Whole Hearted Girl: Labor Day Weekend

Friday, May 20, 2011

Labor Day Weekend - Sunday/Monday

I had been calling my acupuncturist and friend Wendy, asking her to induce me if this baby didn't come on his own by the due date. Looking back, I was getting obsessed! What was the rush? Well... as I said before, my mom had been here awhile and I didn't want her to have to leave and come back.... and, well... it just seemed like it was time. I am sure this is because Abby was two weeks early and came with absolutely no notice. It was a long labor, filled with pitocin and no natural labor pains. This time was a little different.

I had sporadic labor pains all day on Mother's Day. They were really mild, anywhere from 5 to 10 minutes apart for most of the day. By that evening, they were more intense and by the time we went to bed, they were still a bit sporadic, but they were more intense. I was waiting for that 5 minutes apart for one whole hour thing. And as I slept, every 5 to 10 minutes resetting the timer on my phone, suddenly, at 2:45am, my water broke. And it continued to "break" for the next 30 minutes as my contractions jumped to 3 minutes apart and we raced to the hospital. YIKES! Thank God my mom was here... we'd have never been able to get Abby to a friend's house in time. I asked for an epidural the minute we got there ... and lots of things happened in the next 30 minutes but all in all, they had to give me something to slow things down (in order to stabilize the baby) and in so doing, gave me time to get that epidural! Praise the Lord! I give serious props to every mother who's done it naturally. Seriously. I was terrified of how painful it would be. Instead, I got to be in a wonderfully present state, pushed for about 15 minutes and Ford was born at 7:34. Later the nurse told me that that baby was coming and would've been here at 5am or so if we hadn't slowed things down. It was an amazing experience. I'm so blessed by how smoothly it all went.

Here is our first picture "together" and then a few the next day as we got to know our big (for us!) boy.