It started with some fresh pineapple. They say that helps get things going.

 

When we went to sleep on Wednesday night around 11:00, the baby was being extremely active and my mind was racing. I couldn’t stop thinking about our plan for the next week because I knew he was going to be coming at any time and I didn’t feel quite ready. We hadn’t even settled on a name! Before I fell asleep, I said a prayer and I asked the Lord to help me know when it was time to go to the hospital. (I was worried because I didn’t want to be in the hospital as long as I was with Juniper, but I didn’t want to wait TOO long before we went in.) After the prayer, he calmed down and I felt super peaceful. 

At 12:57 I woke up feeling a little strange. There was a lot of pressure, and then all of a sudden my water broke! I couldn’t believe it! I hit Shaun and told him what had happened and he didn’t believe me! I sent out a text message to a few friends of mine to see if anyone was awake that could come watch Juniper, then I took a shower. I figured we had a few hours before we would have to go to the hospital. They say the baby needs to be born within 24 hours once your water has broken. By the time I got out of the shower, the contractions had become very regular, every 5 minutes. They were getting more and more intense with each one so I decided it was definitely time to go to the hospital. Luckily our friend Veronica woke up to my text and was able to pick up Juniper for us. We left for the hospital around 2:00AM.

As soon as we got to the hospital they sent me right through triage to be examined and monitored. Ah triage… I’ll be honest, I was not the nicest person in the world during this whole process, but those triage nurses were driving me insane. They just weren’t taking me seriously and didn’t seem to believe anything I told them. After a short urine sample debacle, I was sent into the monitoring room and the one nurse handed the other my clip board and said, “She thinks her water broke.”  (THINKS…)

First they had to run some tests to see if my water had actually broken. They got some fluid samples and made slides and sent them down to some lab to be tested…The test actually came back negative, but when the lady checked me she said “Well, I don’t feel a sack. I feel a head, and you’re at 4cm, so I think your water actually did break.” And I was thinking, “Yes, you feel a HEAD. Can I go have my baby now please?” At this point the contractions were right on top of each other and crazy intense and all I wanted was to go upstairs and get some sort of pain relief. 

As much pain as I was in, I couldn’t help but find the whole situation hilarious. I was screaming and laughing and on the verge of crying the whole time! At one point the nurse said to Shaun, “Come on coach, help her get through this” and he replied “Actually I think the less I say the better”. That boy is too funny! The triage nurses probably thought I was crazy. Maybe that’s why they were treating me like I didn’t know what I was talking about. After some fun arguments about urine (“Well, sometimes a woman thinks were water has broken and it was just pee.” “I didn’t pee, my water broke.” “Well, sometimes it’s just pee.” “It wasn’t pee.” “Well it might have been.” “It wasn’t…”), the nurse told me they were going to go ahead and let me stay. THANK YOU. There was absolutely no way I was letting them send me home, it was pretty much one big contraction at that point and I was already getting the urge to push. They still took their sweet time before they got around to moving me upstairs. (First they had to make sure 40 times that my name was spelled right on my paperwork.) I think it was around 3:30AM when I was moved. Looking back, it doesn’t seem like I was in there all that long. But when you are in the most pain you’ve ever been in in your entire life, time goes by REALLY SLOW.

Once I was upstairs, they checked me again. As soon as the woman said “She’s at 9”, with a sort of surprised look on her face, it was all business. The room filled with people hurrying to get things ready, and a midwife named Gracie came in to do the delivery. As soon as the epidural kicked in, it was time to push. (I told the anesthesiologist I loved him, he said he gets that a lot.) It was all a blur at this point. It happened so fast that I hardly had time to think about what was happening! Before I knew it, they were placing a little baby in my arms. I was still in shock. I had a baby! And I felt GREAT, so much better than I felt after I gave birth to Juniper. I guess I wasn’t in labor long enough to get exhausted! (With Juniper I was in labor for 33 hours. With Flynn, 3 hours and 20 minutes. Woo!) I was a little nervous about breastfeeding because it’s been so long, but he nursed like a champ. And man was he handsome! 

It was quite a while before they could move me upstairs to the recovery room because my legs were still numb from the epidural. But if I could, I would have marched down to Triage and said “Told you so!” In the end, we were in and out of the hospital in less time than I was in labor with Juniper. They all said the second child would go faster, but I wasn’t prepared for that. If the third one is even faster I may be in trouble… (Not that we’re planning on having another any time soon!!) It was fun calling everyone in the morning. “Oh, by the way, we had a baby!” I am so grateful for how everything went down, I wouldn’t change a single detail. Words can’t describe the amount of pain I was in, but I did it. (Definitely grateful for epidurals though!) I really felt great once it was over. I felt stronger, and SO blessed. I love my life ?