A "Good" Nights Sleep

Well, sleeping has been redefined for me lately. Our little one was trying to take all of her long sleeps during the day and saving the short ones for the night. So, I wake her up in the day now to feed her and last night I got seven hours of sleep (over a 10 hour period, but hey, that's AMAZING!). I actually got one 3 hour strech of sleep. It's been a bit rough. If you know me, you know that I LOVE my sleep. I just remind myself that she won't be little for long and to enjoy it as much as I can (even it's 3 am and she just ate at 2).

We are terrible picture takers, which hasn't changed a whole lot with parenthood. But we're trying. We're just so busy playing with her and laughing at her funny faces to remember to take very many pics. I've been able to get out and about. Even went to play a few holes at the disc golf course the other day since the snow has finally melted enough to not lose lots of discs. This brought Darcy great joy since she can run off leash all over the place out there. She's been a bit neglected (but had been the last months of my pregnancy as well), but seems to be adjusting just fine to Erin.

Here are a few more pics that we have taken.
Hope you're all well and I'm sorry that I haven't had a chance to return all the wonderful phone calls and emails that you've been sending. I will try, but it could be a bit. Love you all lots!

Now, for the birthing details that I promised. If open discussion of female stuff isn't your cup o' tea then this is where you stop reading. Alot of people ask me how long was I in labor and I'm not quite sure what to tell them. I'd been having Braxton Hicks contractions for weeks, so I was determined to not get my hopes up until I was "sure". By Saturday afternoon around 2 or 3 I was pretty sure that the contractions were indeed getting stronger and that I was at least in early first stage labor. Blayne and I went for a walk around the park and Blayne made us some spaghetti for dinner. By around 9 food no longer looked good and I no longer was chatty between contractions, so I was pretty sure we were getting into active labor at that point. Sara (our good friend and Bradley Method birth coach) came over around 10:30 and encouraged us to stay home a bit longer. Once my contractions were regularly 2 1/2 to 3 minutes apart and lasting over a minute we decided to head to the hospital.

We got there just after midnight and they hooked up the monitors (one for the baby's heartbeat & one for the strength of the contractions) and checked my progess. I have never been so disappointed as when she said "you're still 1.5 cm", which is what I'd been at the Dr. 5 days before. I thought, "is this not REAL labor?!", but as we watched the contractions they were hitting 100 (out of 100) on the screen and were lasting a while. So, the labor nurse (Kim, who was AMAZING) checks me out and determines that the baby is posterior and points out to Blayne and Sara where her head is being pushed by all these lovely contractions into my lower back instead of down into the opening of my cervix. So, they let me get in the jacuzzi tub to see if we could get her to turn over.

After 45 minutes in the jacuzzi doing pelvic rocks during my contractions and having Kim, Blayne and Sara take turns applying pressure to my hips to encourage her to turn my water broke. So, they admitted me and she checked me again. Up to 5 cm! Yeah! Things progressed pretty normally up to around 8 cm and then when I hit transition (the part where you're getting to "complete" before pushing where emotionally you are feeling like this will never end, I don't want to do this, can I go home now?) things slowed down and it took a couple of hours for me to get to 10 cm. Kim was encouraging me to continue moving during my contractions which was VERY difficult. During very strong, very frequent contractions I was rotating my pelvis and trying (not very successfully) to relax. They decided I needed the jacuzzi again, so I got back in there. It wasn't long in there that I was able to relax and I felt the STRONG urge to push. So, out of the tub and after trying a few different pushing positions and figuring out how I was supposed to be pushing, I was semi-reclined with Blayne holding one leg and Kim the other, Natalie feeding me ice chips, Sara taking pictures and offering lots of encouragement, and Dr. Abbott helping stretch things out and applying counter pressure as Erin's little head was crowning. I was a very noisy pusher, but after about 1 1/2 hours (with long breaks-- 7-10 minutes-- between contractions) of pushing Erin came into the world.


I was very blessed to have the care that I did and very blessed that I didn't tear. I didn't need one stitch (just lots of ice and Advil :0) It was such hard work, but I am so thankful that I was able to do it unmedicated and without any intervention. So, that's the story. It's kind of long, but it was at least 20 hours in the making. Lots of love to you all!