GABRIELLE ELIZABETH "GABBY" updated

Gabrielle "Gabby" Elizabeth Frank was born at 8:50 p.m. January 13, 2010 in Seoul, South Korea. She weighed in at a whopping 6lbs 11 oz and was 19 inches long. She has a head of brown hair in the back and blonde hair in the front. She looks exactly like Rick and even makes the same facial expressions.

After walking around for almost 2 months at 3 cm dilated, I went for a check up that Wednesday morning. I was still 3 but her head was extremely low. After the appointment, I was having some contractions, but was determined to take the bus back to Camp Humphreys to get Natalie from her dad. However, my friend Amy, a L&D nurse, told me to go to the hospital to get checked before leaving since I was having contractions. She threatened to call my husband so I listened. After arriving at the hospital they checked me and I was almost 4 cm so they were going to monitor me. Right after that occurred my water broke on its own, so I was instantly admitted at 4:30 p.m. I called Rick and he left work immediately and started his trek to Seoul. On a good day it can take 1.5 hours on a bad day it can take several hours. Rick was able to make it in a little over 2 hours, after speeding in the bus lane and getting pulled over twice for speeding in the bus lane.

At 5:00 p.m. I was given Pitocin to help along the delivery. I was GBS positive and they wanted to lower the risk of infection to Gabby so the doc decided to speed labor along. Since I was already 5 cm I was worried Rick might not make it in time because when I was given Pitocin with Natalie labor went extremely fast.

I was handling the contractions on Pitocin really well for a period of time, but considering it could have been several hours before her birth I started breaking down. Rick was talking me through contractions on the cell phone, but being alone in a labor room with only a cell phone to your ear was not enough comfort.

6:45 Rick walks into the labor room in his army uniform ready for action. I told him I caved and asked the doctors for an epidural because I didn't know how much longer it might be. Had they not given me the pitocin I would have been fine because the contractions were not bad at all. That medicine is horrible!!

7:20 ish..The anesthesiologist walks into the room. I had been so dead set against the epidural I didn't know what to expect and was terrified. It didn't take him long to get the epidural going however, I had the three worst contractions during that period and sitting still was really hard.

7:40 the anesthesiologist is done and I still haven't gone numb yet, but its getting there. I lay back down and suddenly have to push. I was still feeling the contractions. I had gone from 7-10 in the 20 mins the epidural was being administered. I never even got to reap the benefits from the epidural. I made it through all the hard contractions without the pain medicine.

7:50 start pushing. Gabbys head was bigger than Natalie, so it took a little longer. They turned the epidural off since I was finally numb, so once again no real benefit.

8:49 With one gigantic push the baby decided to come flying out unexpected. The bed wasn't torn down, the doctor walked in grabbed gloves and caught her. There was no time for gowning up and getting prepped. The doctor caught her let Rick cut the cord and we were done. Delivering on the bed was extremely easy and much nicer than having to use the stirrups and having the bed torn down.

Gabby then went through a plethora of blood tests to check for infection. Around 1 am we were moved to our own room to get some sleep.

We were discharged on the 15th of January because I kept having low blood pressure and my iron was low so they were monitoring me and waiting the results of the Gabby's blood tests which took 48 hours. After she was giving the all clear we left. It was a great experience.

I feel so blessed to have such a short labor and delivery was extremely easy.....

Natalie is doing amazing as a big sister and loves hugging and kissing Gabby. Now we are working on Natalie's 5th birthday coming up on January 25.