Zoe is here!

JoyRenee

I know a couple members let you guys know she was here (laura and chantal- thank you!)! Here's a short snippet of what happened on Friday:

Friday morning we all got up as usual and Daddy took our oldest to school. He doesn't work Friday so he came back home. Not long after we got up I told him I needed to go lay down. I was in bed, trying to fall asleep, when my water broke!

It felt like I peed myself but I KNEW I hadn't. I stood up and sure enough more fluid gushed out. I started shaking horribly like you do while in labor. I think part of it was nerves, too! All of a sudden I felt really unprepared.

Daniel's dad came to get our other daughter and we headed to the hospital. I got there expecting to be at least 5cm but I was only 3cm!!! And her head was still not engaged enough for them to let me get up and move around as we wanted to prevent cord prolapse (where the cord comes out before baby's head which would then compress the cord and cut off her oxygen supply and she'd die).

Well the contractions started coming and coming hard. I felt a ton of pressure. And so after about 10 extra minutes of monitoring they checked again and her head had come down. Phew! I was allowed to get off the monitors and to get up to labor. The only thing I ended up doing was getting in the tub and then side-lying on the bed.

Went epidural-free but I did start begging for something. Midwife gave me something to take the edge off (not exactly sure what it was). It didn't help except to make me a little nauseated and dizzy. And that's the reason I ended up staying in bed instead of walking and moving around.

I kind of went into my own little world and labor seemed to fly by. 5 hours after my water broke I was pushing. Midwife let me push on my own- no one was counting or telling me to hold my breath. I just pushed as I felt necessary. And Miss Zoe came into the world in about 1 minute of pushing (heck, I was desperate! The pain was barely tolerable and I knew if I pushed and she got out it would stop). I gave birth to her in a side-lying position.

One funny thing was that the midwife ended up catching her all by herself. Nothing was ready. I don't think they realized how fast I'd get this baby out. The nurse had gone down the hall and my midwife didn't have time to break down the bed. She had one hand up to catch baby as she reached behind her with the other trying to get what she needed.

I had no epidural, no tears/stitches, no IVs and only about 30 minutes total of fetal monitoring (with the big bands around the belly), got to hold her immediately and for a very long time, delayed cord clamping and cutting... it was everything in my birth plan and I'm so grateful I switched to a midwife who respected me and my birth plan (and refused to give me that epidural when I started demanding one! Ha ha!).

Zoe Beth H. was born at 2:06pm on October 23rd weighing 8lbs 4oz and 20.5 inches long. She's absolutely precious! I attached a picture of her with her daddy on discharge day. You can click it to enlarge.

Thank you guys all for your well wishes!

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