soon for the hospital or whether it would be many more hours, but she was welcome to come if she liked. She decided to go ahead and come, since she was so tired. She thought if she got into much deeper sleep, she might not wake up if I called again. So she was on her way. I called my Mom to chat for a while and give her an update.

Susan arrived and assumed the responsibility of timing and logging my contractions. We chatted for an hour or so. She showed me pictures from her trip, etc.

Then the conractions seriously stepped it up in painfulness and length (from about 45 sec of pain to about 1 min, 10 sec). The new and improved contractions were coming about 4 min apart. After about 30 min of those, I called labor and delivery. The nurse said it was up to me whether I wanted to come in or not, but that I could probably afford to wait another hour or so. I said I'd wait, so I decided to get in the bath for a bit. I layed in the bath for another 30 min or so chatting and timing. When the water had gotten lukewarm, I decided to get out, and start getting ready to go to the hospital (which also included waking my sleeping husband).

As I was toweling off, the contractions started coming about 2-3 minutes apart. I woke Mike, got a few remaining items into the travel bag, called L&D to let them know I was coming in, and called my Mom to let her know we were leaving for the hospital. The contractions are coming hard and fast, and I'm definitely wishing my husband would move a little faster.

At last, we were on our way to the hospital. It's a 15 min drive--thank goodness there's no traffic at 3am. At some point during this drive I began to feel the first urges to push.

We arrived at the hospital about 3:15am. I was desperately hoping (due to my having called ahead) that they would have someone meet us with a wheel chair. That was not the case. So it took a couple of stops and starts before we made it in the door. There was no walking when I was having a contractions. I could not will my feet to move.

When the elevator arrived on the second floor, Mike had to block the doors from closing as I could not leave the elevator until yet another contraction had passed. The urges to push were getting pretty strong and it was at this point, when I looked at Mike and I said, "I think she's coming" that I, and probably Mike too, was near panic that I would not get to the bed in time. We made it down the hall and into the ward, where I was promptly ushered to a bed and checked. The nurse said I was ready to go and asked if I was wanting to push. The answer was an enthusiastic and urgent, "YES!" She said, "Let me go wake the Dr. No pushing when I'm not in the room!" When the next one came, there was a little bit of uncontrollable pushing and Mike had to remind me to, "Breathe!"

The Dr came in and I began to push. Mike and I remember this part differently. Mike says it was 3 or 4 pushes. I'm pretty sure it was more like 8-10. At any rate, shortly after arrival, Judith was born. No time for IVs or anything else. The Dr asked if we had a plan B for delivering in the car. Mike gave her a wide-eyed, "Noooo".


My water never broke (until she was coming out). In Germany (and elsewhere too perhaps, although I'd never heard it), it's said that if a baby is born with it's bag of water, it will have clairvoyance. That, in addition to being born on Earth Day makes her our official "flower child".

For the record, yes, I had committed to a natural birth this time around and to stay at home to labor for as long as possible. (Lots of prayers from my committed friends and family made this possible!) I didn't have the best experiences with epidurals when I had the boys. I definitely don't condemn epidurals. Even with the (minor) complications I had with mine, they were immensely helpful with pain management and after being in pain for days, I don't think I could have done it any other way. However, I will say that now that I've succeeded in natural childbirth, I do feel like I had the "real" experience. And it HURT! Mike definitely prefers this experience over our two others. He was only there for 45 min of it. Which I suppose would be preferable for just about anybody.

The boys LOVE their baby sister. They are fascinated by our new little family member and are very gentle with kisses.

Here's a video of her first bath (for Grandma Scarlet:).