Another beautiful and natural birth

The Day You Were Born

Susan Nicole Littlejohn

10-19-2011

The pregnancy came as a surprise but what a wonderful surprise! I had morning sickness for quite a while but only the nausea part. I lost 11 lbs in the first 4 months. I only gained 25 lbs the whole pregnancy! I craved mint, thin mints, peppermint patties, mint ice cream etc. It was a pretty easy pregnancy and I loved feeling you move inside me. I loved you from the moment I knew about you! You decided to arrive 10 days early! Your original “due date” was Oct 29^th but you arrived on the 19^th.

Now for the birth story:

Daddy was asleep in bed at 3 am when I started to feel a slight contraction. Since I was up almost every 45 minutes to use the restroom I thought I would wake him up too. I shook Daddy and said “Honey I think we might have a baby in the next couple days” All he did was grunt and roll over. I tried to get some sleep myself.

Around 7 am the contractions picked up and this time I shook daddy harder. “Ok now I think we will have a baby TODAY” Around this time your big sister Emma was waking up as well. We all got dressed went downstairs and had some breakfast.

I called the doctor who told me to come in for an earlier appt. (I had one scheduled for 1:30 pm that day) We went into the doctor at 11 am. I wouldnt leave the house until after I had made my playlists or music and had all my comfort items and what not.

The doctor told us that labor could either pick up or fizzle out. Since I was only 38 1/2 weeks along they said it could end up being false labor. I decided that I wasnt going to do false labor and would do what I had to to get you here, even though it meant changing birthday party plans for the weekend.

We went to the fairfield mall to walk around and try to get things moving. We walked the entire mall when my water broke around 4 pm. We drove back to Marmee and Pop Pops house. I got into the shower as Daddy called the doctor. They said to come in, at this point the pain was not great only about 4 or 5.

We kissed Emma goodbye and gave her a hug then headed to the hospital.

When we got there all the rooms were full and we had to wait in the triage. We arrived at the hospital around 5:30 pm. There were 5 other mothers in labor in triage too! One of the dads used the bathroom that was for the mothers ONLY and stank it up real bad...sigh.

As we sat there Daddy made me laugh to distract me, around 5:50 pm the contractions started to get worse right after they checked to see how far along I was. The pain jumped to off the charts. Since there were only 3 birthing rooms in the family beginnings natural birth center we had to wait for them to move a family out and clean the room. Around 7:25 pm they moved us from triage to the waiting area of family beginnings. There I labored in front of a group of men visiting someone else until about 7:45. At that point they moved me into the room.

Cat, our midwife wanted to check me on the bed at first but my mind was set to get into the labor tub. There was only about 2 inches of water in the tub when we got to the room. As daddy changed into swim trunks I told him he had to get the midwife NOW.

She walked into the bathroom and said “ok im going to check to see how diala...oh my thats a head” With one simple push your head had already come out.

Now back track a little bit in the waiting room my contractions were on top of eachother there was NO time in between, in fact the next one began before the other ended. When I started to push I pushed your head out then it seemed like 15 minutes to me, but daddy says it was really only about 2 or 3 that my body contracted again.

I thought “really NOW my body wont contract?” I was standing over the water and on the second push you were here at 7:58 pm. You were ready to meet the world.

They promptly gave you to me and I held you skin to skin for about 15 minutes in the tub. You immediately latched and began to breast feed. We moved to the bed shortly after and I continued to hold you. We sat skin to skin for the first hour or so.

It was another wonderful pregnancy, and wonderful all natural, no drug or IV, birth. I couldn't have asked for better. What a precious gift you are to me and your daddy. And what a wonderful experience bringing you into the world.