My life has been a little crazy over the last few weeks. As I'm sure you have guessed...I'm no longer pregnant. =) At 40 weeks and 5 days Hannah decided to make her grand entrance into the world!!
Early on Sunday, May 2, I thought I was having some back labor and decided to stay home from church again. The thought of going into labor at church was not appealing. ;-) By early afternoon everything had stopped. Big fat bummer. So that afternoon we decided to take the kids to a local park so that they could ride their bikes around the lake there and we could walk with them. It was really a nice time. We tried to throw bread to the ducks in the lake, but apparently previous visitors had stuffed them full. They totally rejected our bread offerings. The more I think about it...the more funny it becomes. I was completely exhausted when we were done. By the time we left, I couldn't remember why I wanted to go in the first place. :-/ We went home and James' mom agreed to take Nathan home with her because I had three different appointments with my midwife's office the following day. We went to bed that night...still no labor.
Monday, May 3 I woke up at 4am with a contraction. About 15 mins later I had another one. I continued to have contractions and when James' alarm went off at 4:40 I very flippantly said, "I've been having contractions." He said, "Are they good ones?" To which I replied, "Eh. They're ok." By 5am I decided that I was definitely in labor and decided to call my midwife. James asked me if it was ok for him to take a shower. I told him that if he was gonna do it, he better get moving. =) My midwife called me back about 5:15 and I told her that my contractions were 6 to 8 minutes apart and about 60 seconds long. She said, "Go to the hospital." I was a little surprised that she wanted me to go already. She knew that our plans were to labor at home as long as we could and my contractions weren't even that painful. I told James what she said and he was as surprised as I was. Anyway, so he got in the shower and I started calling our parents and our photographer. By the time James got out of the shower I could no longer speak. My contractions were so intense that I was afraid we were going to have an unplanned home delivery. Talk about taking me for a surprise! We grabbed Joseph and went to the car as soon as we could. We were trying to explain to him that I was in pain, but it was going to be good because his baby sister was going to come out as a result.
When we were about 5 minutes from the hospital, I told James I needed to push. He requested that I didn't push and began to push the accelerator a little closer to the floor. ;-) At 6:30, we finally made it to the hospital, waited for my current contraction to stop and literally ran to the hospital door. We raced to L&D where they grabbed me a wheel chair and rushed me into a room. My midwife was already there and ready to go. They checked me and found that I was complete and ready to push, although I could have told them that! Thankfully, my midwife told the nursing staff to not bother me with paper work and said I didn't need an IV. I was thrilled! I HATE IVs. I started to push...and push...and push. Nothing was happening. This was my 4th delivery, it should have been a breeze. My midwife told me that Hannah was posterior and that I needed to try some different positions to get her to turn. So I tried some new positions and sure enough, she started to descend. At 7:29am, my midwife told me to reach down and grab my baby. I reached down and with her and James' help, Hannah made her grand entrance! She was 7lbs 1oz and 20" long. She was absolutely perfect. After she was born we found out that she had 2 true knots in her umbilical cord! The realization set in that we could have lost her a long time ago. She is a miracle! We are so grateful that the Lord took care of her during the time that I was pregnant. While they were bathing her, they brought me the paperwork to sign. It was quite comical to sign the waiver that I did not want an epidural for my delivery after the baby was born. You do what you've got to do. =)
Since we have been home, we have had such a good time with the newest member of our family. The boys simply adore her and are such big helpers. We are such a blessed family!
We were so fortunate to have Amy with Aim Photography at Hannah's delivery. Check out her website and you can see a slide show of the delivery. =)
Early on Sunday, May 2, I thought I was having some back labor and decided to stay home from church again. The thought of going into labor at church was not appealing. ;-) By early afternoon everything had stopped. Big fat bummer. So that afternoon we decided to take the kids to a local park so that they could ride their bikes around the lake there and we could walk with them. It was really a nice time. We tried to throw bread to the ducks in the lake, but apparently previous visitors had stuffed them full. They totally rejected our bread offerings. The more I think about it...the more funny it becomes. I was completely exhausted when we were done. By the time we left, I couldn't remember why I wanted to go in the first place. :-/ We went home and James' mom agreed to take Nathan home with her because I had three different appointments with my midwife's office the following day. We went to bed that night...still no labor.
Monday, May 3 I woke up at 4am with a contraction. About 15 mins later I had another one. I continued to have contractions and when James' alarm went off at 4:40 I very flippantly said, "I've been having contractions." He said, "Are they good ones?" To which I replied, "Eh. They're ok." By 5am I decided that I was definitely in labor and decided to call my midwife. James asked me if it was ok for him to take a shower. I told him that if he was gonna do it, he better get moving. =) My midwife called me back about 5:15 and I told her that my contractions were 6 to 8 minutes apart and about 60 seconds long. She said, "Go to the hospital." I was a little surprised that she wanted me to go already. She knew that our plans were to labor at home as long as we could and my contractions weren't even that painful. I told James what she said and he was as surprised as I was. Anyway, so he got in the shower and I started calling our parents and our photographer. By the time James got out of the shower I could no longer speak. My contractions were so intense that I was afraid we were going to have an unplanned home delivery. Talk about taking me for a surprise! We grabbed Joseph and went to the car as soon as we could. We were trying to explain to him that I was in pain, but it was going to be good because his baby sister was going to come out as a result.
When we were about 5 minutes from the hospital, I told James I needed to push. He requested that I didn't push and began to push the accelerator a little closer to the floor. ;-) At 6:30, we finally made it to the hospital, waited for my current contraction to stop and literally ran to the hospital door. We raced to L&D where they grabbed me a wheel chair and rushed me into a room. My midwife was already there and ready to go. They checked me and found that I was complete and ready to push, although I could have told them that! Thankfully, my midwife told the nursing staff to not bother me with paper work and said I didn't need an IV. I was thrilled! I HATE IVs. I started to push...and push...and push. Nothing was happening. This was my 4th delivery, it should have been a breeze. My midwife told me that Hannah was posterior and that I needed to try some different positions to get her to turn. So I tried some new positions and sure enough, she started to descend. At 7:29am, my midwife told me to reach down and grab my baby. I reached down and with her and James' help, Hannah made her grand entrance! She was 7lbs 1oz and 20" long. She was absolutely perfect. After she was born we found out that she had 2 true knots in her umbilical cord! The realization set in that we could have lost her a long time ago. She is a miracle! We are so grateful that the Lord took care of her during the time that I was pregnant. While they were bathing her, they brought me the paperwork to sign. It was quite comical to sign the waiver that I did not want an epidural for my delivery after the baby was born. You do what you've got to do. =)
Since we have been home, we have had such a good time with the newest member of our family. The boys simply adore her and are such big helpers. We are such a blessed family!
We were so fortunate to have Amy with Aim Photography at Hannah's delivery. Check out her website and you can see a slide show of the delivery. =)
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