Tuesday, January 13, 2009

more pics...





The Birth Center






What an experience.  Delivering at a birth center is so completely different than a hospital.  I started going into labor around 6:30 PM on Tuesday the 6th.  Contractions were fairly far apart, but by about 8:00 or so they started to become more intense so I called Brad and told him he might be in for a three hour drive.  About 30 minutes after I hung up with Brad the contractions were coming every seven minutes, so it was inevitable he was going to have to drive!  Around 10:30 I called the midwife to tell her my contractions were five minutes apart and had been lasting at least a minute for the last hour she said, "call me back when they're about 3 to 4 minutes apart and lasting 90 seconds."  I'm thinking, "she must be crazy."  I remember at the time all I wanted to do was get to that birthing center and get into the giant jacuzzi bath tub. Luckily about ten minutes after I called the midwife my contractions went from five minutes apart to two minutes so she told us she would meet us there.  Perfect timing because right after we got off of the phone with her Brad arrived and we left for the center.  As soon as we got there I got into the tub and it seemed like the contractions were coming every two seconds... maybe every minute?  Who knows?  I stayed in the tub for what seemed like ten minutes but was probably about an hour.  By the time I got out I was to eight centimeters.  I then just labored in the room some and in the bathroom a little more.  at 2:30 my water broke and at 3:45 I started pushing and little Eli was born at 4:23 Wednesday January 7.  

The birth center was such an intimate setting and I think the environment really helped me get through it.  We got to go home five hours after I had Eli and even went to the pediatricians office later that day.  It was so much easier to adjust this way and it just seemed like such a normal thing... and it is a normal everyday thing.  Women give birth everyday.  I'll be honest, there was a time there at the end where I just wanted to leave and go to the hospital and have them get the child out of me, but I wouldn't have changed my experience for the world.  It was wonderful and we are so blessed with our beautiful baby boy... all nine pounds of him:)