This is my birth story…

Wow, you actually have the wee one and time just starts to fly by! Lucy was born at Southwest Washington Medical Center at 3:18 pm on April 1st, 2009 (congrats to all who voted for that date!). It all started with contractions that felt different than any others I had experienced so far. On March 31st I had these harder, more consistent contractions all day long. They were about 8 minutes apart all day until 10 pm when the slowed down to ten and then fifteen minutes apart. At this point I was so irritated because I was thinking this was it and then when they got further apart I thought nature was still just teasing me and they were once again "fake" contractions. Needless to say I went to bed sad and thinking I was wrong about the fact that I was really going into labor. However, at 1:45 am on April 1st I woke up to some pretty good contractions. I laid there for an hour timing them before I woke up Joey. They were five minutes apart and getting stronger...this was it and this time I was sure. Joe woke up and took a shower and we headed to the hospital around 3:30 am. I called my mom and brother to let them know. Brice was in charge of the dog and I wanted my mom in the delivery room.

Once we got to the hospital they put me into triage to see if I was in active labor. I was dilated to 4 and completely thinned out but I had to show that things were progressing before they would admit me. I was able to get into a whirlpool to ease the discomfort and see if I would make progress. During this time Joe and I were cracking jokes and talking between contractions. My mom showed up and we just waited it out. About an hour into this I felt a gush of water while in the whirlpool (even with the jets on!) and I knew my water had broke. So we called the nurse and she had to check and see if in fact my water broke. As I got out of the tub more water kept pouring out of me. I couldn't help but laugh each time and with the laughter came more water! Joe and my mom were laughing too...good thing I wasn't at Costco...there is a lot of water in there!! However about two contractions after my water broke the laughter stopped and the real work began. I tried to labor in the bed and that was a no go so they allowed me to go back into the water, thank God. I continued to labor in the water for 9 nine hours until I was dilated to 9.5 cm. At 5 cm I was begging for the drugs! I told Joe and my mom that it was just my stupid pride and that I didn't care any more...they kept telling me to take one more then they would talk to the nurse...after hearing this about ten times I stopped asking and I'm so glad I did. I was finally told that it was okay to push and I thought to myself 'this is it!!!' However Lucy wasn't in the correct position, she was 'sunny side up' and that made the pushing part extremely difficult and it took three and a half hours! I was thoroughly exhausted and didn't have any drugs and I was sure she was never, ever coming out. I became very frustrated at about 2 hours into it and was wondering what I was doing wrong. They brought out the mirror at my request so that I could see the progress for myself, I thought they were all lying to me when they were telling me good job! After three and a half hours and a fifth push in a row on one contraction I got her out. She was so small it only took one push when she did decide to come out! The entire experience was so exhausting but some how I was reenergized as soon as Joe told me it was Lucy and they placed her on my belly. This was one of those experiences you can try and prepare yourself for, I read all the books and went to class and looked online, however nothing could prepare me for this except for the experience itself. I was so proud to have followed through with my plans and I have my two wonderful coaches to thank for that. They were so wonderful to me and they were my rock throughout the whole time. Both my mom and Joe were very emotional during the last couple of hours, neither wanted to see me in that much pain.

It was the hardest thing I have ever done and probably ever will do but I wouldn't trade the experience for anything in the world (I can say that now because it has been a month, if I would have written this a day or two after it would have been a very different story!).