Annaversary Gift

 

Julia Fern

7 pounds 3 ounces

20.8 inches

 All through this pregnancy, we had thought it would be nice if baby did not share our annaversary ... even around 9pm on the evening of the 7th, we figured we were going to fly through the 7th and she would be born on the 8th. My labor had been fast with Megan, 1 hour and 40 min., but I still had some signs before that caused me to know it was close. This time, all I had were random contractions all day long and toward the late evening a slight few more signs of labor coming sometime, I just kind of thought it would be in the early morning or next day and we were ready to fly out the door as soon as it was obvious we should. So, at about 10:50 pm we were sitting on the couch still talking about names and eating ice cream and I felt a "bang" inside. The water broke and we sprang to action, called Kristin to come watch the kids, called my Mom to meet us at the hospital, got stuff in the jeep, kissed the sleeping girls and went out the door. While waiting for Kristin to arrive, we called the hospital to say we were coming and all of a sudden I could hardly talk to them in the strong contraction. After a few minutes, I told Ben we had to go back inside because it we would not make it and on the way in he called 911 and thankfully I did not faint! I told Ben to get the pregnancy book which had a page on what to do in a "rapid, unattended birth", I flipped pages and couldn't find it in between pains, Ben couldn't find it either and then Kristin arrived and the book was forgotten because the baby was coming and born in two pushes. Kristin found the page afterwards and the only thing left to do on the page was to wipe her face and keep her warm. Seeing that she was breathing and making noise, we relaxed a little and just waited for the EMT's to arrive. They cut the cord and laid me down, sometime in the midst of that Mom arrived. She worked on getting the placenta out, and it was because of it not coming for a while that we decided to head to the hospital. It came out eventually, thankfully on it's own and that whole thing was more painful than the labor. In the end, I think that having the baby born on our annaversary will be just fine. And what a way to remember it by!