Mallory's Birth Story

This picture was taken before we left the hosiptal with Mallory at 3 days old. I got them for half price because of the light marks across her head.

Mallory was born 2 days late. My water started leaking in the movie theater parking lot after seeing "Look Who's Talking". It felt like I had peed my pants, but I had just gone to the bathroom after the movie was over. The friend I had gone to the movies with said "I knew this would happen, I knew that you'd go into labor if I went out with you." LOL

I drove home and my Mom drove me to the hospital. Once it was confirmed that my water had broken, my Mom called Joe who was in Florida. He couldn't get a flight up to northern VA until early the next morning. My sister met us at the hospital because she was my labor coach. She and I had attended Lamaze classes together.

I was 2-3 cm dilated, but I was not having any contractions that I could feel. Sometime late in the evening, I was put on pitocin to help speed things up since it had been since early afternoon that my water had broken. Around midnight, I was given an epidural, but it was horrible. All it did was make one side & leg completely numb and the other side felt everything. I started pushing around 3:30am. It took a while but I eventually got her to crown, I just was too tired to push her out.

At 5:30am, I was given the choice to push for another half hour and if the baby wasn't born, the Dr would help it out with forceps or they could use the forceps now. I was too tired to keep pushing, so I told them to use the forceps now. I was wheeled into a deliver room, numbed from the waist down and Mallory Elizabeth Stratton was born at 6:05am. Mallory weighed 8 lbs. 9 ozs. and was 21" long. My sister almost passed out in the deliver room because she wasn't used to staying up all night.

My parents picked Joe up at the airport and he got to meet Mallory when she was 4 hours old. He nicknamed her "Matilda Sue" while we were at the hospital. We didn't get to take her home for 3 days because it looked like she was going to get jaundice and it took forever for the results to come back okay. It took me 5 days to get her to finally latch on and nurse. But she was very sleepy from the epidural and so I think it took her that long to really wake up and realize that she was hungry.

Mallory and I moved to Florida with Joe when Mallory was 12 days old. Joe drove his car and I drove our van. Whenever Mallory woke up and wanted to eat, I'd pass Joe and we'd get off at the next exit. Our first apartment had more baby furniture than regular furniture when we first got there. We had a bed and a TV and Mallory had a crib, a dresser and a changing table.