Monday morning when I woke up, one of my first thoughts was to email Lori and tell her that I'm still pregnant. After eating breakfast, I started a load of laundry and then took some clothes upstairs to put away. That's when I had my first contraction and it was even strong enough for me to grab onto a clothes bar and breathe through it a little. That was around 10. The contractions continued coming, but only 2 or 3 an hour until around 3. I took a bath with clary sage and jasmine essential oils around 11. (They're good for encouraging contractions) I took a nap around noon. Tom and Katie woke me up a little after 1 to zip up their bag of Legos that they were done playing with. I cooked them mac & cheese for lunch, called Destination Kitchen and ordered a sandwich for myself. I drove to pick it up. Still only having contractions every 20-30 minutes. They were getting stronger where I really had to stop and breathe through them, hold onto a wall and move my hips, but I still wasn't thinking that I needed to call Shad home from work.
After lunch I put the kids down for naps and spent the rest of the afternoon upstairs in my room. I bounced around on the exercise ball I borrowed from Mallory; I turned on my relaxation water fountain; I lied down on the bed in between contractions; I took whiffs of peppermint oil to dispel my nausea (hindsight: I won't eat that much for lunch next time. I wanted to have energy to get me through labor, but that was too much food. Yay for peppermint oil, though!); I took whiffs of lavender to help me relax during and after contractions; I read articles on my tablet for entertainment. Still, contractions were 10-15 minutes apart. At 4 I went downstairs, walked around a little bit, picked up a package from the porch, went back up to my room. I called Shad at 4:30 when he got off work to tell him to ride fast (he bikes to work), really only for the purpose of giving him the exciting news. Still not thinking it was time to go to the hospital yet.
Shad got home at 4:45 and found Tom and Katie awake watching Ice Age in the living room. What good kids! I didn't even hear them wake up from their naps and go down there, but those were my instructions to them. Shad started getting the kids ready to go to a friend's house. He threw stuff into a bag for the hospital, and still it didn't quite cross my mind that it was time to go. Seriously, this whole experience was just weird and that's partly why I'm taking time to write it now--I read an article recently that writing is healthy physically and mentally because it helps you to process a situation and move on from it.
Anyway, back to Thora's story. At 5 when Shad was ready to load the kids in the van, he said he'd come back to help me down. I didn't think I needed help and figured I could make it down the stairs myself. I mean, I had just done so an hour ago! Not so. I couldn't walk down the stairs and I couldn't gently lower my butt step by step, either:) I sat and waited uncomfortably for Shad to rescue me. We dropped the kids off at my friend Jennifer's house at 5:15. Drove slowly on the uneven brick roads (oh, how I was cursing those bricklayers in my mind!) to the hospital. Walked into the inpatient building. "Did you call to let them know you were coming?" NO! I sure did not think about that--I didn't even think it was time to come! It was quite obvious that I was far enough into labor that they didn't mess with taking me to triage to make sure. However, the birthing room was occupied so they wheeled me to the emergency room to get me on a bed. 5:30. They took my vitals and information, collected a few supplies and were pretty calm and relaxed until they checked me at 5:40 and found that I was fully dilated. WHAT?!
That's when things got hectic. They sent for Dr. Maurer, and a host of other staff to get ready for a baby any minute. Dr. Maurer came in at 5:45. We chatted for a minute and I asked her to break my water. Katie is the only birth of mine where it broke on its own. Glenda broke my water and told me I could push whenever I was ready. I still didn't even feel the urge to push, but I was exhausted and figured we might as well get this finished. At the first push, I didn't really feel anything. Glenda said she could see the head with a lot of hair and I didn't believe her. I pushed again and still didn't feel anything. Third push and that time I felt the burn of pushing out a baby and her head came out. Thora came out with her hand on her cheek, then shot her arm out. Shad said she was reaching for her hammer, mjolnir. Fourth push and the rest of her came out, born at 6 pm. Half an hour after arriving at the hospital, and with only 4 pushes, Thora entered our lives. That is the power of raspberry leaf tea, let me tell ya what. She weighed 6 lbs, 5 oz, measuring 19 inches long.
Honestly, I was in shock and disbelief for about an hour. It all just happened so fast and only half of my pushes felt like pushing. Much different from any of my other births.
Katie kept saying, "Hi Thora! I'm your big sister! I'm your big sister!"
Look at the contrast of those two girls!
Nothing makes a one-year-old suddenly big like having a newborn 6 pounder.
We have 4 kids!
