I started having contractions on Saturday night, but they were pretty sporadic. So with the temperature in the single digits on Sunday, we decided to walk around the Rosedale mall. We did a little Christmas shopping, and I stopped walking periodically to breathe through a contraction - which looked totally normal I'm sure. We got Potbelly's sandwiches - I decided to skip the hot peppers for fear of what that might do to me during child birth - and we went home to watch the Packers beat the Patriots.
At about 11:00 that night, contractions started to become more consistent. Andrew downloaded an app to track the time between and the length of the contractions. I ate about five bowls of cereal and tried to get some sleep between contractions, to little avail. We arrived at Regions Hospital at 5:30 a.m. on December 1, after having labored at home for six hours. Contractions were about three minutes apart and getting more intense. For those who haven't experienced it, imagine feeling like you have to take the biggest BM of your life but you're not allowed to go to the bathroom. That's what it feels like.
We spent the day in the labor room. Most of the time it was just the two of us. We listened to music, walked the halls and I bounced on the birthing ball. We talked and Andrew got me lots of graham crackers and jello. It was actually a pretty relaxing experience for a lot of the day. Our midwife and nurses were in periodically to check my vital signs and the baby's heartbeat. I took a couple of hot showers, which helped ease the pain of the contractions.
Finally at 3:30, it was time to start pushing. Things were no longer relaxing. The contractions became very close together and extremely intense. I did not get an epidural, so every single second of every contraction was very real. Andrew had turned the TV to a channel that played relaxing music and showed nature scenes. Between contractions I completely zoned in on the TV to watch deer frolicking in a meadow. I could barely talk. Andrew made me drink water or cranberry juice. His was the only voice I could hear, and he was amazing. He encouraged me every step of the way, and I would have been lost without him there.
After 19 hours, including two and a half hours of pushing, Josephine finally arrived at 6:00 p.m. The pain was instantly gone, and there was our little girl, up on my chest. It was incredible. We noticed that her hands looked just like mine. Her face was mushed up from traveling through the birth canal, but she looked a little bit like Andrew. Her lungs certainly worked - she announced to the world that she was there. We had seen the videos in our birthing class of a brand new baby trying to latch on to eat right after birth, and it happened! It was amazing, she knew exactly what to do. I held her on my chest for almost two hours and it was the best two hours of my life. It felt like five minutes. Andrew cut her umbilical cord. Our little family grew from two to three. We were thrilled.
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| Josie's first picture |
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| Eating her little hand |
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| Our new little family |
