Coralie's Birth

I'm trying to write this blog before the details of her birth story slip from my sleep deprived mind. Now I'm mostly writing this for my own memory and if the details of a birth are not something you're comfortable with, I'd advice skipping this post. It's nothing too graphic but I figure I'd at least give you warning :)

 It has now been 11 days since Coralie was born and already I can't imagine life before this wave of love came over me. She is amazing. And this is the story of her birthday.

 We had been on edge expecting labor to start any minute since my midwife appointment on Thursday morning had revealed that I was almost 4 cm dilated and 80% effaced. Before that I had been  feeling just fine and pretty confident that I still had about a week before anything would start happening since I had yet to feel any contractions. I was still a full week from my due date and having had a baby already, I knew what a contraction felt like, so I knew I hadn't been missing them. But apparently something was happening while I was unaware. And we spent the next few days waiting for it to hit any moment. I wrote this in my journal on Friday.

Right now I'm in that weird spot, the before spot, but very close spot. It's like when you're about to move out of a house or a town or quit a job and you start looking at everything differently, like "this could be the last time I shut this door, or this is the last time I'll ride this elevator" and you're half sad at what you're leaving but mostly excited for what you're going to. I've been breathing in this quiet day, Logan has been playing well and I've been able to just rest or tinker on little projects. I was sitting in his room watching him play with his trains and just thinking "This might be the last time for a while that it's just me and him." and it did make me sad. It's been me and him for almost 5 years now. 5 amazing years as a mother of a boy, of a son, of one child. That's all about to change. I'll become the mother of 2, a son and a daughter. A brand new sack of issues and struggles and joys and moments of amazement. How much has Logan shaped me? how much more will you shape me?

My mom took this on her phone at church on Sunday morning.

Nothing happened until Monday morning around 5am when I woke up to go to the bathroom and just felt generally uncomfortable. I wandered around the house a little and rocked in Cora's room for a little while just wondering if I was close. I went back to bed and about 5:30 I woke up finally feeling a mild contraction which for those that don't know feels a lot like cramping but it builds to a peak and then subsides. I laid in bed and watch the clock till the next one came 5 minutes later. I nudged Jon and said "I'm having some contractions." He grunted back. Another five minutes goes by and another contraction.
"Jon, I think it's time to go."
 "To take Logan to school?"
 "No, to the hospital."
"Ohhh!"

Jon hopped in the shower and I slowly got dressed and gather a few last things. I had to stop every 5 minutes and hold on to something as the contractions were getting a little stronger each time, still not too painful but very steady. I snuck into Logans room where he was sleeping and kissed his forehead. He opened his eyes and I told him we were going to the hospital to have the baby and that Nana would bring him to meet his sister soon. As I slipped back out of his room I couldn't help but tear up knowing the next time I saw him everything would be different.

We loaded up and headed out to Silverton Hospital at about 6:45am, which I remember because I was watching the clock the whole ride out and the contractions were getting closer, mostly 4 minutes, some 3 minutes apart. The road out to Silverton is a long single lane road through fields and farms so when we came up on a School bus with 6 cars behind it slowly creeping along we knew there was no way around them. We sort of chuckled and thought "Oh, so this is why people take an ambulance to the hospital." We arrived and got checked into a temporary room at about 7:15. The nurse came in to check me and I was 5, almost 6 cm dilated. We waited in that room for about 20 minutes while they prepared our birthing room. This is when I had my shining moment of labor. I needed to get up and use the bathroom but the contractions were getting pretty strong and only 3 short minutes between them didn't give me a lot of time. So I got into the bathroom and all the sudden felt super nauseous so I leaned over the sink to throw up when another contraction came on strong. Well I had to pee and there's not a lot you can do when a contraction hits, so I stood there throwing up in the sink while peeing on the floor and trying to breath through the pain of a contraction. Yep, labor is glorious. The lovely nurse came in and help clean me up and get me into the wheel chair and we headed down to our room where the jacuzzi tub was ready for me. I loved the tub, nice hot water with massaging jets on my back and sides. At this point my mom and sister, Bethany had arrived and they took turns along with Jon sitting at the side of the tub with me. I remember looking at Jon and saying "Ok, you ready to take over for me now? ready to tag in?" and when my mom answered "Oh you know Jon would if he could, he'd take this from you if he could.", I just answered "He couldn't handle this." ha ha.. what a jerk.

After about 30 minutes in the tub, I said, "OK, I don't like this anymore." and Jon thought I meant the tub, but I meant labor. I started feeling so sleepy and just wanted a little break from the contractions so I could sleep. I got very mellow and just sorta sunk into a weird place almost like a dream. I just remember turning off the jets and just trying to rest. My body must have known what was coming next. I felt like I needed to use the bathroom and so I slowly made my way out of the tub. When I stood up a strong contraction came on and I braced myself while Bethany and Jon dried me off. Then I sat on the toilet and another contraction hit. They were very strong and I was starting to sort of groan through them. They felt different, very low and deep. I told the nurse I thought I was ready to push and she called my midwife to come check me. I got up on the bed and the urge to push was very strong, stronger now than the contractions. My midwife checked me and said "Yep, you're complete. Lets have a baby!" I asked about my water breaking and she said it still hadn't but no worries, it'll break during the pushing. Now with Logan's birth, I had pushed for almost three and a half hours. It was very slow and I had to wait for a contraction and then push while counting to ten and then wait for another contraction. This was very different. I didn't have to wait for a contraction, in fact there was no waiting if I wanted to, I had to push. Well more like my body had to push and I just had to agree with it. Jon was at my side, my mom on one leg and my sister on the other. They were having problems with the lower portion of my bed not retracting or something but there was no time to mess with it, my midwife just simply leaned over that part and didn't really even need to tell me to push, she just kept saying "Good, great... that's it."  when I'd push. I think it was after about two or three pushes that my water finally broke and she said "I see hair, just like daddy's." and then she looked up at Jon. He was white as a sheet and started to stumble backwards. She said "Lay down and put your feet up!" Jon sat down and the nurse ran over to lift his legs up on to the bench. I remember looking over at him and saying "He needs to eat something." and I remember them saying "We need another nurse in here for the dad." They brought in some orange juice for him and then he was back at my side. The midwife said "Oh good, your color is back." I grabbed his hand and could tell we were very close.

I pushed for about 20 minutes, all the while making strange grunting sounds that I couldn't control. The midwife said "Push through the pressure, we're there..." and I pushed and looked down and saw Coralie's head and shoulders and reached down and pulled her onto my stomach. I could hear Jon half laughing, half crying but I couldn't take my eyes off of her. She wasn't crying and I was worried for a second and tried pulling her up closer and the midwife said, "Hang on, the placenta isn't ready yet." and then Coralie let out the tiniest, sweetest little cry. I relaxed and just soaked in the feeling of releif, joy and love. Jon cut the umbilical cord and they snuggled her closer to me. The midwife and nurses were busily doing things but it was like Jon, Coralie and I were alone. I love that they never took her off my chest the whole time, just did what they needed to do and left us alone. I do remember them commenting on how the placenta was in the shape of a perfect heart and that they'd never seen anything like that before.

*The photos with me in them were taken by my sisters Bethany and Carley.

She was born at 9:19 am, only two hours after we arrived at the hospital. I was laying there holding her and still not believing it had happened that fast. I was saying "That was crazy! Did you guys see that?" It was like it wasn't really me who did it, more like another part of me that had yet to show itself till that moment. It was the 'mother of two' part of me that switched on and took over.
We started making phone calls and posting pictures from our phones announcing her speedy arrival. They cleaned her up, weighed and measured her and helped me to the bathroom so they could remake the bed. She weighed 7 lbs and 11 oz and measured 20.5 inches long.

My sisters kids and husband came in to see her. I remember Abby had  her hands over her ears the whole time and Gabe looked at me and said "They cut the baby out!"

Jon's mom brought Logan in and he just sorta stared at her. We asked him if he wanted to hold her and he said yes. Later that day when he was gonna go back home he said to me "I wanna take the baby home." I said "We will honey, we get to keep her, she's ours!" and he answered, "No, she's mine." :) 

We stayed at the hospital till Tuesday evening and headed home. I felt pretty good and I wanted to get home to be together with Logan. It felt wonderful to drive home, listening to Christmas music, past houses all lit up with Christmas lights. Christmas could start now. We had our gift, our precious, speedy baby girl.