Josie's Birth

marchmay · March 2013

Josephine Grace, St. Patrick's Day 2013, 5:41am

7 pounds 8 ounces 19.5 inches long

I was 8 days past my due date. I went to bed at 10pm but woke up at midnight to a contraction. This had been happening for the last few nights, so I rolled over and fell back asleep. After a few more contractions woke me up, I decided to see how far apart they were. Twelve minutes apart.

Every time I had a contraction, I got out of bed and sat on the toilet. That was the only way I could get comfortable.

By 2:45am, I had disturbed my husband enough times that he got up and got in the shower. As he showered, I realized that the contractions were much closer together, and by the time he finished showering, I was dressed and packing things up.

Woke up our girls, dropped them off at my in-laws, got to the hospital. Now it's 4:30am.

The nurse checked me and I was 6cm. She asked me as we were leaving triage if I wanted an epidural. (I had one with my first, didn't have one with second.) I decided to try again without an epidural.

By the time we got to a room it was 5:15am. They got my IV (it took three nurses to get in an IV...) They checked me and I was 8cm. My water broke. I told them I had to push. The midwife arrived and told me I could push whenever I wanted to. So I pushed.

Two pushes later, Josie was born. We were team green, so seeing that she was a girl was so exciting.

Random: They told us she was 8 pounds 7 ounces, which we were shocked to hear, since DD#1 and #2 were both 7 pounds... we didn't find out till the next day that they'd inverted the numbers and that she was actually 7lb 8oz.