Wow! It's been a really long time since I've posted something on this blog! Unfortunately, it may be just as long before I post again; but, I've had enough people ask about how Jedidiah's birth went, that I need to just write it down while it's fresh in my mind :) So, I hope you enjoy!
Well, after Josiah's scary delivery and hospital time, we went back and forth over having JO at our midwife's birth center or delivering at St. Luke's hospital (which is sort of intertwined with Texas Children's) with a group of 5 midwives who deliver there. After going through all the pros and cons of each, we made the hard decision of leaving a midwife we love and trust and went with a group of midwives we'd never met before.
On Thursday, August 4, we had an appointment, and I told the midwife (who we were meeting for the first time) that I was probably going to have this baby no later than the end of the weekend, based on how I was feeling that day. Sure enough, around 8:30 that night I started having contractions! I waited a couple of hours and then took a shower to see if they still continued. They did. So then we had to decide what to do--stay home and wait a little longer or go on to the hospital. Typically, I would have gone to bed and slept as long as possible. But I was really nervous about the whole traveling to the hospital thing, not knowing if things would progress super quick like with Kerith or be really nice and gradual like with my other boys. So we called the midwife on call and asked what she thought we should do. She suggested we come on in, so we did.
So we got to the hospital around midnight. I was 4 cm and still having consistent contractions every 5-10 mins. Well, after pacing the room for a couple of hours and in the back of my mind wondering how long they were going to let me stay before having a baby, I was sooo tired that my contractions started dying out a little. At that point, I had somehow voiced to the midwife and nurse on duty about how tired I was, and they were both so nice and told me to take a nap and that I could do this birth however I wanted. After they told me that, I was finally able to relax and stop fretting about getting sent home :) So we took about a 3 hour nap and then walked a few laps around the floor, watched a lot of HGTV and just waited out the contractions. At 9 am, I'd gotten to 6 cm, so that made me happy to know that I was indeed progressing! Around noon or so I didn't feel comfortable doing the laps anymore b/c I started feeling like my water was about to break and didn't want that happening outside of my own room. So I walked laps around my room as long as I could. Around 3 pm, contractions were pretty strong and kept feeling like they'd break my waters, but nothing. I was so ready to just have the baby at that point that I told Eric I was going to see if the midwife would just break my water. She came in not long after and asked if I wanted her to check me. YES, please! I was 8 cm. She asked if I wanted her to break my bag. YES, please! I'm so ready to have this baby out of my belly and in my arms. So, she broke my bag, I got my urges to push. Oh yeah, I forgot how much pushing hurts and makes me want to throw up. But my wonderful husband has done this enough times now that he knows to get my fan and follow me around so it's blowing right in my face :) And 15 minutes later, our precious "little" guy made his entrance to the world outside of mommy's belly at a very healthy 8 lbs 14 oz and 20 in!
Of course, nothing compares to having your baby in the comfort of your own home, BUT we were very satisfied with our hospital birth this time around. We're very grateful there was no push for enemas, IV's, epidurals, or continuous monitoring. Every 30 minutes or so, they'd use the doppler to monitor JO's heart rate during a contraction, and every couple of hours, they'd hook me up to monitor contractions and heart rate for 10-20 mins. But I was able to walk around, lie down, take a shower, rock, eat a snack or do pretty much whatever I would have done at home! We were thankful that, overall, everybody left us alone and let me labor naturally the way we wanted. Our baby was never taken away from us at any point. I took JO to the nursery for about 15 minutes so I could take a shower, but other than that, little man never left my side! And then, to make things even better, they released JO as soon as they did his bilirubin test and got good results. So about 26 hours after his birth, we were out of there!
Here are a few pics!
