Both kids are sleeping peacefully so I figured I'd take the chance to write this up now.
I had a little bit of bloody show on Monday morning, which mostly faded away by afternoon, so I thought maybe something was starting, but wasn't getting my hopes up. I had a prenatal at my house that afternoon which was pretty uneventful and joked that the midwives should just stay for dinner, in case things picked up.
I had a mild contx or 2 around 9ish, while I was putting Cole to bed, then maybe 1 more before I fell asleep at about 11p. I woke up at about 1 or 1:30 with another contx and they fell into a regular pattern of about 5 mintues apart. I let my son (who was in our room) and dh sleep for about an hour, while I labored quietly in the dark. The contx were pretty easy to handle, just a little deep breathing to make it through. By about 2:30, I wanted to start getting my bedroom ready, setting up the tub etc, so I woke up Dh and asked him to take Cole into my mom, who had come down for my birthday. Luckily, he slept soundly through the transfer!
Then we turned on the lights and started getting ready. We picked up the bedroom a little and set up the tub, then DH went to grab a quick shower before we filled it. By now, contx are about 3-4 (dh says 2-3) minutes apart and getting a little stronger, but still very managable. While the tub was filling, I went downstairs to call the mw, it was about 4am. When she asked me how I was doing, I told her fine. That the contx were getting a little harder to handle, but I could still mostly talk through them. She asked me what I wanted and I said, that she could take her time, that getting to my house by 6 or 6:30 would probably be perfect. She said she was going to call her apprentice (who lives about 45 minutes away) to meet her at her house, then they would come to my house together.
After I got off the phone, I went back upstairs and things started picking up. I started humming and moaning a little more with each contx. I got into the tub when it was not even half full, I was soo looking forward to that warm water! It was heaven! Being able to sit and relax against the sides in between contx, then just sort of floating over onto hands and knees when each one started was so nice.
Not long after I got into the tub, I started to have a hard time handling the contx, the pain really started to get intense, I was vocalising louder now, humming or moaning through each one. I started to wish the midwives were there, so I would now how much longer I had, how "far along" I was, thinking in my head that I was probably about 5 or 6 cm. Then I realized I could check for myself :LOL. I sort of gingerly reached a finger in and realized I felt a head or water bag about 2 inches in!! I told DH he better call Joni quick and make sure she was on her way. It wasn't until then that in dawned on me that the pain I was feeling was the pressure of the baby moving down, not regular contraction pain. Once I realized how close I was, I was able to handle things better. I concentrated on staying loose and relaxed and not tensing up at all. I think being in the water really helped with that.
Not long after Paul hung up with the mw (who was 20 minutes away) I felt my water bag pop and almost instantly got the infamous "I'm gonna poop!" feeling. Which despite reading about a million birth stories, I thought meant I actuall had to poop! :LOL I had this insane resistance to pooping in the tub with only my DH there to clean up after me. It was the line I just didn't want to cross
. So there I am, having these massive pushing contractions, instisting on getting out of the tub to go the bathroom, at the same time saying "I know I shouldn't get out of the tub, I don't want to have this baby in the bathroom, but I don't want to poop in the tub!" 
and 
So I of course did the one thing I KNEW I shouldn't have done and made DH help me get out of the tub to head to the toilet. Went to try and sit down on the toilet and realized that she was crowning!!! DH called out for my mom (who is a nurse, btw) to come help, since I wanted to try and get back into the bedroom. She had been downstairs with my son, who woke up about 4:30. She came running up the stairs, leaving DS downstairs alone, crying. So DH runs downstairs to get him. Meanwhile, I've realized I can't move out of the bathroom and instisted on lying down right there on the bathroom floor, thankfully my mom had the presence of mind to at least lay down a towel! I have another huge contraction and out came her head. I yelled for DH to come and bring DS. They came upstairs and DS was standing in the doorway, while I have the baby's head born and says..."hey look, it's a baby!" in his adorable little 2 yo voice. I laughed and said it sure is! DH was on the phone with the mw at this point, she was about 5 minutes away. While waiting for the next contraction, I could feel her moving her head on the outside and kicking her legs on the inside...it was so amazing and surreal...to feel her transition from life in the womb, to life outside it. One more big contraction and out came the rest of her, into gramma's hands, then right up onto my belly.
The mw arrived about 5 minutes after she was born. The placenta came out with no trouble about 5 minutes after that. Quinn nursed within 10 minutes of birth and is learning well.
She apparantly had her hand up by her face, which along with how fast she came, lead to quite the nasty tear on my labia, ouch! But it only took a few stiches to fix it up, it's just quite the stingy place to have stiches...much worse than on the perineum according the mw.
I never pushed once, it was pretty amazing. I just let my body do what it wanted to do. I am proud of how calm I was once I realized that Joni wasn't going to make it. My mom was looking worried, tried to tell me to 'not work with the contractions.' I just smiled at her and said, mom, we're gonna have this baby now, and it's going to be fine. I think my only regret, (well besides the obvious getting out of the tub in the first place) is that I didn't have the presence of mind to ask her to step aside and have my DH help catch. I think he is a little sad that he missed out on that. But in the end, it's pretty amazing that my mom got to catch her very first grand-daughter after four grandsons.
My battery is about to die and I don't want to lose this post, so I will come back and post a pic in a little while.
I had a little bit of bloody show on Monday morning, which mostly faded away by afternoon, so I thought maybe something was starting, but wasn't getting my hopes up. I had a prenatal at my house that afternoon which was pretty uneventful and joked that the midwives should just stay for dinner, in case things picked up.
I had a mild contx or 2 around 9ish, while I was putting Cole to bed, then maybe 1 more before I fell asleep at about 11p. I woke up at about 1 or 1:30 with another contx and they fell into a regular pattern of about 5 mintues apart. I let my son (who was in our room) and dh sleep for about an hour, while I labored quietly in the dark. The contx were pretty easy to handle, just a little deep breathing to make it through. By about 2:30, I wanted to start getting my bedroom ready, setting up the tub etc, so I woke up Dh and asked him to take Cole into my mom, who had come down for my birthday. Luckily, he slept soundly through the transfer!
Then we turned on the lights and started getting ready. We picked up the bedroom a little and set up the tub, then DH went to grab a quick shower before we filled it. By now, contx are about 3-4 (dh says 2-3) minutes apart and getting a little stronger, but still very managable. While the tub was filling, I went downstairs to call the mw, it was about 4am. When she asked me how I was doing, I told her fine. That the contx were getting a little harder to handle, but I could still mostly talk through them. She asked me what I wanted and I said, that she could take her time, that getting to my house by 6 or 6:30 would probably be perfect. She said she was going to call her apprentice (who lives about 45 minutes away) to meet her at her house, then they would come to my house together.
After I got off the phone, I went back upstairs and things started picking up. I started humming and moaning a little more with each contx. I got into the tub when it was not even half full, I was soo looking forward to that warm water! It was heaven! Being able to sit and relax against the sides in between contx, then just sort of floating over onto hands and knees when each one started was so nice.
Not long after I got into the tub, I started to have a hard time handling the contx, the pain really started to get intense, I was vocalising louder now, humming or moaning through each one. I started to wish the midwives were there, so I would now how much longer I had, how "far along" I was, thinking in my head that I was probably about 5 or 6 cm. Then I realized I could check for myself :LOL. I sort of gingerly reached a finger in and realized I felt a head or water bag about 2 inches in!! I told DH he better call Joni quick and make sure she was on her way. It wasn't until then that in dawned on me that the pain I was feeling was the pressure of the baby moving down, not regular contraction pain. Once I realized how close I was, I was able to handle things better. I concentrated on staying loose and relaxed and not tensing up at all. I think being in the water really helped with that.
Not long after Paul hung up with the mw (who was 20 minutes away) I felt my water bag pop and almost instantly got the infamous "I'm gonna poop!" feeling. Which despite reading about a million birth stories, I thought meant I actuall had to poop! :LOL I had this insane resistance to pooping in the tub with only my DH there to clean up after me. It was the line I just didn't want to cross
. So there I am, having these massive pushing contractions, instisting on getting out of the tub to go the bathroom, at the same time saying "I know I shouldn't get out of the tub, I don't want to have this baby in the bathroom, but I don't want to poop in the tub!" and So I of course did the one thing I KNEW I shouldn't have done and made DH help me get out of the tub to head to the toilet. Went to try and sit down on the toilet and realized that she was crowning!!! DH called out for my mom (who is a nurse, btw) to come help, since I wanted to try and get back into the bedroom. She had been downstairs with my son, who woke up about 4:30. She came running up the stairs, leaving DS downstairs alone, crying. So DH runs downstairs to get him. Meanwhile, I've realized I can't move out of the bathroom and instisted on lying down right there on the bathroom floor, thankfully my mom had the presence of mind to at least lay down a towel! I have another huge contraction and out came her head. I yelled for DH to come and bring DS. They came upstairs and DS was standing in the doorway, while I have the baby's head born and says..."hey look, it's a baby!" in his adorable little 2 yo voice. I laughed and said it sure is! DH was on the phone with the mw at this point, she was about 5 minutes away. While waiting for the next contraction, I could feel her moving her head on the outside and kicking her legs on the inside...it was so amazing and surreal...to feel her transition from life in the womb, to life outside it. One more big contraction and out came the rest of her, into gramma's hands, then right up onto my belly.
The mw arrived about 5 minutes after she was born. The placenta came out with no trouble about 5 minutes after that. Quinn nursed within 10 minutes of birth and is learning well.
She apparantly had her hand up by her face, which along with how fast she came, lead to quite the nasty tear on my labia, ouch! But it only took a few stiches to fix it up, it's just quite the stingy place to have stiches...much worse than on the perineum according the mw.
I never pushed once, it was pretty amazing. I just let my body do what it wanted to do. I am proud of how calm I was once I realized that Joni wasn't going to make it. My mom was looking worried, tried to tell me to 'not work with the contractions.' I just smiled at her and said, mom, we're gonna have this baby now, and it's going to be fine. I think my only regret, (well besides the obvious getting out of the tub in the first place) is that I didn't have the presence of mind to ask her to step aside and have my DH help catch. I think he is a little sad that he missed out on that. But in the end, it's pretty amazing that my mom got to catch her very first grand-daughter after four grandsons.
My battery is about to die and I don't want to lose this post, so I will come back and post a pic in a little while.
:
Congrats!
: 
