January 21, 2003 ~ 9:19am

On the evening of January 20, 2003, I was having some pretty steady contractions...they didn't hurt at all but were consistent in their timing. I called my friend, Jenn, and asked her to come over. It's an hours drive at least from her house to ours and by the time she got here my contractions had all but disappeared. Dh went to bed for the night, thinking he was either getting up soon to catch a baby or going to work in the morning.

I tried walking around for a bit, standing and swaying, and lying down...I would get some pretty strong contractions that would stay at about 3 minutes apart for 10 or so contractions, but then they would quit again.

By 4:30am, I had had it. I figured this was false labor and we weren't actually having a baby tonight. I went to bed very frustrated. I slept for about an hour and a half and when I woke up I was angry that everything had stopped! Then I had a contraction, a strong one that would have woken me from my sleep anyway. I stayed in bed and tried to time them until dh's alarm went off at 6:40am, they were consistently 3 minutes apart.

I got out of bed and walked for a bit, then sat down and posted a message on the February 2003 message board...the contractions were getting strong enough for me to have to really meditat through them.

A little after 7am I went to wake Mark. The contractions were getting too intense for me to handle myself. Jeremy, my 19 mo old, and Samantha, my 4yo, woke up and climbed into bed with Mark while I knelt on the floor beside the bed. Since the kids were starting to climb all over me, I asked Mark to wake Jenn and get them some breakfast.

I spent the next couple hours kneeling by the bed or sitting on the toilet. The contractions were getting more intense and my moans were getting louder...I'm surprised the kids didn't come to see what was going on. Mark had tried to bring the television upstairs (normally we are a tv-free house) I'm not sure if it actually worked or not, I didn't hear any movies.

By 8:30am, I was sure that I would have the urge to push...nothing. I was truely having "transition" feelings, saying things like "I can't do it anymore" and "That's it, I'm done". With every contraction I waited for that "pushy" feeling and it just never seemed to come.

Sometime around 9:00am or so, I had the first feeling that I should push...but it was just a little. I could feel the baby's head really low in my pelvis and it was making my position uncomfortable. I tried kneeling and half lying over the bed to raise myself straighter and help gravity pull the baby down, I knelt down more to open my pelvis wider, I rocked my hips, etc.

Finally after a few more contractions I felt like my water would break if I just pushed hard...I did. My EXTREMELY strong bag of waters broke! PHEW!! Relief!! Then...NOTHING! I didn't have another contraction for about 5 minutes. I actually stood up and said "well, I guess that's it!" LOL "No baby coming!" LOL It was really strange to me that the baby didn't just pop right out like my last 2.

After a little break, I had a couple more pushy contractions...Alex was born really slowly, first one fold of his forehead, then another, and his eyebrows, then his nose, etc... Thankfully Mark had enough time to actually catch him! (Jeremy, our 19 month old, was a different story).

After clamping and cutting the cord, we weighed him...9lbs! He certainly doesn't look that big. We haven't measured him yet but will post the stats when we do!

Debbi

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