She's here!

Rebekah joined our family on Friday, June 24 at 11:04 p.m. She weighed 7 pounds 9 ounces and was 21 inches long.

For those who might be interested, here is the story.

I woke up at about 6:30 with a couple of contractions that felt real. I went to the bathroom and had what I considered to be quite a bit of blood. I called Michele, my midwife, and she said she would come right over. I was dilated to almost a 5 and she thought the blood was just cervical/bloody show and wasn't concerned. Contractions were 5-10 minutes apart. Three hours later, I was 6 cm, 90% effaced, bulging bag, and we were sure baby girl would make her appearance by noon. Michele's assistant, Rosa, who is also a friend of mine, massaged my feet with clary sage oil, which is supposed to increase and intensify labor contractions, while at the same time providing some pain relief. However, within a couple of hours, the contractions had slowed down to 15-20 minutes apart and then by 2:30 they almost shut down completely.

Michele said that it's not uncommon for labors to wane in the afternoon, but then pick up again in the evening, so she and the assistant went home and I alternated between lying down and walking around.

By 8:00, I was still having contractions no closer than 30 minutes apart. I tried a pressure point to see if it would help bring on some contractions. I did have a couple fairly close together, so I stopped to see if they would keep going. I got up to go to the bathroom and passed two clots that looked to be about the size of small eggs. I got a real uneasy feeling in my gut and called Michele. She came over and listened to the baby during a contraction. Her heart rate dropped to 118 during the contraction and then came back up to mid-130s afterwards, so she became concerned about some distress, and possibly some placental abruption, and we decided to go to the hospital.

We chose to go to the hospital that is about 30 minutes away rather than the one here in town because it's a little bigger, and Michele happened to know that the doctor that delivers here in town was up at scout camp, and with the bleeding and things that were going on, there was a good chance they would send me to the other hospital anyway.

We got there and they did an ultrasound. Everything actually looked good - placenta was intact and on the monitor baby's heart rate was holding steady during the contractions. On the way to the hospital, I started having some contractions again, but they were still only 10 minutes apart and not as intense as they had been in the morning.

They started just a whiff of pitocin and I got an epidural around 9 p.m. Rebekah was born two hours later. She ended up with moderate shoulder dystocia and it took some seriously hard pushing, including Michele (went with us and stayed throughout the delivery) pushing on my pelvic bone to get her out. She did really well, though, pinked up and had Apgars of 8 and 9.

The other kids just met her the first time tonight and are already smitten, including Joshua. Shane's mom took the kids out to Granite Ranch last Saturday to stay with Alicia's family until Rebekah was born, and they got back this evening.

We're very thankful to have Rebekah here and for all to have gone as well as it did, all things considered.  We're also very thankful for Michele and her excellent care.  We consider her to be a close friend and love her and her family so much.

We are also so thankful to Shane's mom for coming on a moment's notice and taking over the care of the house and kids so I could stay down during the last 6 weeks of the pregnancy, as I kept having frequent contractions and we were concerned that I might go into premature labor.  She's been an incredible help and I honestly don't know what we would have done without her.  My mom also came and stayed with me the week that Cynthia and the kids were at Granite and I'm so thankful for her help.  We are so blessed to have such wonderful support from friends and family.