Amelia's Birth Story

Miss Amelia Brooke Christensen 

Born August 23rd, 2015

4:05 pm 

6 lbs 15 oz 

18.5 inches

It started out just like any other Saturday, Ryan and I woke up, ate breakfast, got ready for the day, and made a list of everything we still needed to do get ready for baby Millie. We headed out the door around noon to go get some lunch and run our errands. As we were driving down redwood road, Ryan decided to call his brother cam to see if he and his wife Jessica wanted to go get Rumbi Grill with us, they agreed so we were headed to pick them up. We reached the intersection of redwood and pony express to turn left, as the light turned from yellow to red a truck came flying through the light and T-boned us, hitting my door. Everything happened so fast yet seemed liked slow motion. I watched the Truck coming towards my door and as a natural reflex I turned my body toward Ryan. As I turned towards him, we both blacked out for a few seconds and hit heads. All the Air bags went off and the passenger window popped out. Right after it happened Ryan looked at me and said "are you alright?" I replied "Yeah i'm great!" not noticing that my arm was burned and scraped form the side air bag. Ryan tried to go open my door to help me get out of the car not realizing that it was completely smashed in! So here I am 9 months pregnant trying to crawl out on the drivers side! haha that was a bit tuff! Blessing #1: It's truly a miracle that we didn't flip or anyone was hurt, especially considering how fast he was going! I believe that we had guardian angles (loved ones who have passed on) watching out for us and our baby!  Blessing #2: There was an ambulance and fire truck stopped at the light, so when the accident happened they just turned on their lights and pulled up. When I got out of the car all I could think about was my little girl! Once I stepped into the ambulance she started to move around and kick, what a relief! That's when I broke down and started crying! My adrenaline was going crazy! They checked me out and cleared me but told me I should go to the emergency room to go get the baby checked out. Because Ryan had been in the ambulance with me to make sure I was ok, when he went to go talk to the officer about what happened, the officer had already made up his mind and gave Ryan a ticket for turning left when it was still "yellow" even though it was clearly red! ( needless to say we are going to fight that ticket!). Ryan called cam and jess to tell them what happened and to see if they could give us ride to hospital. They came to rescue us, along with Ryan's sister Chelsie and her husband Nate. We are so blessed to have family so close and that are willing to drop everything to help one another.

                                       

As we headed to the hospital, I called my parents to tell them what happened. when I was talking to my mom, she became panicked and handed the phone to my dad. I had explained what happened and told them to meet us at the hospital. when we arrived, we went to the emergency room. They automatically sent us to labor and delivery to get the baby checked out. We went into a room and they put monitors on my belly to track her heart beat and contractions. It was such a relief to be able to hear her little heart beat! Because my body was going through shock I was having consistent contractions. These contractions didn't really hurt, I just noticed my belly getting tight. The nurse checked me to see if I was dilated and effaced. I was only dilated to 2 and still 80% effaced. The nurse told me we had to stay for four hours to keep an eye on everything, "Four hours! We have things to do!" I thought to myself. Time went and they took me down to the emergency room to get my arm cleaned up and my head checked out. As I was laying there, I started to get some stronger contractions. Once they were done cleaning my arm they sent us back up to labor and delivery and told us that we had to stay overnight because my contractions were pretty close. The nurse came in to check me again and said I was dilated to a 2.5 and still 80% effaced. The night went on and my contractions had slowed down, I thought to myself that we were probably going to go home the next day. Ryan and I went to bed around 12 then around 1:30 am I woke up to switch sides and noticed everything was soaking wet! I sat there for a min and thought "I think my water broke! could this be for real? or did I pee my pants"? I woke up Ryan and said "Ryan! I think my water broke"! I called the nurse to tell her, she came in and tested to fluid and said "Yep! your water definitely did break."
I was ecstatic!! Around 5:30 am the nurse came in to give me pitocin. About 10 min later the contractions started coming and man did they HURT!! I called the nurse and said "umm i'm ready for an epidural!" about 15 min later which seemed like FOREVER the anesthesiologist came in and started the epidural. Once the epidural kicked in, it was heaven! The morning went on and we just rested, around 10 am I was dilated to a 7! Then finally around 1:30 I was finally dilated to a 10! The nurse asked the Dr. if he wanted me to start pushing or wait an hour for the baby to drop lower, he wanted me to wait. I was kinda bummed because I was so anxious and excited to finally meet this little girl! Finally the hour went by and I started pushing with every contraction, I pushed three times for 10 seconds each time for every contraction. It was tough work! I pushed for and hour and 45 min! When she was crowing the Dr. said "She has a ton of dark hair!" I couldn't believe it! I thought for sure she would be bald. Finally at 4:05 our little girl came into this crazy world! When she came out, it was such a crazy feeling, it felt like 30 pounds just left my body. The Dr. put her on my chest and said "Heres your little girl"! I just lost it and started crying! I never felt so much joy or love for someone. Call me crazy but I really enjoyed labor, It was so surreal and spiritual. Being a mom has been the most rewarding things I have ever done in my life!