Not pregnant and so ready to run...

Baby Emily, 7 lbs 4 oz, 19.5 inches

Yeah, it's been a while...baby Emily was born the last week in August. She's healthy and pretty typical as far as newborns go. You know, eats a lot, poops a lot, doesn't sleep much at night, likes to cry, and is super cute.

The birth was okay. Depending on your point of view, I was either really lucky or not so lucky. I think probably lucky. In case you don't know, my first baby came into this world via an emergency c-section due to fetal distress. I had general anestesia. It was not such a great experience. This time around I planned to attempt a VBAC, but the VBAC success rate is less than 40% at the hospital I was delivering at. The odds weren't in my favor, and I can't even begin to express how much anxiety I had about the possibility of having another c-section. So when my water broke before any contractions had started, I thought I was done for. Doctors expect the baby to be out within 24 hours of your water breaking. Twelve hours after my water broke, I still wasn't having strong contractions and I was only 2 cm dilated. At which point my doctor gave me 3 options; stay the path and hope in 12 hours I could dilate another 8 cm and get that baby out (unlikely), let them give me pitocin and try to jump start labor, or get prepped for a c-section.

I really wanted to avoid pitocin, but I wanted to avoid a c-section more, so pitocin it was. I was going natural, so once the pitocin was given things got a lot harder. I had to be continuously monitored, so I couldn't walk around and the contractions got really intense. I went from 2 cm to 6 cm in an hour, from 6 cm to 10 cm in another hour, and 30 minutes after that Emily was born. It was absolutely the hardest, most intense, and let's not leave out graphic experience of my life. I did manage to successfully VBAC a healthy baby without an epidural though, so yay me. Towards the end of the labor Emily started showing signs of fetal distress. It turned out that she had a knot in her umbilical cord. Like a real knot. They said she must have swam through the cord at some point during the first trimester. Those umbilical cords are nothing but trouble!

The birth was pretty tough, and I wound up with a few tears. As a result, I was told no running for 4 weeks. The first two weeks I had no desire to run at all, but I was ready to go by week 3. I managed to wait 3.5 weeks and then I jumped on the treadmill and ran 3.1 miles. I averaged 7:30 pace, so the next day I was sore. My comeback is slow going. Only averaging 2-5 hours of sleep a day means I can't go back to running crazy miles, but it seems my speed is doing ok. The other day I ran 6.2 miles in 47:20, with the first 3.1 in 22:00. I can live with that...for now.

That's my story. Oh, and in case you're wondering, the day Emily was born I ran 7 miles at 10:59 pace. At the hospital, the nurses kept telling me that walking might help jump start labor, and I just kept thinking if a 7 mile run didn't jump start labor then shuffling around the halls certainly wasn't going to do it...