Engineering Great Moments: A Birth Story

Well, it's almost been 2 months, maybe I should write down P2's birth story.

At my 39 week appointment, my midwife stripped my membranes. She wasn't sure if it would get me into labor or not, and she was going to be out of town on the weekend. So we were both hoping this would work. It did start contractions, but I have had a lot of contractions this pregnancy, so I just kept waiting for them to get consistent. About 4 or 5 pm, the contractions were coming every 3-5 minutes. I continued fixing dinner: sweet and sour chicken. About 6 pm, I called PE to make sure he was coming home from work. He said he was just finishing up, so I told him to hurry home so he could eat dinner because we may be going to the hospital tonight. The contractions continued to be pretty regular, and we decided to drop P1 off at Grandma's house so he could just go to bed there instead of us having to wake him in the middle of the night.

Well, we ended up just heading to the hospital after dropping P1 off. I wasn't really sure if we should go in though, so we walked around the hospital. Finally, I decided to just go in and see what they say. It was 7:52 pm when we entered the hospital.

I was at a 4 (improvement from a 3 at my check-up) when they checked me, and they decided to let me stay. The contractions were still coming, but they weren't really intense, so we spent a bit of time walking the halls trying to help it along. It was really nice this time to not be hooked up to fluids, pitocin, and oxygen! Around 10:30 - 11 pm, I had my midwife break my water. That immediately made a difference, and my contractions started coming hard and fast. My midwife stayed with us from that point on, and was really great with helping me cope with the pain. I used the birthing ball for a little bit, and PE and my midwife would push on my hips during contractions to help with the pressure. My midwife gave me 4 shots of saline in my back to help with the back labor (but I don't think it really helped, and the shots were kind of painful). They checked me around midnight, and I was only at a 6. I was frustrated, but knew that it could still be over soon because I went from a 6 to a 10 really fast with P1.

My hands fell asleep sometime around then, so a nurse and PE were rubbing my hands. And I remember my legs just shaking like crazy. I started to feel a lot of pressure, so they checked me again and I was at an 8. They asked if I wanted to use the tub or birthing ball, but I didn't think I could move. Suddenly I felt a lot of pressuse, and said so, but my midwife said "Don't push!" because she didn't think I was ready yet. But turns out I was ready, and there wasn't really a whole lot I could do to stop it. I think my midwife only had time to get her gloves on. Baby's head was 3 inches out almost immediately, my midwife told me to slow down, and somehow I was able to hold back for a minute, and then she told me to push. I pushed, and out came a tiny baby at 12:36 AM. I heard crying, and suddenly a little baby was on my chest. We didn't know if it was a boy or girl, so they let us look for ourselves, and we saw that we had a baby girl!

The nurse said I went from a 6 to complete in 20 minutes, and I only pushed for 2 contractions. It happened so fast that they didn't even give me the pitocin to help stop the bleeding (even though they had stuck an IV in me so that it would be ready to go). But they did give me a painful shot in my thigh to help stop the bleeding.

I did the whole thing without an epidural, and honestly, it was incredibly hard and intense. I'm glad I was able to do it, but now that I've done it both ways, I don't know which way I prefer. Recovery was 100 times better this time, but I think that had more to do with the fact that I didn't tear at all.

She surprised us with her dark hair. We thought it might be red like her brother, or blond like her parents, but as of right now, she is a brunette.

Our sweet baby girl weighed 7 lbs 8 oz, and was 21 inches long. She had a little bruise on the corner of her mouth. It has faded a lot, but hasn't gone away, so I think it is a birthmark not a bruise. She has done great with nursing, and is a very healthy baby. P1 wasn't too sure about her at first, but he warmed up to her really quickly and has been a great big brother. We are so blessed to have them in our family.

P1 enjoyed the many snacks he could get at the hospital: