The Labor Story

I know some people have been anxiously awaiting to hear my side of the labor/birthing story and though it was already 2 weeks ago I'm finally getting around to writing it up. It was a pretty exciting labor that I know will be quite the story to share with our little girl when she is older. If only I was better at sharing stories this probably would have been written 2 weeks ago (or maybe not, since I'm a bit more busy these days). I will warn you that this will probably get pretty long and for some reason blogger is not allowing me to post pictures so if you want to see pictures check out my facebook page.

I woke up Tuesday morning excited because Tuesday's are play-date days and I look forward to them every week. Just like any other typical morning I got Josiah dressed for the day while I stayed in my PJ's right up until we needed to head out the door. I would love to blame this on being pregnant and though being pregnant did not help I must admit that I stay in my comfortable pajama pants even when I'm not pregnant because hey, they're comfortable!

Anyway, Josiah and I headed out the door and enjoyed a quieter than normal play-date with one toddler and 5 month old twins (the other mom's and kiddos couldn't make it). I debated putting Josiah down for a nap and hanging out for the afternoon with my dear friend but opted out, feeling the need to take a nap myself. Once we got home I put Josiah down for a nap and headed to the couch myself to nap. Unfortunately, I'm not one of those people who can just fall asleep when I close my eyes so I decided I would snuggle in to a good chick flick...the Bachelorette which aired the night before. Shortly after I got the show up and playing on the computer and began to snuggle in (about 1:00pm) I felt my first contraction. I was certain that I wasn't going to have this baby early since Josiah was two days late. At this point it was still another 4 days until my due date so when I felt my first contraction I was trying to figure out what was going on. After I felt a few more I thought that maybe this could be the beginning of my labor but not wanting to get my hopes up I decided not to call Brett and wait it out a bit more to make sure. I began timing them and with them about 15 min. apart I decided I had plenty of time before we would need to leave for the hospital. During this time it began to downpour really hard and after my contractions started getting a little closer together I called Brett. When he answered I asked him where he was, assuming he was over at the farm a few miles away. He told me he was in Selby at a meeting and so not knowing how to tell him I told him very non-nonchalantly that I was in labor but that he didn't need to come home because I still had a lot of time. He told me he would be coming home because he was done with his meeting anyway.

Fast forward to when Brett arrived at home.

It was still raining but not near as hard anymore. Brett was home and Josiah was now awake from his nap. I still didn't feel like we needed to leave anytime soon so I was just kind of hanging out getting a few things together in between contractions. Brett was standing in the kitchen getting something to drink, looking out the window when he says that I need to come look at this. I was thinking the dog was doing something stupid but then as I looked out the window we see water coming up to the barn and heading towards our house. I was shocked and suggested that maybe we should move the van so it wasn't in the line of fire for the water. Before we even had a chance to talk about whether or not we should move the van the water was already up to it and rising quickly. At that point, Brett opened the door from the kitchen to the entryway and we could hear the water coming in. Wanting to see it for myself I walked into the entry way and saw the water pouring in through the door and the walls. Standing there I started another contraction and once it was done I began to panic a bit. There was no way we were going to be able to open the front door with all that water and when I looked out the living room window and saw the water rising now on the truck and flooding over the road I really began to panic.

At this point Brett is getting his waiters on and hauling anything of value out of our basement where the water was building up. I kept myself busy with getting our hospital stuff together and playing with Josiah who thought it was fun to see all the water out the windows. The next thing I knew we had about 10 people outside our house ready to help where ever they could. Of course everyone knew I was in labor at this point...this made me a bit self conscious as I didn't want a bunch of people seeing me going through contractions. I laid low inside the house as Brett went out the window to talk to people and would continually come back to the window to see how I was doing and how far apart my contractions were. I got all of Josiah's stuff together and handed him and his things out the window to Brett who gave him over to the Perman's (we consider them honorary Grandparents) who would be watching him while we were at the hospital.

To anyone who has ever gone into labor you know that during labor you are feeling a lot of pressure down below which can cause you to need to use the bathroom frequently. Because of the flooding happening our toilet had been overflowing with water and had filled the bathroom floor leaving us with no bathroom to use. I had informed Brett of this problem in which he responded with, "just go in the sink". Yeah like it's that easy to climb up onto a counter and go into a sink when you are pregnant and in labor, not to mention disgusting. His other option which still did not excite me but was much more manageable was to use a bucket (don't worry everyone the bucket is in the trash now).

As time went on and contractions were getting closer, Brett and I talked and decided that we probably had enough time to wait until the water would go down enough that I could get out the front door. Though Brett and Josiah had gone out the window I was quite sure that I wasn't going to be able to fit out the window even if I tried. Brett assures me that I could have gone out a different window but I am thankful that I didn't have to try.

Around 6:45pm I was able to walk out the front door (wearing my rain boots) and made my way to our pickup. We made our way over to farm to drop off the dog with my father-in-law and clean out the tires on the pickup so it wouldn't shake so much from all the water and mud that had built up from the flooding. Around 7:00pm we were on our way for the hour drive to the hospital. This is where everything really went quick. Upon arriving I signed a few papers and then was brought into the delivery room where I was given the most beautiful hospital gown (can you sense the sarcasm). The nurse checked me around 9:00pm to see how far dilated I was. She seemed a bit shocked to realize I was at a 6 at this point. About a half our later my midwife came and checked me only to find out I was now at a 9. Upon remembering that I only pushed for 10 min. with Josiah she told me she better go get her scrubs on. Now, with Josiah I was stuck at a 9 for a long time and I never felt the urge to push, my doctor suggested that I try pushing to see if it would help things along. Needless to say we were shocked when he came 10 minutes later. This time around though things were a bit different. There was no way around it, I felt the urge to push this time and 9 minutes later she was born. I couldn't believe how fast everything had gone. Before I knew it I was holding our beautiful baby girl (who looked identical to her brother when he was born) and getting stitched up. Don't get me wrong, pushing her out was not an easy task and of course extremely painful. It may have only been 9 minutes but it felt like hours of the worse pain imaginable.

This delivery went so well, I really could not have asked for it to go any better. My midwife was amazing and made the whole experience perfect. Now, two weeks later though I have been going through some pretty up and down emotions my body physically is feeling great. With Josiah at this point I could still hardly sit down without feeling the pain but this time I hardly feel like I just had a baby (except for all the extra baby weight).

I shaved off 6 hours from my delivery with Josiah to my delivery with Brynn and Brett tells me that we can't wait around with our next one, especially since we have an hour drive to our hospital.