Wednesday, November 4, 2015

Baby Phoenix

This picture pretty much sums up my emotions about Monday night.
Sunday night! My water broke! It broke in a major way.  You know how you can be watching a silly tv show and a pregnant woman all of a sudden drops a huge jug of water out of her dress? Well... I always thought that was ridiculous tv nonsense.  I had never met anyone that described their water breaking in this way.  Well... turns out, it's not so fake.  That happened to me. I'm standing in the kitchen preparing dinner.  I feel a slight contraction coming on, so I pause.  Suddenly I feel and hear a pop.  The floor is immediately saturated beneath me and it just keeps going.  Because I always have my cell phone with me, I grabbed my phone off of the counter and called my midwife right away. Elgrie grabbed the towels.  As you can see from the pile, we needed quite a few.  

Roxanne, the midwife, didn't need much more information aside from my description of my water breaking.  She assured me that she was on her way.  She arrived less than 30 minutes later.  My parents were our next call and they headed on over also.  

After Roxanne arrived and assessed the situation, we commenced waiting.  As this was not my first VBAC (vaginal birth after cesarean), we were cautious to be prepared.  My previous VBAC progressed very quickly - as in, just about 4 hours.  Even though we were cautious, that would not be the case with Baby Phoenix.  Roxanne arrived, my parents arrived, everyone was in place.  I was not having regular contractions so we decided to find a movie and relax.  We watched a little tv and went to sleep.  Everyone found a spot to rest for the night. Elgrie told the kids that he'd wake them if anything happened that night.

Monday morning - breakfast.  We carried on with the day with the hopes of meeting our child soon.  Still, there were no regular contractions.  Fast forward to Monday evening around 6:30 pm.  Roxanne asked if I'd be ok with her checking my cervical progress (the first time throughout the pregnancy).  I was hesitant because I know that once you make contact in that way, you're inviting potential bacteria.  Roxanne was very sensitive to this.  I decided to go ahead and let her check.  After 26 hours, I had only dilated to 2 centimeters.  Crushing!!

That was all I could take at that moment.  I decided to go to sleep and deal with it in a few hours.  Elgrie came into the room a little later, got the news from Roxanne, and asked what I needed from him.  Prayer! He prayed and I closed my eyes to sleep.  I did not sleep.  That was around 8:30 pm Monday night.  

Contractions hit hard and heavy! I have no idea how the time passed so fast, but I know that I was contracting, Roxanne was offering counter pressure, and then the pool was getting filled up.  What is happening?  I was only at a 2!  Yeah, that doesn't always mean doom.  So... while I was moaning and groaning thru rapid and continual contractions, Elgrie was filling the birthing pool.  Somewhere in this window, Roxanne called her team.  Debbie and April arrived just as I was entering the not-yet-full pool.  I can only remember having about six contractions in the water before I knew there was more to the feeling that I was experiencing.  

Roxanne gave me the ok to push if I needed to.  I did!  She got her long gloves on and pulled out the flashlight and mirror.  She checked on the effects of my pushing.  She told me to reach down and feel my baby.  Boy did I!! There was a head of hair in my hand. Whoa!!  Two more hard pushes and we were holding our son!  Elgrie got to catch his son! That was awesome! He handed the baby off to me before we knew what we had.  I reached in between those little baby legs and was shocked to discover a little willy.  We were just so sure we'd have a girl.  Nope! The joke was on us.  No matter.  We're so ready to be the parents of of 3 boys!  He's awesome!  

We were able to fulfill a dream.  We are holding a dream.  We are super blessed!!  
There are just too many pictures to describe them all.  I think you can get the big picture, right? 

If you're in DFW and need a midwife, check her out. She's so lovely. 
roxanneandersonmidwife.com




































I know he looks like he's crying.  He was not.  He did not cry until several hours later.  He was so calm the entire time.













This man!! He was beat after an emotional ride!  He did not wake up until about 6 am.