Willow Libby Seth was welcomed into our family on May 2nd at 9:23pm. She weighed 8 lb 7 oz and was 22 1/2 inches long. We were able to come home on the 5th and my has life changed!! Willow has already met both sets of grandparents and Aunt Kim, as well as many friends in town. Here are a few of many pictures to come...
Mother's Day
We're ALL tired!
First "real" bath
Willow's Birth Story
Willow was due on Friday, May 1st. I chose that as being my last day of school for a few reasons: it was my due date, it was a Friday (easier to have a sub start on a Monday), it was exactly 6 weeks before school let out (no unpaid time!), and I figured if I went "overdue" I'd rather not being teaching still and being at home/walking around would help me progress faster than being stressed at school. My mom had come in town two weeks before the baby was due to help finish things up at school and be ready to help if the baby came early. It was great to have her at school with me to help tie things up and to have another set of adult eyes in the classroom (I had a challenging group of students!). I decided to take the Lamaze class because I wasn't quite sure what to expect going into it. I've never broken a bone, so I wasn't sure what my pain tolerance would be, yet we've had friends give birth naturally, which appealed to me IF I could tolerate it. Through the Lamaze class we also learned that we could have a doula present for our labor for free since there were students going through certification and they need a certain number of births before they can become certified.
We went out for dinner (Mexican...to try and "kickstart" things...) with Kim Friday night after school. That night, at 10:30pm, shortly after laying down for bed, I felt my first contraction. In our Lamaze class I remember the instructor saying that labor is a long process, so not to wake up your husband at the first contraction since SOMEbody needs to be well rested going into labor, and there's no reason to get everyone excited right away. Somehow I failed to remember in the excitement of that moment that she'd also mentioned that taking a warm bath at the beginning of labor will slow things down so you could get some rest....that would've been nice! When the contractions started that night I started writing down the times to see how far apart they were. I hadn't had any false labor or Braxton Hicks contractions, but there was no mistaking the first contraction. I quickly discovered that laying down in bed wasn't the most comfortable position. I moved to the nursery with the exercise ball to do some of the laboring positions we'd been taught in class. The contractions were every 10 minutes apart all night.
3am: I went down to get a snack (remembering that you can't eat anything once you go to the hospital) and my mom must've heard me or seen the lights come on. She couldn't believe that I hadn't woken her up. She started walking around with me during the contractions.
5am: I woke up Chris and we start walking laps around the park near our house. Every once in a while we'd come back to the house, but the contractions felt easier when we were up and moving rather than being still at the house. They also seemed to slow down while we were at the house. The contractions, when walking, were about 5-10 minutes apart.
8am: We call our doula and tell her about the contractions and how long they've been going on. She says to keep on walking! We got quite a lot of sympathy while walking laps around the park. A few men were working on a house and said we could use their phone or bathroom if we needed it. We got a lot of "good luck"s and "walk that baby out"s. After stopping for a contraction in front of our neighbor Henry's house, he said, "I've never done that (labor), but I know it'll be ok."
11am: We call our doula and decide to go into the hospital. It'd been 12 hours already and the contractions were regularly 5 minutes apart. We joked about how I was going to go into labor on Nascar race weekend seeing as the racetrack is between our house and the hospital and traffic gets horrendous. The hospital is typically just a 10 minute drive from our house. The joke became a reality when we had to decide whether or not to take the normal route or to go out of the way to avoid race traffic. We figured since it was just 11am and the race wasn't until 7pm that we'd be fine...WRONG! We sat and sat and sat at the first traffic light (being directed by police officers) since we were not the main flow of traffic. Chris wanted to get the officer's attention but I told him we were fine and to just wait our turn (it really felt like he didn't see us at all though!!). At the second traffic light we felt the same way (we were going away from the race track and therefore were not the first priority) and after a while of waiting I told Chris he could go ahead and tell him we were in labor and trying to get to the hospital. I wonder if the officer really believed us (my contractions had stopped and I wasn't in unbearable pain like you see on tv), but he let us go! Our normal 10 minute drive took 45 minutes! My contractions almost completely stopped as I only remember having about 2 or 3 contractions while in the car.
12noon: We check into the hospital and they take me up to labor and delivery in a wheelchair (hospital protocol). I feel pretty foolish since I'm no longer having any contractions. We get upstairs, get unpacked, and get a lot of the paperwork filled out. Still not having many contractions... Dr. Powers comes in to check me and I'm 3 cm dilated. We start walking up and down the halls.
3pm: After walking and walking and walking with contractions 5 minutes apart, the doctor checks me again. I figure I've gotta be at least 6 cm by now. Nope....3 1/2 cm!!! I couldn't believe that after all that walking and "work" that I was only 1/2 cm more dilated. My positive attitude went down the drain and I was completely discouraged. The doctor mentioned that she could break my water to move things along faster, so we decide to go that route. Golly gee did things change! After breaking my water I dropped to 6 cm dilated and the contractions got much more intense! I tried walking through some of them but quickly realized I was in over my head and decided to get an epidural. Before receiving the epidural, though, you have to have a bag of IV fluids, which took 45 minutes...while laying down in the bed. Ugh...that was the worst part to have the more intense contractions while laying down. Immediately after getting the epidural though, the pain went away and I was much more relaxed. I told my mom and Chris it was like "puppies and butterflies." I was able to rest and relax and have actual conversations with my mom and Chris.
8:30pm: The nurse checks me again and says we're 10 cm dilated and ready to push. Since I feel nothing, she looks at the monitor to tell when I'm having a contraction so I push at the same time. After pushing through quite a few contractions, the nurse asks if I'd like to have a mirror to watch the head coming out. I thought it might help so she got it out of the closet. What I imagined/hoped it would look like was no where close to what I saw. I imagined a head coming out and staying out (they'd told me already that they saw a lot of hair on the baby's head). In reality, the head was coming out when I pushed, then sinking right back in when I stopped pushing. How discouraging!! My mom told me to think of something that would help me push the baby out. I immediately thought of Jalen - one of my most challenging students from my class. After pushing through the next contraction the nurse said we needed more pushing like that! Apparently my built up anger towards Jalen was working in our favor!!
9:23pm: After 45 minutes of pushing, the baby arrived and we heard, "It's a girl!" Willow Libby Seth had arrived! I felt a huge sigh of relief when I heard her crying and she was put on my chest. Chris and I started singing the song we'd sung to the baby every morning and she immediately stopped crying:
I love you so much,
I love you so much,
I can't even tell you how much I love you,
You're special to me,
You're special to me,
I'm happy to have you as part of my life.
Patti and Kim had been waiting in the waiting area and came in shortly after Willow was born to meet her. Kim had even picked up Chick-fil-A for us for dinner!
