More pictures

 These are pictures that were taken professionally at the hospital.

The Birth Story

So today I had a realization, which has made me just about burst into tears. This emotional response could also be related to the fact that I am still very sleep deprived and hormonal. Sarah is going to be 3 weeks old on Monday, and that mean one week from Monday, my little baby will be a month old! I just want to cry thinking about. How quickly she is growing and how scary and exciting everyday has been with her.

I haven’t really written her birth story down, and I should have. I want to do it now it that’s okay. To start two weeks before she was born, I started to feel very anxious and emotional. My work was stressing me out and I started to feel contractions. I went to the doctors and they told me that I had dilated. I was very worried that I would have my baby soon, and I didn’t feel ready. I hadn’t even had my baby shower!

Things went smoothly and I really enjoyed seeing everyone. I had started to get very uncomfortable and for the first time wanted the baby out. At the shower, we were discussing names for the baby, Andrew had wanted our baby to be Sarah Elizabeth, and I liked the name but it didn’t really feel like it was her name. I originally wanted Emma LaRue, Andy really doesn’t like the name Emma. It was suggested that we compromise and name her Sarah LaRue. (LaRue was my Grandmother’s name btw) When I discussed this with Andrew he was fine with it. This was all on a Saturday and the next day I had some pretty heavy contractions. I was also thinking about my little girls name and felt an overwhelming peace. I knew that was the name she was supposed to have. I also knew somewhere my Grandmother was smiling on me (Sarah’s original due date was my Grandmother’s birthday btw).

I asked for a blessing that day, because I was certain that my baby was getting closer, and I still didn’t feel like it was time for her to come quite yet. When I do the blessing, I felt peace again. I knew that everything would be just fine. I knew that the Lord was protecting us, and knew what I desired in my heart.

The contractions ended when we went to church that day, and then we were able to have a great rest of the day.  I took this picture that day, because they say that babies are about the size of small watermelons. Any ways, everything did fall into place. I was able to tie up all my loose ends at work, and say good-bye. I was able to purchase things that I needed when the baby arrived. We went on a date night Friday night, and were joking about how that very likely could our last date night with out have to worry about having children.  We went to the movies, and I had some very strong contractions that night. I was nervous, and not sure if it was labor or not, but they kept coming, so we went to the hospital, and found out that it was false labor.

At this point I was distraught. In fact the next day was Saturday and I was home, and I started to cry. Yes, I was still very emotional, but I was so sad because I felt like I was ready, that my purpose was to hold my little girl in my arms and take care of her. It’s all I really wanted to do. My family had been trying to make plans for the 4^th of July with us and I kept refusing, and dodging making any plans. I felt like staying close to home, like I shouldn’t make plans. So the night before (again Sunday night) my Sister Ellen and her boys came to visit us and share the fireworks. That day I feel like the baby had dropped even lower then ever. That night I thought that my water might have broken but wasn’t sure. I went to bed, and at 4:30 in the morning I woke up to a contraction. This time I took it more seriously because I had taken an Ambian the night before, so I knew that to wake me up it had to be a pretty strong contraction, I kept trying to fall back asleep, and the contractions were like the snooze button, they kept waking me up. Now that I think about it in retrospect, I was calm about the whole process, and although I never took a class I knew that my body was going to do what it was supposed to do.

I then called my Mid-wife and she told me that some time that morning I should go to the hospital, so I keep trying to do stuff, and waited for my sister to come. The contractions were painful, and I kept forgetting to relax and to breathe. The natural reaction to pain it to endure, but I needed to do more then that I needed to embrace the pain (I know that sounds weird but it true!) Luckily, Andy and my sister helped remind me to do all that. It was the 4^th of July, and at 10:30 we were at the hospital. I went in and they check and yes, indeed I was going to have my baby today! It was unreal, I was at 6cm and moved to a birthing room. It was painful, but I was dealing, and trying to not get in my own way of progressing. Relax was all I could think, it’s going to be okay. I wanted to get into a tub because my back was hurting a lot from all the pressure. It wasn’t a water birth or anything; I wanted to just be there until I needed to start having my baby. Well, the nurses were being a little difficult, but my mid-wife arrived and helped me get what I wanted.  

Being in the tub worked like magic, finally I was able to relax, it was so much easier! By the way, when the mid-wife made it I was at 8 and a 1/2 cm, and it was maybe 11:30 at this point? I was so surprised at how quickly everything was moving along. In fact this may sound gorse or weird but I started to feel like pooping shortly after I got in the tub (remember time was a foreign concept to me at this point). So, we called over the mid-wife and she was amazed at how smoothly and quickly I was moving along in labor. She said it was textbook. We decided that I would get up and see if I would start pushing. I stood up and felt a STRONG urge to push, when I did my water broke. That’s when they saw the baby poop. They sat me down, and we saw that in fact Sarah was breach. She was already starting to descend, normally they do C-sections, because there are many things that could go wrong delivering breach babies. There were no OB’s there at the time, they had to page them, I felt like pushing and my mid-wife told me to do what feels right. It was so painful, I screamed as I pushed. I screamed and screamed, I then noticed that there were a ton of nurses there. One of them told me to stop pushing, it was so hard for me. I was told to push one more long time, and then the baby came out! I couldn’t believe it. It happened so fast. I thought it was 20 min, but later was corrected and told that I was pushing for 9 min. It was so painful, but the pain was gone in an instant and my baby had safely been brought into this world, the way I wanted her to be born, naturally.

 She makes this exact face all the time... I think it's funny!

 Her head is huge, and she had a little dent in it from my rib cage, poor thing. It did however, make more since to me why it hurt so bad in my rib cage.

 My Beautiful little girl!

 Notice her bruised bum :0(

 Honestly, if she would have been any bigger I am not sure if I would have been able to have such a smooth labor...

Since that small moment in my life, I have had many more trying moments. Breastfeeding is hard! However, now that I have had some time to take a step back I realize how quickly time has gone by and how truly blessed I am to have my family. I was explaining to a friend of mine how I felt about my baby. The best way that I could describe it was that from the moment that I saw the pregnancy test was positive till she was born, my baby was with me. She is literally a part of me, and when I am not around her I feel like I am missing a piece of myself. It is so scary and wonderful to be able to hold her, and hear her cry. I just can’t believe that she is almost 3 weeks old!