We welcomed our 3rd daughter Lydia Joyce into the world on Wednesday October 14th, 2009 at 2:51pm She weighed 7lbs 6ozs and was 21 1/4" long.
On Tuesday, October 13th my friend Sarah went with me to do Accupuncture to induce labor. The guy said that most women who go in to have it done will start contracting as soon as they stick the needle in, that didn't happen with me, I had maybe one contraction the whole time. So, we left thinking that it probably didn't work and went on with our evenings!
Around 2am Wednesday (10-14) morning I started having contractions about every 10min apart, some were as far as 20min. I didn't get any sleep that night because they never went away, when it was time to get up, Aaron called into work, we all got ready for the day (my contractions still about every 10min apart), we took Aayla to preschool, leaving the house around 10:15am. We couldn't remember how far apart the contractions had to be to go into the hospital so I called Labor and Delivery on our way to Gresham and she told me since it was my 3rd child, we should come in when they are about every 7-10min apart. (That gave us a good laugh since I had been having them that far apart almost all night, so I told the nurse that we would be coming in afte we did our running around and she said that was fine since I knew my body and would know when it was time!) We then dropped Karley off to Kevin and Sarah and went and traded cars with Sandy (who was going to have the kids while we were at the hospital).
We were going to go to Target, but by this time (after 11am) I told Aaron we should probably start heading to the hospital, so we went through the McDonalds Drive Thru so Aaron could get some lunch and then got to the hospital around 12pm. We got into the Triage room so they could hook me up to the monitors, which was supposed to be for about 30min and then they would check to see how far dilated I was. 30min rolled around and nobody came to check me, so we waited and waited, being told that the midwife was coming, but he had to go deliver a baby first. After being in the Triage room for and hour and a half they finally came in to check. He asked me if I thought we were going to have a baby that day and I said yeah, and so he checks and says, you're going to have a baby today, you are dilated to a 6 and that he got off at 6pm so he didn't know if he would be on duty still (this is the same midwife that delivered Aayla) So, we got off the monitors, called everyone who was coming for the birth (parents, Aaron's sister Sarah, my friend's Sarah and Nola) and walked over to the Labor room.
We got into that room around 2:15pm and I had to use the bathroom, so as I was sitting on the toilet, I started having CRAZY hard contractions and I sat in there for about 10min and the nurse said I needed to hurry so they would have time to get an IV in me for the epidural. The guy who does the epidural came in to talk to me about all the risks etc with having an epidural and this whole time I am a ton of pain trying to talk to him. He left to go his cart of stuff and before he came back in, it was just Aaron and I and I told him I felt like I needed to push. He's like "Don't Push, Don't Push", luckily my nurse came in right at that moment (along with the guy for the epidural) and she checked me and I was dilated 7-8, and she also told the epidural guy we didn't have time for one :( and the very next contraction I said I needed to push again so she checked me again and I was a 10. (It was really sad watching the epidural leave the room!!)
They all scrambled to get everything ready, didn't even have time to break the bed down and after about 10min of pushing out Lydia came!
Everyone that was called to for the birth missed it, which was sad but I also told Aaron I was glad he was the only one in the room because it was not the way I would have chosen to birth a baby (I was kinda noisy, a little screaming, alot of talking, being a dork, apologizing for acting the way I was acting...it makes me laugh now).
I still can't believe that I had a natural birth, but looking back I am grateful for it because it went much faster than the other two (had an epidural both times, labor was about 12hrs from when we got to the hospital). This labor from the time we got to the hospital was just about 3hrs. I don't know if I would choose a natural birth next time, if there is a next time or go for the epidural knowing it will slow things WAY down, but we will cross that road when we get there!
Lydia is a healthy little girl and we were able to leave the hospital the next evening (Thursday Oct 15)
