One month

WARNING: Super long post ahead.

We made it an entire month! Wowee. Time flies when you have a newborn.

On the birth:

Ouch Charlie. That stuff don't mess around. I'm not sure where if all the pieces of the birthing story ever got together, so here we go. Feel free to just skip to the pictures if you'd rather. :)

This is one of the latest pregnancy pictures I could find. I'm pretty sure this was the day before my water broke.

On September 28th (the day before I was due), Sam bought me a fresh pineapple and I ate the entire thing because he read that pineapple can induce labor, and I was pretty tired of being pregnant. Talk about cankers. A girl at work who was due a few days before me brought up a good point that I'll never forget. She said that she figures that we could really just be pregnant for about 34 weeks, but God makes pregnancy last for 40 weeks so that women aren't afraid to give birth anymore. HA.

Low and behold, my water broke at 12:30 AM on the 29th. I think my least favorite part of labor was that fluid leaking ALL THE TIME. I couldn't believe how much of it there was. So gross.

Even though my water broke, I wasn't having any contractions. We called the midwives and got to Courtney, who we'd seen several times and liked. She told us to give it an hour, and if contractions didn't start to go in to the hospital to have them check on the baby.

We got to the hospital around 2 AM, and a nice lady named Faye hooked me up to a non-stress test to watch for contractions and monitor the baby's heartbeat for a while. The kiddo was doing great, so Courtney they gave us the option of going home and waiting for contractions or hanging out at the hospital. We went home with the instructions to be back at 8:30 AM whether I was contracting or not.

So back home we went. I did laundry and cleaned the kitchen because I was too excited to sleep. 8:30 came along and we were admitted to the hospital. Jill was our first nurse, and she told us to go walk until Courtney came in at noon to see if contractions would start by themselves. If they didn't, they'd start pitocin.

After a LOT of walking and having nothing to show for it but REALLY sore tired feet, Courtney showed up around 1:00 and started me on pitocin. My notes say that I was at a 3 and 90% an hour later, but it felt like 10 hours. Jill wouldn't let me sit up in my bed or get out of bed for some reason, and that was really uncomfortable. I made it to a 4 three hours later, and soon after that Jill left and Bonnie came. PRAISE HEAVEN.

Bonnie was wonderful. She had lots of suggestions on how to better manage the pain and feel a little more comfortable, the most valuable of which was the Blessed birthing ball. I sat on the ball until I got to about a 6 if I remember right, so about 3ish hours. It was wonderful.

At 6 cm they set up for delivery and put me back in bed around 8 PM that night. Someone said that the baby would definitely come by the end of Bonnie's shift at 6 AM. Not.

Again, Bonnie was WONDERFUL. She reminded me a lot of mom. She was very helpful and sympathetic. Sam said she cried for me there at the end when the pain was getting pretty bad. I love Bonnie.

I got to 7 cm at 12 AM Monday morning. We were still doing alright with the pain. I hopped back on the birthing ball and would just kind of rock back and forth in circles and close my eyes during the contractions. It was helping me to remember that most people get from 7 to 10 centimeters really quickly and then you start pushing.

When I was still at 7ish cm almost five hours later, that's when I remember basically losing it. I was exhausted from contractions and from not sleeping, and my resolve was blown because I hadn't progressed AT ALL in four and half hours.

Bonnie still had lots of suggestions and we tried most of them, but my concentration was out the window and I wasn't coping well anymore. Courtney, the midwife, was there for most of the labor, but didn't really have anything helpful to say...I think she was just tired. She'd been awake as long as me and Sam had.

I tried the jacuzzi at about 5:30 AM and it was great for in between contractions because my body could just float in there and gravity wasn't as annoying, but I didn't like it during the contractions because I didn't have anything to hold or push against or anything. That's when we started talking pain relief. TO THE MAX PLEASE.

Courtney, knowing that I was trying to go completely unmedicated, suggested fentanyl first to just take the edge of the contractions. While they were starting it, I asked if it was too late for an epidural, and heard that it wasn't. It was immediately requested, but we were right at the change of the shift, so there wasn't anyone available in the Rexburg hospital anymore. The closest doctor was in Rigby, about 20 minutes away.

I didn't like the fentanyl. It made me reeeeeeally sleepy, so I would doze between contractions, but then I'd wake up in the middle of one and not have the beginning of the contraction to prepare for the peak. Not nice.

Bonnie had to leave at 6, and Janelle came. I liked her. At 6:30ish, Cindy showed up and gave the epidural. I LOVED Cindy. She gave the run down on everything really quickly and got right down to business. I was REALLY scared for the epidural because it's such a little teensy weensy space they're aiming at, and I had to be completely still to not die or be permanently paralyzed, and I didn't think I could do it. But I squeezed Sam's hands during the contractions and listened to his voice, and we did it! Once the epidural was in place, I had maybe 3 more bad contractions, and then the medicine hit my system and I was out. I slept for a few hours while my body did the hard work without me. I have an awesome body. Can I just say that?

They woke me up at 8ish and said it was time to push, I was at 10 cm and totally effaced. Courtney came and I pushed for about an hour with no progress. The babe was stuck behind my pubic bone. Courtney went out and talked to a doctor, who told her that if the baby didn't get under that bone, they'd have to do a C-section. They couldn't use forceps or a vacuum or anything til the baby made it past that bone.

Courtney came back to deliver the news, but said that she was going to leave and let Rachel, another midwife, come in with me. She was too exhausted, and didn't want the decision of C-section or not to be on her and her shut down brain.

Rachel showed up checked my cervix. She said that I had a teensy bit of cervix that wasn't fully out of the way on the right side. She felt the baby and thought that she might be a little sideways in there, which was why she wasn't getting past that bone and wasn't moving with the pushing. She wasn't too impressed with the contractions either, and cranked up the pitocin to get them going really good. I cranked up my epidural and took a two hour nap.

Rachel and Janelle came back at noon and we were pleased to see that the baby had slipped past the pubic bone and was in a great position to start pushing again. So I pushed. They brought in a bar that they put over the bed so I could squat and push, which really helped me to figure out how I needed to be pushing. Because of the epidural, I didn't feel any contractions and didn't have the urge to push at all, so Rachel would watch the monitors and tell me when to go.

Janelle and Rachel were exactly what we needed. They had a lot of encouraging things to say while I pushed, which helped even when I'd been pushing for almost two hours and still didn't have a baby. They brought in a mirror when the baby was starting to crown, and that helped too to keep me motivated and to focus my pushing.

FINALLY! Little Natalie ViAnn was born at 2:10 PM and was healthy and slimy and perfect. Almost as soon as I held her and heard her and saw her face, it was like I started to forget how rotten labor was and how bad it hurt and exactly what it felt like. I guess that's how people have more than one baby.

On Natalie:

She's a great baby. She eats well, though we have to use a shield for her to latch well, which is kind of annoying. She sleeps great, and usually does a five hour stretch at night. She loves her sucker, she loves to poke her tongue out and lick, and she loves her daddy. Seriously. She's already quite the daddy's girl. She gets the most comments on her cute nose and her long fingers. Everyone says she looks just like Sam.

I love being her mom. Right now it feels more like resident babysitter, but I still love it. My favorite thing in the world is when she smiles, because it goes all the way to her eyes and sometimes she'll look at me when she does it. My least favorite thing is when I accidentally gag her with her sucker. I don't like that at all.