The Long-Awaited Birth of Baby W

After having pre-labor/false-labor symptoms for 3 weeks, my water finally broke Sunday, December 9th around 6am. This was a first for me- my water has never broke on it's own before. We spent the whole day at home doing normal things, even going to the grocery store and doing chores- a typical day. My contractions were consistently 8-10 minutes apart all day, but never got uncomfortable.

 

We went to bed, knowing that at any moment "hard" labor would arrive.

 

At 1am Monday, December 10th, I awoke because the contractions seemed a little "tighter," and I began to time them. They had gotten closer together, and were about 6-8 minutes apart. I sent a text to my midwife to let her know, but told her that they still were not painful.

 

So back to bed I went.

 

At 2 am I woke up to some pretty uncomfortable contractions- the hardest I had had up to that point. Again, timing them, they were still apart 6 minutes apart. Knowing how different these contractions were feeling, my midwife said she'd gather her things and would head over- but being that we live an hour away from her, she wouldn't arrive until 3:30am.

 

One of the midwife apprentices' arrived first, as she lived the closest. She offered to check me, but I declined, as I assumed I was still very much in the beginning of labor.

 

My midwife and another apprentice arrived at 3:30am and almost immediately my contractions got painful. I was checked and shocked at finding that I was already dilated to 8cm. The next hour and half were the hardest, with me having to utilize relaxation and breathing techniques to get through the contractions. They were so close together and very intense.

 

Handy Husband was so helpful and supportive this whole time.

 

I'm not sure exactly what time I started getting the urge to push, but I tried pushing on the bed for a little while, but we felt that I was not getting anywhere in that position. So my midwife had me try out the birthing stool and that was much better. We knew this baby would be big, and the birthing stool helped to open up my hips better and I was much more able to really utilize all my pushing power in that position. From here, I believe I only pushed for about 20 minutes when his head was born.

 

At this point though, my midwife had one of the apprentices help hold my right leg out and up a bit to open my pelvis up even further to get the baby's chest delivered. This was no petite baby.

 

FINALLY, 17 days after his due-date, our baby boy was born.

 

Baby W, weighing 11 pounds, 7 ounces, and measuring 22 inches long, was born at 5:22am December 10th, 2012. He is one hefty little boy- with his chest measuring an inch bigger than his head! Handy Husband and I instantly fell in love with him.

 

Now for the pictures:

Taking our herb bath.

Daddy holding his first-born for the first time.

Getting checked out and dressed by our midwife.

Me and my little guy. Love!