My first beautiful birth!

Disclaimer: This blog post is about pregnancy and childbirth.  The material could be senstive to some.  My intent in writing this disclaimer is to be sensitive to those who struggle to get pregnant, have miscarried or lost a baby in the later stages of pregnancy.  I recently spent some time reading blogs of woman who share their stories of these struggles and it helped me be aware of how very real and hard these struggles would be.  (I hope I am not being insenstive in writing this disclaimer)

When I found out I was pregnant with my first I was extatic. I am a big reader so I read everything I could get my hands on that helped me understand what was going on with baby and my body.  I especially loved the funny books like Belly Laughs and A girlfriends Guide to Pregnancy.  My pregnancy was hard.  Not necessarily harder than some (after all I have a sister in law that had to have a feeding tube) but harder than a lot I have heard of. After the 1st trimester I got a break from throwing up for a couple weeks and then was back at it regularly.  I threw up frequently most of my pregnancy. It was all worth it. 

17 weeks pregnant!

30 weeks

35 weeks

38 weeks!

My husband and I prepared the nursary and got everything ready our baby girls arrival.  A week away from my due date my midwife told me she would induce me on my due date because I have a small pelvice and she was worried about the baby being large. I was so excited about this too.  I was  effaced some but not dilated at all.  I felt that my body and our daughter was not showing signs of coming any time soon and I had plans of having an epidural anyways.

On Thursday June 25, 2009 my husband and I waited for a call from the hospital telling us when to come in.  At 8:30am they called me and asked if we could be there at 10. That morning when I walked into the hosptial I did not look like anyone appearing to give birth that day. I had a huge smile on my face and looked and felt rested.  My husband teases that I was skipping in. By noon I was hooked up to IV and administered pitocin. 

Before contractions.  My mom and I

Progressed happened slowly over the next few hours but I was feeling contractions coming on strong.  My midwife broke my water at 3pm and by 4 I was begging for the epidrual.  Because of the Pit I never felt a mild contractions or build up to hard contractions.  It was intense right away.  At 10pm my midwife told me I was ready to push (I had no idea) and at about 10:10 my little lulu was born and put on my chest. She was this tiny beautiful girl with a massive amount of hair.  At that moment I knew happiness and love like I had never known before.  It was one of the most spiritiual experiences I have ever had in my whole entire life.  My husband was amazing through it all and I felt so blessed to have him by my side.  There are things about her birth that I will never forget.  They will forever be fresh in my mind. 

My husband, my midwife, out little lulu and I.

 My dark haired little beauty!

After this experience I truly felt that I was made to have babies.  It was just so beautiful and perfect and I just knew that I wanted to have more.  I wanted to experience this beautiful thing we call labor again and again and again!  And at some point my mind shifted into believe that I could do this amazing thing like so many who have come before me on my own...  Without the help of pitocin and pain medecine because my body was made to do this miraculous thing. 

I pray and hope that my preperation and my belief that I CAN do this will help when the times comes.  I will be sharing with you my preperation but my next post will be about my shift to desiring a natural birth.