It's a boy!!

Well a lot of people have requested that I blog about my birth. So I figured this would be the way to do it.

Let's go back to Saturday January 10th. It was 3 days past my due date and I was nervous about having another meconium baby. You could say I was desperate to get this baby out. Desperate times call for desperate measures, so I sent Ron out to buy some Castor oil. I took some Castor oil in the morning and in the afternoon and nothing much was going on. I thought I might have fallen for an old wives tail. But then, later that night they came. CONTRACTIONS! Three minutes apart. They weren't very long or painful. So I decided to get some sleep. I woke up at about 5:45 a.m. with some stronger contractions. I timed them and they were 5 minutes apart. I timed them like that for 2 hours and called my midwife at 7:45. She told me to keep timing them and call her back in an hour. I went to sleep and they were still every five minutes. I called my midwife back and she told me to keep timing them for one more hour and then if they were still consistent she would come on over.

10:45 a.m my midwife came over. About 30 minutes later her assistant showed up. Ron had already blown up the birthing pool and had filled it up half way with hot water. The midwife and the assistant started getting everything ready and I just kicked back with the family and timed my contractions. Ate a little snack, walked around etc. I was dilated to about 4-5 cm.

At about 12:15 p.m. the midwife and the assistant left to go get some lunch. I felt like I wasn't having really hard contractions so I felt safe with them leaving for an hour. At about 1:00 p.m. they came back. It was just in time. My contractions started to get worse. The assistant is also a trained Doula so she helped out a lot with breathing through the contractions. She was a God send! Ron had started filling the pool up the rest of the way and getting the temperature just right. Franklin went down for a nap.

At about 2:00 p.m. I had gotten up and walked around and it felt like the contractions were right on top of each other. Like every minute. I walked into the room to see if the water temp was okay and it felt fine so I practically jumped in right in the middle of a hard contraction. I was so relieved when I sat in the warm water. It was almost as if the contraction just went away. In fact my contractions started slowing down. They went back to every five minutes instead of every minute and a half. And they were so much more bearable. I was dilated to 8 cm. I couldn't believe it. I was laughing and making jokes between contractions. With past labors I had been screaming and pleading for an epidural at 8 cm. This time was so different and I give all credit to the water.

At 2:55 p.m. I asked my midwife what time it was. I told her that I would probably have a couple more "normal" contractions and then I would probably have to start pushing. So, what do you know? I had a couple more contractions, and then I started pushing.

Peter James was Born at 3:05 p.m., January 11th, at home. 8lbs. 9 oz, 21 inches long.

At about 4:00 p.m. Franklin woke up from his nap only to meet his brand new baby brother.