Tuesday, October 23, 2012

My Birth Journey- part 3


Wowzers. It's about time I finish this up. Has this been drawn out or what? Ha. Life of a momma is buuusy.

I decided to not to go into too much detail about the day of Jude's birth. I want to keep some things just special for us .. but here is the main parts of the day.


My due date was May 31st. I guess everyone thought that I'd probably go late because my mom did with her babies.. and this was my first. Our little boy threw us for a surprise!

On the morning of Sunday, May 27th I felt weird. Something was different and I was having some type of pains in my stomach. Lee and I went to church and during the service the pains hurt, but I could deal with them. After church, I told Lee that we needed to go pick up some disposable newborn diapers (we were cloth diapering, but decided to have some disposables on hand for the first few weeks)

 If I remember correctly, the pains tapered off as the day went on. And I didn't think too much about them. For some reason, I don't remember what we did that day. I can't remember really anything about it. 

I woke up at around 6:30 am the next day (May 28th) to contractions. I was totally in denial.. I just figured I was having pregnancy pains or something (ha!). Lee wasn't convinced that they were 'just pregnancy pains' by the way that I was acting and how they came on exactly every few minutes.
Lee kept saying we should call Jen (our midwife), but I said no.. (still in denial!)
After a little while I think that it finally hit me that this was real! I guess I thought there would be angels coming down from heaven or something when it really happened. Ha.. no angels .. just some serious pain!

We called Jen, and told her what was going on. She told us that it sounded like this was it! We decided that I would labor at home with just Lee for a little while. I remember I was in so much pain as each contraction came. Lee got a bag of our stuff together (oops! so much for being prepared) and wrote a quick letter to Jude while I was laying there. It's something I will always treasure.  Finally we decided that we wanted Jen to come. I was really really anxious for her to get to our apartment.
Although they were still so painful, I felt calmer through the contractions with her there.

Toward the beginning of my pregnancy, we decided that we wanted to have the birth at my midwifes place (her practice is in a cute little country home) rather then at our apartment (a lot of her clients choose to have their births at home). I can't even really pinpoint why I didn't want to have the birth at our apartment.. I think maybe because it just didn't really feel like home.. (probably doesn't make much sense) but we just decided to do it that way.

So when Jen got to our apartment that morning, she told me that if we wanted to go to her place that we should leave soon.
So we got everything together, and I wobbled down the stairs in major pain. I was totally dreading the drive there, but Lee did a great job avoiding all the stinkin' pot holes in this town.
It was weird, even while we were in the car on the way there it still hadn't even really hit me that we were going to be meeting our son. I just really couldn't even believe it.

We finally made it and I went right into the back bedroom and laid on the bed.

I had extremely painful back labor and the only thing that brought me a tinge of relief was when they would apply a ton of pressure to my lower back. It saved me.  I labored for a total of 16 hours with my sweet Lee, doula, and midwife by my side in the sweetest little country home that will always be close to my heart. It just felt right and perfect to have a natural labor and birth in such a cozy and normal setting.

There were points where I felt like I just couldn't do it. But the awesome thing about our bodies is that they just keep on keepin' on- whether we think we can make it or not.

My mom came shortly before Jude was born. It was wonderful having her there.

At 10:05 pm our Jude Arroh was born.

I can't explain all the emotions you feel in that moment. It was unreal and perfect.
The little boy that I had dreamed about, wrote letters to, felt kick me throughout the days of my pregnancy was here. The sweet baby that I had shed so many tears for before he even existed because I wanted to be a mother so badly was really here.

There he was, laying in my arms, in all his sweet perfection.
And in that moment, with more love than our hearts could handle, we became a family of three.