The Brack Family: Birth Day

DECEMBER 22, 2010

A little after 9:00a.m. - I was laying in bed with a few contractions, a little lower in my abdomen and more painful than the braxton hicks I had been having, but still at least 10 minutes apart. I didn't think much of it and after an hour I figured I couldn't get more sleep so I would just get up and going for the day. Usually getting up and walking made any sort of organized contractions disappear pretty quickly. NOT THIS TIME! All I did was walk from bed to the bathroom and I could barely get through brushing my teeth...the contractions were VERY intense and now about 2-3 minutes apart. I think I got my teeth brushed and contacts in and I knew this had to be it. I nudged Chris in bed and told him to get ready, we needed to go to the hospital. We were in gear then! We all got ready and my contractions kept coming strong and fast so off we went to the hospital. I think we made it out of the house by 11:00a.m. I think my verbalization of the pain of the contractions added some heaviness to Chris's foot on the gas of the car because he was in a hurry! I think he was afraid of the baby coming in the car!!!

About 11:30a.m. - we are checked into triage and the nurse checks me and says I am dilated to a 6, 80% effaced, and a -2 position. The day before at my checkup I was 4cm dilated. We were in that room for a short time until they got me a labor room to move to. About an hour after I was admitted and checked that first time, I was sitting on the birthing ball and started to feel more pressure so I had the nurse and midwife, Barb, check me again. I was a 9!!! They decided that if they broke my water at that point we'd probably be delivering a baby so Barb broke my bag of water and told me that at that point whenever I felt the urge to push, to just go with it. A few contractions later I decided to give a few practice pushes, meaning not full force. I only did this a couple times though when I started pushing for real. I guess right away they started to see her coming because their tone changed to a more hurried tone saying to get everything ready. FOUR pushes later....OLIVIA IS HERE!!!!!! She came out crying and perfect!

The whole experience was absolutely hard to believe. I was hoping to go natural again like I did with Mckayla, with no pain medicine at all in labor, but the intensity of the contractions was making me wonder if I could do it. Thankfully labor progressed EXTREMELY quickly and I didn't have much time to be in pain before she was here! It happened so fast we were left with the feeling of "did all that really just happen???" I am so glad I was able to go naturally again. Her alertness and my ability to move so well immediately after delivery is wonderful.

Here's the excited big sister, awaiting baby's arrival