So I promised a birth story, and here it is:
On Wednesday, May 6th, I was excited to read that
Crystal was going to the birth center to deliver her baby - over a week late. In my mind I was certain that my story would be similar. Now I wasn't going to go a week late, the doctors wouldn't let me, but in order to avoid a c-section, the baby would have to come on its own, and by its due date. Although I faithfully prayed that God would allow me to avoid a third c-section, I dwelled on the thought that "none of my babies had ever been born on time, let alone early." I went to sleep at about midnight that night crying because I was so afraid (and sure) that a c-section would be the outcome of this pregnancy. Thankfully, God had different plans!
At 2:30 a.m. I woke up to the sound of the power coming back on. Apparently, the power had gone out earlier in the night. I decided that, since I was awake, I should take advantage of that time to use the bathroom or else I'd most likely be waking up in another 30 minutes to an hour to pee. As I was heading to the bathroom, I noticed that my stomach was contracting, and that it was fairly painful. With each pregnancy I've had contractions throughout the last trimester that weren't productive at all, so I didn't get my hopes up yet. I went back to be and tried to get some sleep.
For the next 1 1/2 hours I went through a cycle of having painful contractions lasting about 1 minute, finally falling back asleep, then quickly awaking to the pain of another contraction. No matter what position I tried, I couldn't get any rest. I finally decided to get up and walk around to see if that would make the contractions go away. I came out to our living room and got on the computer, after all, I wanted to know whether
Crystal had given birth to her baby, and most importantly, whether she had a boy or a girl! After discovering that she had, in fact, had a baby boy, and realizing that moving around had done nothing for my contractions, I went back to bed because I desperately needed some rest.
Unfortunately, I wasn't able to get any sleep because my contractions were about 7 minutes apart at this point. While I was laying down, I heard (and felt) this loud "pop" coming from my stomach. It seemed strange, but the baby was still moving around and there was no liquid gushing from me, so I figured everything was alright. I pulled out the paper that the doctor had given me with the instructions on when to call and determined that it wasn't time. According to their instructions, I was to wait until the contractions were 5 minutes apart for an hour before calling. I figured that, if I was in labor at all, I still had a while.
I was in a decent amount of pain, and could not find a comfortable position. I wanted so badly to wake Jesse up, but knew he needed to get some sleep if he was going to work in the morning. I decided to finally wake him up just before 7:00 because the pain was so bad, I was having a hard time getting through the contractions. I told him that I didn't think it was anything "real," but I was going to take a shower, and call the doctor if I was still having regular contractions an hour later. Since we live over an hour away from the hospital, I figured that even though the contractions weren't 5 minutes apart yet, it would be okay if I called the doctor's office when they opened to see what they wanted me to do.
When I got up to go take a shower, I noticed some liquid coming out of me, but I didn't think too much of it because it was just a little bit, and I had heard stories about women having bladder control issues....I just figured maybe it was my time to deal with those issues! I think I probably took the quickest shower ever, because I noticed that when I was standing up the contractions were roughly 3 minutes apart. When I got out of the shower, I had Jesse call the doctor to see if we should go in.
He quickly jumped in the shower while I packed my bag. I had my bag mostly packed before this, but there were a few other things I needed to grab. I figured I had about two more weeks before the baby would come, so there were still a few loose ends that I hadn't tied up. When he was done in the shower, he called his sister, Tina, who lives next door. He was so casual in the way he described the morning's events, that she wasn't sure if he was serious or not. I think part of his "casual" attitude was due to be not really believing that I could be in labor.
At this point it had been a while with no call from the doctor. Jesse called the doctor again to let them know that we were going to be heading to the hospital and that they could reach him on his cell phone. Jesse took the kids to Tina's while I got ready to leave. Then we took off for the doctor. The only other labor that I had been in a car for was Joshua's. Back then the hospital was only 10 mintues away, and it was the longest 10 minutes of my life. Well, an hour-plus drive was even less pleasant. I remember actually telling Jesse that I didn't think I was going to survive the drive. It was quite painful.
When we finally arrived at the hospital, I went in while Jesse parked the car. A very nice gentleman at the information desk insisted that I ride up in a wheelchair, which I hated! We quickly registered and were taken up to labor and delivery. When we got up to our room, I became quite confident that the loud "pop" that I heard at 4:30 in the morning was, in fact, my water breaking.
The nurses asked if I wanted an epidural and I quickly said "yes." I couldn't imagine resisting the urge to push without one. They hooked me up to an IV and monitors and then called the doctor in to check me. The doctor on call was Dr. Bruchalski. This is the third baby that my current doctor's office has delivered, and this is the third doctor to deliver. He's such an awesome doctor and one who truly loves God. In fact, he prays before every delivery.
When he checked me, at close to 9:00, I was shocked to find that I was already 5 centimeters dilated, almost fully effaced and the baby was progressing down the birth canal! I thought for sure that I'd be lucky to be 3 centimeters because not quite two days earlier, the baby was up about as high as she could be, I was only 1 centimeter dilated and I wasn't effaced all.
About an hour later, the doctor came in to administer the epidural. I was almost 7 centimeters at this point. Unfortunately, she got a wet tap (which basically means she tapped into the spinal space instead of the epidural space and spinal fluid drained). So I ended up getting a spinal instead of an epidural, which meant the medicine could take effect sooner, but would wear off after about an hour and they'd have to give me more.
By 11:00 I was almost ready to start pushing, but I needed another small dose of the spinal. It took enough of the edge off that I was able to push when the doctor needed me to. After about 4 or 5 good pushes, Arianna Jubilee Hall was born at 12:04 p.m.. It was such a relief to be done with the pain, and to know that God had brought me through another successful VBAC!
Hope you enjoyed my story.
Arianna turned 4 months in September, and decided to stop sleeping through the night. Thankfully, we've finally been able to get her back on somewhat of a schedule.
We're studying astronomy in Science this year so it was only fitting that the children make their own solar systems. They're to scale, I believe. Daddy helped them with this project.
Just kidding! We think he got bit by some kind of bug. This happens quite often. His eye or ear swells up, we give him some benadryl and it goes away after a couple of days. 
But, as you can see, it doesn't seem to bother him.
In August of this year I was blessed with the arrival of 2 nephews! Unfortunately, I only have pictures of one of them. That's going to have to change soon! This is Noah and his sister Nadia....oh yeah, and his parents, my wonderful in-laws. What a happy family.
This is my sister-in-law, Abby, holding Noah. Abby is the mother of my other nephew, Leland. He's a cutie too. Why I don't have a picture of him, I'm not quite sure!
....and loves to suck on her two middle fingers.
