Athena Elizabeth was born on Friday, May 23, at 10:19 pm, 7lbs 13oz!
I started having contractions about 3:30pm on Friday, not painful at all but fairly consistent. By 4:30, they were coming every 10 minutes or so but still not strong enough to keep me from going about my routine. I decided to call my parents to come down to be on hands for the boys just in case things picked up quickly. They brought dinner, played with the boys, and left with the kiddos to spend the night at their house (special treat!!) about 7:30. Contractions were about the same at this point, so I crawled into bed to rest for a bit. Woke up around 9pm finally feeling the contractions getting more intense and asked dh to put bags in the car and call the hospital. It was just before 9:30 when we got out the door and the contractions were about 2 minutes apart and really hard to ride by that point. I moaned & groaned my way through the contractions as best I could during the 30 min drive, and when we pulled up to the hospital I was pretty sure that I was in transition, as I was starting to feel shaky and sick to my stomach. The nurse started to take me into a triage room but when I said I thought I was pushing already they took us right into delivery. The midwife and dh helped me up on the bed. She went to check me and saw bulging bag of waters. The pressure was so intense by that point I was crying about the pain on my bladder for some reason, and she ruptured the bag to move things along. My water shot out like a fire hose, I couldn't believe it.
I was lying on my side with my legs mostly stretched out and my socks were drenched. The midwife very calmly told us there was meconium in the water so they were bringing some more people in to take care of the baby after she was born. I started panicking at this point but everyone tried to get me focused on pushing her out. I screamed my way through about 3 big pushes and out she came. Dh said she was blue and not moving when she came out and she was whisked off to the side of the room to be suctioned. Luckily she didn't aspirate any of the meconium, although they did have to intubate her briefly to be sure they got it all out of her throat, and they brought her to me within a few minutes. She lifted up her head right away to look at me and look around and nursed a few minutes later.
There's more to our brief hospital stay involving jaundice and phototherapy lights and fighting off formula, but all is well now and I need to go to bed.
Athena is beautiful and her big brothers are so excited about her and so are her parents, and we are all busy learning how to be a family of 5. 
I started having contractions about 3:30pm on Friday, not painful at all but fairly consistent. By 4:30, they were coming every 10 minutes or so but still not strong enough to keep me from going about my routine. I decided to call my parents to come down to be on hands for the boys just in case things picked up quickly. They brought dinner, played with the boys, and left with the kiddos to spend the night at their house (special treat!!) about 7:30. Contractions were about the same at this point, so I crawled into bed to rest for a bit. Woke up around 9pm finally feeling the contractions getting more intense and asked dh to put bags in the car and call the hospital. It was just before 9:30 when we got out the door and the contractions were about 2 minutes apart and really hard to ride by that point. I moaned & groaned my way through the contractions as best I could during the 30 min drive, and when we pulled up to the hospital I was pretty sure that I was in transition, as I was starting to feel shaky and sick to my stomach. The nurse started to take me into a triage room but when I said I thought I was pushing already they took us right into delivery. The midwife and dh helped me up on the bed. She went to check me and saw bulging bag of waters. The pressure was so intense by that point I was crying about the pain on my bladder for some reason, and she ruptured the bag to move things along. My water shot out like a fire hose, I couldn't believe it.
I was lying on my side with my legs mostly stretched out and my socks were drenched. The midwife very calmly told us there was meconium in the water so they were bringing some more people in to take care of the baby after she was born. I started panicking at this point but everyone tried to get me focused on pushing her out. I screamed my way through about 3 big pushes and out she came. Dh said she was blue and not moving when she came out and she was whisked off to the side of the room to be suctioned. Luckily she didn't aspirate any of the meconium, although they did have to intubate her briefly to be sure they got it all out of her throat, and they brought her to me within a few minutes. She lifted up her head right away to look at me and look around and nursed a few minutes later.There's more to our brief hospital stay involving jaundice and phototherapy lights and fighting off formula, but all is well now and I need to go to bed.
Athena is beautiful and her big brothers are so excited about her and so are her parents, and we are all busy learning how to be a family of 5. 
