Week 1

Ok, so my boys are asleep together on the couch, so I thought I'd take some time to update the blog. I can't believe that it has been nine days already...my little boy is growing up way too fast already. His umbilical cord stump is almost ready to fall off, his cheeks and double chin are bigger and his little arms and legs aren't so little anymore. He's been a strong man and already soldiered through jaundice, bilibeds and blocked tear ducts. NINE DAYS...phew~!

I started having contractions around noon on Friday the 16th. The first few were mild and I didn't want to alarm anybody, because I knew it could still be days before anything would happen. But once Alex came home from work and I had already had four by the time it was time for him to leave, we figured it was early labor and he decided to gas up the car and stay home with me. Figuring we had hours yet to go, we decided to pass the time by going to the store to buy food to eat after the labor (the midwives make you eat and pee before they will release you to go home). Alex wanted to go to Walmart, but all I could think was, "I don't want to have to tell my child that my water broke at Walmart." That sounded a little too white trash to me, so I convinced him to go to Fred Meyer. Thankfully it is closer to home and has shorter lines, or my water might have just broken while we were there. While we shopped I had another four or five contractions, each one a little longer and stronger than the next, and once people started to notice that something strange was going on with me, I decided that we were done shopping, no matter if we had everything we needed or not!!

Once we got home, I went to lay on the couch and take my shoes off...but had another contraction that dropped me to my knees and had me crawling on the floor towards the birth ball. I just kept thinking..."I need to use the relaxation techniques that I learned in my Confident Birthing class"...but the contractions were so intense and Alex was so busy running around the house trying to get everything together that I couldn't remember anything. About 30 minutes after we returned from the store I was on the floor rocking with the birth ball when I suddenly felt like I was peeing but couldn't do anything to stop it. I yelled at Alex to get a towel...I was so worried about making a mess and getting in trouble with our landlord :) All this time, Alex had been calling the midwife, checking in and trying to decide when we should start coming to the birth center. I think they had just decided to wait another 20 minutes and call eachother back, when my water broke and Alex called and said, "We are coming, NOW!" And I remember my mom calling and Alex saying, "Her water is breaking, I'll call you back!" and hanging up on her!! He was so anxious to get me into the car, that he barely let me get dressed in clean, dry clothes...which I thought was much more important than going to the birth center!

Traffic was horrible, and the contractions were still getting longer, stronger and closer together so Alex tried to distract me by singing our favorite baby songs. I also spent some time telling Nicolas that everything was ok, that we were going to work together, and that we were finally going to meet eachother today! I think it was more for my benefit than his, though.

I was having a contraction when we pulled into the birth center, but was able to give them a smile afterwards...I don't know why I kept thinking I had to reassure them that I was ok. From then on everything kinds of blurs together and I lost all track of time. I spent some time in the tub and was uncomfortable, so I went to the bed and was uncomfortable, so I went to the squatting stool and was uncomfortable...but thankfully Nicolas was really starting to move down so I stayed there as long as I could. My hips were killing me and Jill, the student midwife, thought I should move to the bed to check my cervix and see if I could start pushing...This was only one of the two times they did a cervical check. To my surprise...only because I thought I had been at the birth center for an hour, rather than three...she said I only had one little bit of my cervix left over his head and that if I laid on my side for another contraction it would probably be gone. She was right, and so we moved back to the squatting stool to start pushing. Somewhere in here, my Mom and sister, Mandie, showed up and asked how close together my contractions were...to which the midwife answered, "they are right on top of eachother". I think they had been right on top of eachother since right after we made it to the birth center!! I didn't have time to do all those fun pre-labor projects we had thought up in our birth class or use many of the relaxation techniques. I just breathed and kept telling myself over and over again to "Open" and "I can do this".

Pretty soon, Jill was telling me to feel Nicolas' head after a contraction on the squatting stool and I was moving to the bed to try another position to keep him down there for longer and start stretching out my muscles. Mom and Mandie took turns holding my head up and taking pictures, and Alex held one of my legs so he could have the front row seat to all the action. Jill kept telling me that I needed to push harder and keep more pressure after the contraction to keep the head from moving back, but I was so scared on tearing! Finally I got to the point where I decided I wanted that kid out of me now and I didn't care about anything else. Everything moved a little faster from there and before I knew it, his head was popping out. And then I had to give everything I thought I had to get his shoulders out, which took all of one contraction but seemed so much harder than hours of other contractions and pushing.

AND THEN HE WAS HERE...in my arms...looking all purple.
And now its been nine days and there have been lots of sleepless hours and worries that we aren't doing things right, but being a family makes up for all that. Alex and I feel so fulfilled to be a family of three, rather than just a couple. It feels so right to be all together.