My crazy birth story

                                                           Chillin in the herbal bath

                                                           Bonding time with Daddy

                             Donnelyn on the left and Sue on the right, doing Hannah's first check up

                                                checking out the world

                                                              8 lbs 4 oz, 21 1/2 inches long

It all started Sunday morning, July 24th. I woke up at 4:00 to go to the bathroom and couldn't get back to sleep. At about 4:15 I started having false labor contractions. They were random and not very strong, but enough to keep me awake the rest of the morning. As the day went on and we went to church, they got even farther apart and finally went away. After church I was so tired that I went to bed and slept for almost 4 hours, and it's a good thing I did. The funny thing is, the afternoon was almost an exact copy of the morning. I woke up at 4 and started having contractions around 4:15. The difference was, these were definitely the real thing. So I texted Donnelyn, my midwife and went about having a nice quiet night with Dan while waiting for them to get closer together. At about 7 we went to his parents house so that I could use his mom's big, jetted tub to take a bath. By this point my contractions were about 8 minutes apart and lasting about 30 seconds. Around 9:00 I was talking to my dad on the phone and all of a sudden my contractions started coming really close together. I had 3 in the 10 minutes I was on the phone. After 15 more minutes of this, I got back in the tub and Dan timed the contractions. They were coming around 3 minutes apart and lasting around 30 seconds. We called Donnelyn and she basically said that contractions like that usually mean it's going to be a really long labor because they don't dilate you as effectively as longer contractions. So I took some Benedryl and we went home and went to bed. Dan gave me a back rub which helped to slow down the contractions somewhat; enough anyway that he was able to fall asleep and I was able to doze a little in between. However, around 1:00-ish, they really started to come close together. They were coming about a minute apart, but still only lasting for 30 seconds. After 10 or 15 minutes of that, my water broke although I wasn't sure that's what had happened at first since hardly any water came out. It felt like somebody body slammed me in the pelvis. It was terrible. Especially since it threw me straight into a 2 minute long, horribly painful contraction! Poor Dan. Talk about being rudely awoken. Everything's peaceful and quiet and all of a sudden your wife is yelling in pain. After that contraction, I got up to go to the bathroom, and then got stuck on the toilet for about 15 minutes because the contractions were so long and terrible I couldn't move. Dan called the midwife she had him time me again for a few minutes. When she called back, and heard the combination of me yelling in the background and how long my contractions were, she told us to get in the car NOW. If I hadn't been in so much pain, I might have laughed at Dan running around getting ready to go. It's at that point, as I rolled off the couch, that I was sure my water had broken. So off we went to drive the 20 minutes it takes to get to the birthing center. I don't remember much of the drive besides trying to give Dan directions during contractions and him telling me to "breathe and relax" over and over and over. We got there about a minute before the midwife did, and then she got a wheel chair and wheeled me in, since it would have been a long walk, and I was having a contraction, and the baby was definitely coming at that point. We got inside and they made me get up on the bed so they could see how far along I was. Well, lets just say I was farther than they thought I would be or probably hoped I would be at that point, so at that point Donnelyn and her awesome apprentice Sue, who helped out with almost all of my prenatal appointments and taught the birth class we took, got be up and into the tub. Sidebar- For those of you who are wondering, no, I did not originally plan on having a water birth. Coming into this process I thought I definitely would NOT have a water birth. Then as I learned more about it I decided that I would think about it and decide how I felt once I was actually in labor. Fast forward to actually being IN labor, and let me tell you,when they told me they were taking me to the tub, nothing in this world sounded more heavenly than getting into the warm tub. So I got in, and immediately started needing to push. It was kind of funny because they're running around trying to get everything ready, but my body just wouldn't wait. I remember hearing Donnelyn saying in a slightly panicked voice, "Oh! She's pushing!" and me saying "I'm sorry! I can't help it!" Hahaha. At this point, Dan was sitting on the side of the tub with his feet inside, and they had me get in between his legs and use them to hold myself up while I pushed. It then only took 3 or 4 pushes for the head and 2 or 3 for the rest of her to come out. It was nuts. We got to the birth center at about 2:55 and she was born at 3:12. They kept telling me to slow down and not push so hard, but I just couldn't. When she was born, she floated up into my hands, so I was the first person to hold her, and we just sat in the water together for a while as they cut the cord and all of that good stuff. Then they had to stitch me up, get Hannah to nurse, take our vitals, and do a newborn exam. Hannah and I also got to get back in the tub for a few minutes for an herbal bath which was really nice and felt awesome. Then they got us some breakfast and let us take a nap. After our nap, we got all of our stuff together and got to go home!