Blair's Birth Story - My first Out of Hospital Birth :)

I went to my weekly appointment on Wednesday.  I was about 4 days past my due date.  I figured this would happen, but I was secretly hoping she would be early like Derek.  My body was completely depleted of energy and I was starting to think I was doomed to another week of pregnancy discomfort.  At my appointment, my midwife did a sonogram to check fluid and monitored her heart.  Everything looked great...except no signs of labor in my near future.  She checked my cervix and of course, just a 2 and she was super high.  I went home.  I took Sophie to a mom / daughter dinner activity at church.  I came home and went to bed.  That Thursday morning, around 1, I woke up with a horrific contraction.  I thought "oh boy, this it".  I waited and waited and nothing.  I went back to sleep.  Again, this time around 3 am, I woke to another one.  And, again at 5 am, another one.  All the next day, every 25 minutes or so, I would have of those toe curling contractions.  But things did not seem to be picking up, so I decided I'd just wait it out and see what happens.  I called my babysitter and had her watch my kids all day and I rested in my room in between the toe curlers.  At around 4:30, I got dressed because I wanted to take Sophie to her singing group.  At around 5, the contractions started to get closer together, like 10 minutes.  I called my sister Zoe and asked her to come over and watch the kids because I was going to go into the birth center.  I still wasn't completely convinced, but didn't want to have the baby at home, so I decided to play it safe.  Zoe called around 6.  She was stuck in traffic.  Joe called our home teachers and he and his wife zipped over and watched the boys.  The contractions started getting closer, like every 7 minutes apart.  The traffic wasn't helping.  I had a panicked thought of having my baby on the freeway and tried to force my contractions to stop.  But that only made them come faster.  Relieved, we arrived the birth center with baby still in womb.  Little did I know, I still had another 2 hours of labor to go.  After we got there, I suddenly felt calm.  I was 7 cm at this point.  I started out using the birth ball in the shower.  I did that for about 45 minutes.  It was probably my favorite spot, but we needed to fill up the birth pool, so we had to move "hands and knees on the bed".  At this point, my contractions were picking up and they were quite painful.  The birth assistant used counter pressure, massage, heated blankets, and anything else you can think of to comfort me during the process.  I tried slow dance with my husband, but it was just not comfortable.  I went back to birth ball on the bed and did that for the next couple of contractions.  I started to feel pressure and the baby's head descend so I switched to the birthing stool.  The bath was not ready and having issues.  But, lucky for me, the birthing stool did just the trick.  Blair was still in the bag of waters at this point.  It was bulging and making it difficult to push her out.  My midwife broke the bag and she came out with the next contraction.  Blair cried and cried and cried.  Once I got her to relax, I was able to get some good nursing started.  She picked it up rather quickly.  We rested for a couple hours and drove home around midnight.  It was an incredible experience.  There were so many alternative solutions to pain control during labor that an epidural didn't even cross my mind during my labor.  Blair was super healthy.  Her apgar was a 9, 2 points higher than my other children.  My recovery has been incredible.  I have to force myself to take it easy.  My post partum anxiety has been non-existent so far.  I usually have some sort of breakdown, scary dreams, depression, etc.  But I have been able to keep my mind over matter.  I'm so thrilled with my experience.  I wish I had done it this way with all my babies.  But this was definitely a positive way to end on.

Holding our new baby... Best part ever!