Wren's Birth Story: a girl on a mission

Friday, August 03: 
Harper was asleep and Joshua and I were lounging on the couch watching the Olympics. I was feeling overwhelmed by everyone asking how I was feeling and when this little baby was going to finally arrive. My due date was only a few days ago after all (July 31st), and of everyone I was also most curious as to when labor was going to kick in. We decided to call it a night and go to bed sometime around 10:30-11pm.

Saturday, August 04:
2:15-2:30am- I was woken up by a couple contractions that were definitely different than all the ones I'd felt before during this pregnancy. I waited for one more and then quickly decided to wake Joshua up. He asked how close together they were, but since I hadn't even looked at a clock yet I wasn't sure what to say other than, "not that far apart." We broke out the contraction timer on our iPhone and started gathering our last minute items for the hospital bag. I made sure to put my earrings, necklace and ring on...you know, important stuff like that when in labor. ;) I also snuck into Harper's room and gave him a kiss on the forehead. He was sleeping soundly.

When it was pretty obvious that this was the real deal with contractions varying 3-4 minutes apart or so, Joshua called our midwife line. I heard him say the name Jess, which made me very happy as she is the midwife I had seen for the majority of my prenatal appointments. The contractions were already very strong, and I wasn't able to talk through them. Jess took note of how everything was going so far and told us to give it some time before heading to the hospital. She asked to talk to me, and I agreed to try taking a shower and then reevaluating how labor was progressing.

After only being in the shower for a couple of minutes my mind was made up. It was time to go to the hospital. I didn't want to be stuck in the car during transition. In the meantime, Joshua was calling our friend Jamie to have her come over and watch Harper until my parents could be here. After almost needing a Plan B, Joshua was able to get ahold of her by calling her husband's phone and she quickly headed over.

3:30am- When Jamie arrived, we had everything ready to go. Joshua threw everything into the car, and I waited to get through one more contraction before getting into the car myself. Josh missed a call from our midwife, but then called back to tell her we were on our way. Next he called my parents to let them know we were headed to the hospital. Joshua said it sounded like my mom was wide awake with more energy than should be possible that early in the morning.

I focused all my energy on getting through each contraction. All I could do was take long, deep breaths and let out low tones while exhaling. While at the house, leaning forward and having Josh press on my lower back seemed to be most comforting but impossible while in the car. Thankfully, we were pretty much the only ones on the road and made it to St. Joseph's Hospital in about 15 minutes. We pulled into the E.R. parking lot, and I felt my first urge to push.

3:45am- Josh grabbed our things and we walked into the E.R. Josh relayed my information to the lady at the front desk who called the maternity ward. I was brought a wheelchair, and a nurse showed up shortly after. The nurse's name was Sue, and we headed off to the maternity ward. With each contraction, the urge to push was getting stronger, and sitting was getting more uncomfortable. We paused for a couple contractions along the way, and Sue paged my labor/delivery nurse to let her know I was "feeling pushy." I asked about the water birth tub and was told it was being filled.

3:56am- We rolled into my room #49 where my midwife Jess and nurse Heather were prepping everything for delivery. We were being told what would happen next, things like emptying my bladder, leaving a urine sample, and being hooked up to the monitor for a short while when I stood up and said I felt like I had to push. "What about a water birth?!" I was told there wasn't time, and the tub wasn't even filled yet. I was leaning on Josh who was in front of me when I asked, "Should I push?!" Jess kindly commented, "Maybe we should get your pants off first." Jess and Heather helped strip me down, Jess felt our baby's position (a +3!) and gave me the go ahead. With just two more contractions, our baby girl was born at 4:03am just 6 feet in from the room's door.

The next hour or so (time was lost at this point) was spent on the bed with our little Wren Margueritte in my arms. I'm pretty sure both Joshua and I were in shock that my labor went that fast. We called my parents to let them know our baby girl was born, and they hadn't even made it to our house yet (they live 1.5 hours away). It took at least a couple of hours for my body to stop shaking and catch up with all that had just happened. What a night! Wren was a 9 and 9 on her Apgar scores, and received many compliments for her nicely shaped head and cute face. After a bath for her, a couple stitches for me, and a bath for me as well, the room was seeming back in order and everything was quieting down.

Neither Joshua or I could fall asleep at this point and simply focused on soaking in all that happened while never breaking our gaze off this gorgeous brand new baby staring back at us.