Welcome to Our World Mallory

Well it begins a few weeks ago with us deciding to finally book a flight for Jamie so she could be here for the birth of our sweet girl.  I have known instinctively that Mallory would come early so we hemmed and hawed over dates and finally decided that Sat Jan 12th thru Thur the 17th should get the job done.
On the Thursday before Jamie was supposed to get here I went to the midwife for my regular (and hopefully last) appointment.  I was dilated to a 3cm and 60% effaced.  Woohoo!  She asked me if I wanted her to, "sweep my membranes to move things along"?  I answered with a boisterous, "hell yes, this baby needs to come out on Sunday"!  Then on Saturday morning I went to acupuncture and asked her to, "make her come out"!  The acupuncturist said it was possible that she would come in the next 24-36 hours and to keep working those pressure points.  And that I did, but Saturday there was no baby.  OK, we can handle this...we decided Sunday was the day we were going to "walk the baby out" so we went to IKEA and the mall and walked and walked and walked.  It was working, I was having fairly regular contractions all day.  Yippee!  Then we went home, ate dinner and rested...no more contractions.  Boo.  I guess Monday is another walking day.
Monday morning I woke up about 6:30am and I'm having contractions, cool.  But Monday is a school day for Maddox and Julie needs to go to work, so all of this is happening already.  By 7am (a mere 30 minutes later) these are coming on kinda strong....like, I have to pause a little and breathe.  So I text the doula and let her know what is going on.  She reminds me I have to time the contractions for an hour before I call the midwife.  Time contractions...check.  So we time for a while and they are like 1 min 50 sec apart and getting stronger.  OK, now I'm thinking, this is it, and now I'm telling Julie she is not going to work,  telling Jamie she needs to get ready to go, trying to get Maddox ready to go to Christina's and get some food in my belly.  All with a mere 1 min 50 sec rest in between these ever strengthening contractions... damn I'm good.
After about 30 minutes I decided to go ahead and call the midwife because I just feel like it was time.  I call, breathe heavily through most of the phone call and get the go ahead to come in.  Alright troops, move your asses!  So while Jamie and Julie are getting ready and having a good ole time (that is what it sounded like to me)  I am leaned over the yoga ball panting and breathing like crazy.
Next up is a 30 min car ride.  Let me tell you, when you contractions are 2 minutes apart, a 30 min car ride seems like damn near forever.  Every bump and turn totally sucked.  I was in the back seat on my hands and knees making poor Jamie rub my back the whole way.  This was getting intense but I was handling it.
By the time we got to the hospital I was in no condition to walk so I jumped on a wheelchair backwards and moaned my way thru the hospital.  I'm sure it had to look like something out of a movie and quite comical but I was totally in the zone and could have cared less. The next stop was triage.  They have to monitor you for 30 minutes to see if you are ready to be admitted.  Um, hello?  Do you hear me?  I'm ready to be admitted!  Despite what I think, they try to wrangle a monitor on me and they make me sit through contractions.  Sit?  Ahh, that was the worst.  Sitting on my butt was the worst ever.  Our midwife Gayle was already there so she came in quickly, checked me and notified us that I was a 7cm and -1 station.  Hell yes, I'm almost there!
So obviously I am ready to go to the real room so they wheel me in there next.  I jump up on the bed and drape my body over the giant yoga ball and just get into the zone.  I remember being pretty vocal (I'm sure I sounded like a crazy hippie lady) but our doula helped me control my breathing so it was more effective when I would get a little off track.  While all this is going on there are nurses running around trying to get things set up, the midwife is trying to get paperwork done to get me admitted and someone is trying (unsuccessfully) to get a monitor on my belly.  I remember people asking lots of questions about my medical history and surprisingly I was able to answer them even though in hindsight I don't think they were asking me, I think they were asking Julie.  But she kinda sucks at remembering that stuff so it is good I was still able to do that.

This is how much monitoring happened.

A few minutes later I just could not avoid it anymore, I had to push and I let whoever waned to listen to me hear it.  The midwife checked me, I was fully dilated and my water broke while she was checking me.  Oops, sorry Gayle!  Someone asked if I wanted to give birth in the tub because if I did I had to get in, it was now or never!  I said "sure, why not" and got in the tub in between a contraction. With the next contraction I pushed and out came a head.  Whoa!!!  Then the contractions kinda stopped for a min.  I remember Julie yelling at me to hold her head and I was like, "no it hurts, I can't reach". I tried to push her out on my own without a contraction but I just could not do it so I just sat for a minute... it was pretty wild.  Then another contraction and boom, baby is out!  I think I was in the tub for maybe 10 minutes. Mallory Jane was born at 10:05 am, a mere 3 1/2 hours after I woke up and before the staff could even get me admitted into the hospital or get a hep lock in my arm!
She was absolutely perfect!  No jaundice, perfectly shaped head, no birthmarks, beautiful color...just perfect!

Those numbers mean 7lb 13oz

They gave the baby to Julie to have some bonding time while I got fixed up and back in bed.  Then we laid there (bed is queen size) and just got to know each other. I felt great and awake and a little euphoric. It was so beautiful. Sweet, calm and non clinical... So different from when Maddox was born.

My favoritist girls!

Hey there, baby that was in my belly!

This birth was absolutely everything that I had wanted and planned, maybe better because I was not expecting a 3 1/2 hour labor...bonus!  Even Julie has said that, although she was skeptical of the doula, midwives, VBAC, water birth, basically everything that I had envisioned, she said that it was awesome!  She loved the whole experience far more than she thought she would and she even said she felt we got cheated on Maddox's birth.  HELLO, I have felt that big time for 4 1/2 years!  I also feel a huge sense of pride as compared to last time.  I feel like I can accomplish anything I want because DAMN I just had a baby in 3 1/2 hours with absolutely no drugs!  I will say that feeling was a little bolstered by all the nurses and midwives saying I was a superstar for my crazy fast birth.  One of the nurses was on her first day and she was in tears that she thought it was so cool.  Then another midwife came to check on me the next morning and she had really proud of me too and was really sad she had not been the midwife on call.  So yes, I'm feeling a little puffed up.  Not to mention I feel pretty awesome physically as well.  I take like one nap a day and have lots of energy and just feel overall great.  Such a difference from when Maddox was born and I literally didn't get off the couch for 2 weeks.  :)
This experience was amazing, empowering, awesome, enlightening , and just all good things.  So I would say to anyone who wants to do a VBAC, do your research and find care providers that are like minded.  It is worth it.

Maddox helping the doctor give the "A-OK"