Judah's Birth Story

Tuesday I was so emotional, thinking I was just never going to go into labor. I had called Kyle at work and told him I needed a date night to get my mind off pregnancy. We went out for burgers and then wandered around Target afterwards. We decided we weren't going to talk about the baby at all. We practically just stared at each other during dinner, not knowing what else to talk about. LOL
At 2 am the next morning, I started having very mild, short, and infrequent contractions. Some were 10 minutes apart, some were 25 minutes apart. I just stayed in bed. At 4am, I started getting excited about the possibility of being in labor and went downstairs to time the contractions. Same pattern. After an hour, I was exhausted and decided to go back to bed. By 6:30 am, I couldn't rest through them, so I woke Kyle up and we got into "Baby Day" mode. I was getting dressed, fixing my hair, and putting on make-up in between contractions, which at that point were 5-10 minutes apart. Kyle called Rose Marie, my midwife, and she wanted to hear me go through a contraction so she could gauge how far along I was. After 20 minutes on the phone with her, I hadn't had a single contraction! I was pretty frustrated when she told me to time the contractions for an hour and then call her back.
I called her back at 7am, telling her the contractions were now 3-4 minutes apart and she got to hear me breathe through one. She took me seriously then and said she'd head our way, planning to arrive by 8am. Kyle aired up the birth pool and started filling it up. Then he called my friend Carrie to come pick up the littles (Daniel, Lydia, and Julia), our photographer, Isabelle, my best friend, Gretchen, and my sister, Jamie. They all arrived around 8:00.

When Julia woke up and came downstairs, she saw a pool in the middle of the den, surrounded by lighting equipment, and me on my knees leaning over the couch taking deep breaths. She started asking the big kids: "What Mama doin'?" Hearing her trying to make sense of it all made me emotional. I couldn't wait to be able to explain it all!
At 8am, I was ready to get into the pool but needed Rose Marie's permission to make sure I didn't get in too early. (I did not want to slow labor down!) Jamie called her and she said she would be here soon. 10 minutes later, at my request, she called again. This time I realized Rose Marie was being vague. How far away was she anyway?? I said: Forget this, I'm getting in! (Turns out she was stuck in traffic and wouldn't arrive until almost 9:15am, over an hour late!)



Labor becomes sooo much easier just getting into water. Amazing difference! During contractions, Kyle was saying: "You can do this! You're doing great!" His encouragement gave me strength. I was so worn out from getting so little sleep, the work of relaxation was making me dizzy. At my request, Rose Marie broke my water to get things moving. All of a sudden, she was explaining to the photographer that things were going to happen really quickly now. I saw her getting everything ready for the delivery and I got really emotional! I was crying: I'm so excited! I'm so excited!
When I hit transition, I panicked like I always do. I couldn't find a position I wanted to be in and I felt out of control. I decided to focus all my energy on deep breathing. I was praying: "Lord, you make Baby do what he needs to do. I'm just going to work on relaxing." That helped a lot. The deeper breaths I took, the more in control I was.
After what seemed an eternity, but was really only a few contractions, I felt the urge to push. YES! I have purpose! As soon as his head was out, all the pain disappeared. I sighed: "Oh sweet relief!" lol



At 10:39 am, Kyle delivered Judah into my arms after unwrapping the cord, which was wound around his neck THREE TIMES! Judah did a triple back flip under water before I was able to hold him!


When Kyle announced that it was a boy, Maya threw her arms in the air and said: "YES!!! I KNEW IT!!" The kids were all ecstatic!! All of the kids had been praying for a boy.
Julia's first words to Judah were "Hi cutie!"


Needless to say, we're all smitten with Judah the Handsome. What a perfect early Christmas gift!!