I can't believe how long it has been since I blogged. I really don't even know where to begin and that is one of the reasons why I haven't posted in awhile. Being a mother has been the most amazing experience EVER! At the same time it has also been challenging in many ways. Right now I will only talk about the positives :) So here is the first part of my birth story. I added a lot of details so that I wouldn’t forget anything as years go by. L.ucy Marie’s Birth Part One… On August 17th, the evening before my labor, Louie made dinner (as usual since I was coming close to my due date.) It was a spicy red sauce over pasta, yum. I remember I had heartburn afterwards while lying on the couch. Lou was rubbing my achy, swollen feet and we were just chatting about the day and about the baby coming. The baby’s arrival was the most common topic of course since my due date was August 25th in my book and August 24th in the midwives opinion. I had just given notice and quit my job on August 13th. I really believed I would have a couple of week’s vacation before the baby would arrive. That is the wonderful thing about babies you just never know when they plan on making their arrival. So I thought wrong. I had two days vacation and then it all started. As Lou was rubbing my feet I was having sharp pains down in the V area which had been the most strong I had really ever felt them. I am pretty sure this was the pressure from the baby on my cervix. We went to bed as usual, nothing out of the ordinary was occurring that I can recall. At 1:00am I woke up with a warm wet feeling in bed. My sheets, pajamas, everything was drenched! I was shocked. I woke up Louie right away and whispered that I think I wet the bed. I honestly thought from the pressure I was feeling earlier in the evening that maybe I just wet the bed in my sleep. Louie was asking if I was sure and I said I really don’t know because I don’t know what it is like to have your water break. Maybe it was my water that broke. So many thoughts were going through my head. I am going to meet my baby in just a few hours. Oh my gosh is this really happening. Lou was really sweet about it and went to google “water breaking and what to look for” or something to that idea. I got up to go to the bathroom, change my underwear and go back to bed. Although the moment I laid down a lot of water came out. So I got up and was talking to Lou while he was in the bathroom and water kept running down my legs. I said that this is definitely water leaking and I am going to have the baby. This all happened so fast! I was dying to call my twin sister Candice but I just had to wait until the morning or else I knew she wouldn’t be able to go back to sleep either. I called my doula, S.arah P.axton at about 1:15am to tell her the news and she said we should try to go back to sleep and get plenty of rest. I agreed. Although one thing I didn’t get was rest, haha! I was soooo excited to have the baby that I couldn’t sleep. I told Lou to go get a bottle of wine and let’s have a toast to celebrate that this was all starting, labor was finally beginning. So we toasted in bed in anticipation to the baby’s arrival. Here is a little video of us toasting :)
I didn’t have ANY contractions so then we tried to get some rest. Lou slept pretty well for the most part and I couldn’t sleep at all. Thoughts kept running through my head, how was my labor going to be…what is my baby going to look like, will the baby be healthy, my whole life is about to change, etc. I had to get up out of bed a couple of times to change my underwear from all the water until I realized I needed to wear a pad and then wrap a big towel all around me like a diaper. It still didn’t do the trick. I was very uncomfortable so I didn’t fall asleep until around 6:00am. At 8:00am I woke up and called my mid-wife to tell her my water had broken at 1:00am and I have no contractions. She said for me to come into the hospital around 1:00pm whether my contractions had started or not so they can check the contractions on the monitor and see how they were progressing and how the baby’s heartbeat was. I agreed as long as I didn’t have to stay at the hospital if things were fine. She agreed as long as everything looked good then I would be able to go home and labor at home for awhile. I had to call our Doula again and give her the update. Then I called my sister and told her my water had broken. She was so excited and told me to tell her as soon we go to the hospital and she would be there to meet me. I then had to call my mom and tell her my water had broken. She had never heard of anyone having their water break and not going to the hospital. I told her everything was fine and there was nothing to worry about. She wanted to come to my house right away but I really wanted to labor at home by myself with Louie. This was just the start of updating every one throughout the day. I was really tired at this point so I showered and got ready for the day so I could try to take a nap before going to the hospital that afternoon. Around 10:00am-12:00pm I got to sleep for a couple of hours. I was really tired by this point from the lack of sleep but I was running on adrenaline at this point. When I woke up I panicked because I hadn’t packed anything for the hospital yet and I only had 30 minutes before we had to leave to meet our midwife, Leslie F.ehan, at St. Francis Medical Center. The time was flying by and before I knew it Lou was packing up the car with our things just incase we weren’t able to come home that day but had to stay overnight. I still didn’t really have any contractions to speak of. We were off to our first trip to the hospital that day full of anticipation that things were progressing smoothly. Here is a video of us getting ready to go to our first trip to the hospital.
