December 10, 2008

I went in Wednesday morning to my midwife's office just to get checked and my membranes swept. I was dilated to 4cm and 70% effaced, so she just 'roto-rootered' me really quickly, had me use a breast pump for about 30 minutes and sent me to walk around the mall. We left her office at about 11:00am. My mom, James, Julia and I got out and walked around and had some lunch. I started having some very decent contractions, so we started timing them and they were 2 minutes a part and 40 seconds long. So at about 2:00pm we went back to the birth center and I was 5 cm and my midwife decided we weren't leaving. About an hour later she came in and checked me and I was between a 6 and 7. I wanted in the tub at that point, so I could ease some pain a little. The tub helped, but my midwife didn't want me to deliver in the tub this time because my baby was going to be a bit bigger than I was used to and she didn't want me having trouble in the tub where she couldn't easily get to me (which I was a little bummed about, but understood). So, at about 4pm I moved to the rocking chair and rocked for a while...it helped a bit with the pain as well. All the sudden the contractions became almost unbearable and I felt a lot of pressure. The midwife wasn't in the room, but she heard me scream and came running in with the birth assistant and moved me to the bed....pronto. I had the freedom to push when I wanted to, so I listened to my body and didn't push until it pushed. Tyler made his appearance at 5:20pm and is the biggest of all my kiddos at a whopping 8lbs and 20 inches long...with a 14inch head and a head full of black hair! We were home by 9:00pm and I feel really good...albeit sore! He's feeding like a pro and just the most BEAUTIFUL thing!

This is my third child and for all of you out there that think they will all go the same, think again! This was a very humbling experience for me. I had both of my other babies early at 37 and 38 weeks. So, this was the longest I had been pregnant with any of my kiddos. Another misconception that I had was that he would be small like the other two...HA! I just delivered an 8 lb baby!!! My other two were 5 and 6lbs!