I started having consistent contractions at 3:00am on Tuesday, August 19th (Due date was August 17th). At my appointment with the midwife the day before I was dilated to 1.5cm and 80% effaced. Being the optimistic person she is, my midwife said she was pretty sure that baby would be here in a couple days. Being the practical person I am, I decided not to plan on any baby for another week. I didn't want to be disappointed!
So when I started having contractions that were about 12 minutes apart the next morning I thought it must not be the real thing. With McKindrey my contractions were only 7 minutes apart from the beginning, and very consistent. I waited until about 6:00am to tell David he probably didn't have to go to work that day. He was stoked! Probably just for the day off ;)
So, we had a fabulous day together! The three of us went grocery shopping and went to the park. Of course we also got all packed for the hospital and David made delicious bran muffins (some we took to the hospital with us later for the nurses-- they were totally raving about them). Contractions kept coming all day, but they varied a lot in duration and frequency, so I was really worried they might stop completely. AND then I would have kept David home from work for no reason at all. I was also getting disappointed because I thought my labor with my second child would be "much faster" as is apparently common for a lot of women.
Around 3:30pm David convinced me to call the midwife. So I did, and she recommended I come into her office to be evaluated. I didn't really want to drive clear over there, but I agreed. About 1 minute after I hung up the phone with her, my water broke! I was pretty ecstatic because our goal had been for me to labor at home until my water broke. We had decided to do this birth as naturally as possible (no epidural, no artificial rupture of membranes, etc.).
We all loaded into the car, dropped McKindrey off at David's parents' house, and drove up to the hospital. My contractions got more forceful and closer together after my water broke. We made it to the delivery floor and got checked in. When the nurse checked my progress they were astounded that I was 9 cm dilated! They started rushing around to get the midwife over there and get the delivery things ready. Soon my contractions were very strong, I started feeling nauseated and hot and getting annoyed by every little thing! For example, I only had one pillow. How rude of them, right? And also, they wanted to draw blood, which ticked me off. Hello, I'm in hard labor here! Once I let the poor phlebotomist near me, I didn't even feel it since I was so distracted getting ready for the next contraction.
I felt like pushing with some really intense contractions, and three or so pushes/contractions later, Calise was born! I was slightly embarrassed at all the uncontrolled noises coming from my mouth during that last bit of labor, but everyone assures me it wash't too bad. And best of all, I didn't tear at all, which really made recovery a breeze.
In fact, we (David and I) were ready to go home the next morning, but the nurses and doctors didn't want to discharge Calise so they could further poke, prod, and otherwise torture her ;) She had to spend a night under UV lights for her slightly high bili level (one of the worst nights of my life), and she wasn't passing this new oxygen saturation test reflective of heart defects, so they threatened to airlift her to Abuquerque. Luckily, she squeaked by and we finally got to go home after 2 nights and 2 days.
Calise is a joy, and we like to laugh about all her grunts, as she makes a lot more funny noises than McKindrey did.
Stats:
Born at 4:42pm (we got to the hospital around 4:00pm) on Tuesday, August 19th
Total labor time was about 13.5 hours
6# 14 oz, 20.5 in long
After arriving at the hospital-- last pregnant picture!
