We had a girl! *Birth story added further down*

[Plummeting]

She does not have a first name yet, but her middle name is Ruth, after my grandmother. She was born at 1:52 a.m. after an hour of real labor. (My water broke at 11:45ish.) The midwife made it in just as I was pushing, and DH will be eternally grateful for that. lol She's 8 pounds even and 20.25 inches long.

[SamGroom]

Congratulations!!!!!!

[ciga]

congrats

[Lilcrunchie]

It has been a busy weekend round here

Congrats mama, and welcome to the world to your little one!! Can't wait to hear more

[josie423]

Congrats!!!!

What a flood of babies we're having!

[Juvysen]

WOOT!!

[cocoanib]

So many blessings for the marchies!!
Congrat's on your baby girl and wowza what a quick birth!

[Bethla]

Enjoy your little one. Congrats!

[gardenmommy]

YAY!! Congratulations, glad you had a quick birth.

[Geigerin]

Holy cow! Wonderful news.

[judybean]

congratulations, mama! hooray for little girls!!

[bc1995]

Congrats!!

[beautifulnm]

Wow, so quick, congrats!

[apple_juice]

Wow another speedy one! This weekend has had lots of babies and all girls too I think.

Enjoy your new babe

[zannster]

Wow, quick! Congrats!

[LittleLegos]

Yay! Hoping to have a similar story to share VERY soon!
Amy

[mama kk]

YIPPPEE!

(Look forward to hearing more details and her name!)

[Right of Passage]

!!!! YAY!

[harmie0515]

Congrats!

[Plummeting]

I wanted to add a birth story...

Saturday night at around 11:40 we were in bed and I had a contraction that was sort of intense, so I settled in for what I assumed would be another night of prodromal labor for hours. That contraction didn't really end the way I thought it would though, so I got up and stood next to the bed, bent over with my head on the mattress trying to wait it out. Instead, my water broke. I went into the bathroom to make sure that's what it was, although there was so much of it I didn't really have a huge doubt. There was vernix in it, so it was definitely amniotic fluid and I woke DH. Then we called the family members we needed to call and I called the midwife. By then it was 5 till midnight and I hadn't had any other contractions at all, so I figured it would probably be like DD's labor and I'd have several hours before labor started. (With DD it was 7 hours.) The midwife advised I try to get some sleep and call her back when contractions started.

I planned on doing that as soon as I updated my FB status (since it was early enough I knew some of my extended family would be looking, but I wasn't planning on calling them all). As I was sitting in the computer chair, I had another HUGE gush of amniotic fluid. Despite the fact that I had a giant pad on, it took two full size bath towels to clean it all up, and they were sopping wet when we did - luckily the office is tiled. lol After that I started having a few contractions, but they were really minor and far apart. When they got to be about 4-5 minutes apart and 45 seconds to a minute long, I called the midwife to tell her I wasn't going to be sleeping, but that she didn't need to come yet because the contractions were just slightly uncomfortable. That was at 12:38 (call history on my cell phone, lol). By 1:00 they were suddenly so bad I had DH call and tell her to come because I couldn't even talk to her anymore. There were 20 minutes in between the calls, but the contractions didn't build up that whole time. They went from being mild to all of the sudden being horrible. It was only the second one of those when I realized and had DH call her.

The midwife told DH to have me get in the tub to try to slow them down, since I had a history of relatively short labor with DD (just under 5 hours). We filled up the tub and I got in, but they were so bad I was already moaning loudly through them, which I NEVER did with DD. This labor was SO much more intense. I never got to get my music on, never felt like I was able to relax into the contractions or anything. It was just instantly overwhelming. At that point DD woke up because I was being loud. She came in and I asked her if it had scared her. Her response was hilarious. She said, "Why would I be scared? I had an idea what you were doing in here." I guess we prepared her well. Unfortunately my contractions were so bad that even laughing was HELL. It caused extra pressure and I couldn't handle it. Fortunately DD asked us to turn a show on for her, which was good because she was being hilarious and I couldn't deal with it.

At about 1:37 I had a contraction in which I had an involuntary push, so I had DH call to find out how close the midwife was. There had been a roadblock erected and she was finding her way around, but would be to our house soon. I decided to see if I could feel a head or anything and sure enough, it was right inside - just high enough up to be hidden, but easy to feel, all slimy and wrinkly. I could feel a little bit of hair. So I knew I was obviously fully dilated and okay to push. (I'd been afraid of pushing too soon and causing swelling.) I started pushing and the first midwife arrived just after the top of DD's head became visible. She dropped her bags, put on her gloves, and helped DD out onto my chest in our bathtub at 1:52 a.m. The cord pulsed for several minutes, then it was cut and we stayed in the tub for a while. The second midwife arrived maybe 15 minutes later.

I got a tiny tear, but it wasn't enough to need stitches and I feel fantastic. The midwives were gone by 4:30 and we were all asleep by 5:00. DH is now so happy we had a home birth. He was very impressed by how quickly and efficiently the midwives handled everything and how much simpler it was to just go to bed in our own bed when we were done. It was wonderful and we finally named the baby yesterday - Maya Ruth.