Birth story in a nutshell: My husband and I went out to dinner Friday night for Valentine’s Day at 7:30, were at the liquor store about 9:15 (heh), and I gave birth at 1:13 Saturday morning after an extremely fast active labor in front of a small crowd of fabulous people (husband, midwife, sister, birth doula, birth photographer -- midwife's assistant actually missed the birth). I had been complaining about this labor taking its sweet time earlier in the day, and truthfully I wasn't even 100% convinced it was REAL labor even as late as at dinnertime since I'd been feeling contraction-y for two days, on and off. And although contractions were coming consistently every eight minutes at that point, I would just concentrate and breathe through them; nothing was excrutiating or unbearable at all (BIG difference between labor with an intact bag of waters and having my water rupture before contractions start, as happened in my last two births!). Everyone was called to come just after midnight after it had become apparent that I was not going to be able to get any sleep during "early labor" and contractions were now 3-4 minutes apart and getting more intense. Contractions didn't really get heavy until about 12:45 AM, when my water broke as I putzed around the kitchen cleaning things up, in anticipation of everyone heading over. I went into the bathroom to get cleaned up and take my now-wet pajama pants off and started to feel pushy, shaky, nauseous, and transition-y right away, but still doubted that the end was really that close. Contractions had instantly become about 20x more intense at that point as well. Baby was born a half hour later, standing up, leaning over the couch, maybe 10 minutes after the midwife had arrived and only maybe 25 minutes after my doula had arrived. I never got to use the birthing tub this time, which had been filled at that point but wasn’t yet warm enough for a birth! 
It was an insane roller coaster, but pretty damn cool.
And Laurel was born with an extremely long umbilical cord (about 4 ft. long) that was wrapped around her neck twice and had a true knot in it, likely a result of the breech-scare issues we had a few weeks ago and flipping around. No complications, though she took a minute or two to “pink up” after birth. She's teeny and perfect!
Valentine's Day baby was 7 lbs, 2 oz. and 20" long. My first dark-haired baby (I have dark hair, myself)!
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3136/...8dca2f.jpg?v=0
It was an insane roller coaster, but pretty damn cool.
And Laurel was born with an extremely long umbilical cord (about 4 ft. long) that was wrapped around her neck twice and had a true knot in it, likely a result of the breech-scare issues we had a few weeks ago and flipping around. No complications, though she took a minute or two to “pink up” after birth. She's teeny and perfect!
Valentine's Day baby was 7 lbs, 2 oz. and 20" long. My first dark-haired baby (I have dark hair, myself)!
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3136/...8dca2f.jpg?v=0
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