It's Another Girl!

Julia Danielle was born Sunday, January 10th at 8 pm.

At noon on Sunday, we sat down to watch Pilgrim's Progress as a family. Contractions started then and were every 10+ minutes. I was begging the Lord to let them continue. They were short and so infrequent! We watched the movie while Elena kept track of my contractions.

By the last half hour of the movie, I was ready for a smaller audience. I called my friend to come pick up the boys and Lydia. Shortly after they left, we called the midwife, Robin; my good friend & photographer, Gretchen; and my sister. They arrived at 4pm.

When Robin checked me after arriving, she said I was 7 cm! I was ecstatic!! Well, 3 hours in the pool later, I was still a 7. Grrrrr! Robin broke my water to get things moving, and although the discomfort was significantly less, contractions were still far spaced. I kept falling asleep between them. We finally figured out that baby's head was lopsided, so Robin had me get on the couch and lie on my side. I THOUGHT I WAS GOING TO DIE. (slight exaggeration; meaning: This was very uncomfortable!) When each contraction hit, I said: I feel like I'm going to throw up!

30 min later, no vomit, and baby had moved into proper position. I was able to get back in the pool. More falling asleep between contractions, but I distinctly heard Robin tell Kyle: If she doesn't make more progress, she's going to have to get out of the pool again.

According to Kyle, a demon spoke through me at that point and growled: I'M NOT GETTING OUT OF THIS POOL!

So, I got serious and started pushing with every contraction. Robin slowed me down and 4 pushes later, I had a baby girl in my arms.

Julia weighed 7 lbs. 8 oz. and was 19 3/4 inches long.

(Winners of the Baby Bet to be announed soon.)