Mission Accomplished!

Deliverance, you might say. At last. Not without some considerable work, of course, but I didn't have to ask the pharmacist for a pregnancy test after all.

Caution: birth story to follow. Skip to the stats if you prefer. :)

Thursday evening I was having more semi-regular contractions, but still nothing I couldn't talk through or anything. They began to be a little more serious, and around 11:30 they required mild breathing and focus to get through. Still not excruciating. We called the midwife and she loaded her gear and got here around 12:30 a.m. on Friday the 21st. By this time what hurt most was the baby's movements and kicking between contractions. THAT'S why we shoot up with narcotics at the hospital. It's not to 'take the edge off', it's to drug that baby so you can have a break betweentimes! The midwife got turned around in the directions a bit, or would've been here a bit sooner. She examined me about 12:45 or 1:00 and I was at 7-8 cm. Nice! With Little Monkey it only took about 15 minutes from 7 cm to birth, but then I was plugged in to evil pitocin, too. This time I was at 10 for a while before ever feeling the need to push. My water still hadn't broken at that point, and she doesn't prefer to do it prematurely, as it protects the baby from infection, etc. Both previous times the doctor had used his giant crochet-hook to do that. By the time you're at 10 though, labor isn't going to stall, so as her assistant was reaching for said hook (and not holding up her splash-guard) that's when it went. No one looked unusually drenched by the time I was unoccupied enough to open my eyes, but she did say there was 'a lot' of water...

Her assistant dosed me regularly with some under-tongue drops ("Rescue Remedy"? It makes it easier to relax or be happy, I think), over-tongue drops (sheep's bane? Lamb's purse? Some livestock-sounding herb - don't remember what it did), and under-tongue beads (iron sulfate, to help with blood clotting).

After some considerably painful pushing (don't think there's enough 'drops' to make those happy), we had our surprise. Surprise, another girl! Weren't we all wrong! Surprise #2; 9 lb, 6 oz! I only gained in the neighborhood of 20 lbs, so with her, combined with the water loss, maybe I'm lighter than I was last winter...? I wouldn't know at this point, though, because with her extreme skill at sucking, and maybe the herbs, my milk is already coming in, and THAT weighs a bit. I tore a bit, but instead of stitches, I got... some herbs! Yay, herbs. And so far it hurts less than in previous experiences. Even that little spray-bottle-in-lieu-of-toilet-paper has an herby-concoction in it. So far so good. The belly-button treatment is not alcohol, but olive-oil with other herby oils. Gotta love it. And St. John is keeping me happy and (now that I'm taking it more often) lessening the after-pains. THOSE were getting mighty bad.

The Stats:

Born at Home
2:48 a.m. Friday September 21, 2007
9 lb 6 oz (our largest by an oz)
14" head circumference (yeah, felt that!)
14" chest
21" long
Gorgeous, as all our girls seem to be. Sorry this picture is angled funny. Hopefully her beauty shines thru though. :)



She finally even has a name, now. Took us awhile, since Hubby wasn't entertaining conversations that dealt with the possibility that he might be a she. :) And her name is fabulous, though another one to make Gi-gi cringe, I'm afraid. I won't post it here; you'd have to email me for the privilege. :)