Sweet Pea's Birth Story ~ Part 1

15ish months ago I promised you all Sweet Pea's birth story. Well, here it is. I'll be breaking it in to smaller pieces because, as some of you already know... I'm long winded!

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Written March 8, 2008

She's precious, and tiny! 6 pounds, 10.4 ounces and 19 inches long. She's sleeping now on my chest. My Beloved went home to shower and change, so it's just us. When he returns, Tornado is coming to meet his sister for the first time. We are blessed to have MG staying with him at our home. She reported last night that he said "mama", "dada", and "baby". He's never said a word before, so we'll see if this was real or just imagined! :)

I suppose I should write down the birth story for our little Sweet Pea while it is still somewhat fresh.

Thursday night, MG was over for dinner and she and My Beloved both "informed" me that I was not allowed to go into labor during the night. They both wanted to sleep. I told them I would see what I could do. Nothing was happening yet though, and I was still a few days from my due date, so I wasn't worried.

I awoke the next morning, Friday, March 7th, at around 7am, as I normally do, to use the bathroom. I wasn't feeling great, but otherwise all was normal. Over the next hour I was up two more times "not feeling great", yet finding that I could do nothing to help. The cramping persisted and as I lay down again with My Beloved (in the hopes that laying would help) I began to wonder if I were in labor.

Around 8am I was aware of the first official contraction. They were sporadic in minutes apart and in strength, but by the time My Beloved left for work at almost 9, I was pretty sure I was in labor. I called my sister (a couple hours from here) to let her know this might be "it" only to find her on her way to New York with friends. Hmmm... I thought she was going to stay with Tornado... and this is the weekend I was due.

Next I called MG (all the while Tornado is eating his breakfast). MG answered her phone with "your kidding right?!?" I said, "Well, maybe and maybe not." I was glad I called. It gave her a chance to arrange her morning for "just in case."

Assuming I only had so much time, I tried to get all sorts of things done between contractions. It was easy to sit and read several books to Tornado though, as this was his greatest request.

Around 10, some of my contractions were getting pretty strong and they were ranging from 2-14 minutes apart. My mom called, as she does each morning on her way to work, and I gave her the news so far. Before we'd been talking a minute or so I was having a contraction I couldn't talk through. A good sign, we decided. We then decided that even though the contractions weren't 10 minutes apart (regularly) for an hour, that I should probably call anyway-- just to see what I should do.

I talked to the nurse and she said she'd call back after she talked to the Doctor. Tornado and I took care of a couple things on the computer and until she called us back. "You just got yourself a ticket to the Birthcenter," I heard her say several minutes later from the other end of the line.

Labels: Little Moments, Raising Children

posted by ~Babychaser~ @ 12:32 PM