Hello friends!!
First off - thanks everybody for the wonderful well wishes and congratulations via facebook, email, texts, phone calls! We feel so loved and are so grateful to have such wonderful friends and family! We are absolutely loving being parents and could not be happier :)
Here's a brief overview of the birth story for those of you who are interested.
After much prayer and research we decided to go with an
all natural child birth. Our midwife was
Sherri Price and we had Evette at a
birthing center in Pleasant Grove. In preparation for our birth we did a home study of
hypnobabies, which we loved.
On Tuesday morning I woke up around 1:30am with contractions about 5-10 minutes apart. I spent the next 3 hours or so walking around the house, trying to figure out if I was really in labor or if I was just making it up. I was not making it up. I woke up the husband around 4:30 and we decided that we should call Sherri, our midwife, and to make a game plan. She said that we should come over to her house and that she would check me to see how we were doing. We packed up our car with all of our birthing preparation stuff and headed over.
She said I was barely dilated, but was about 80% effaced. She said that this could just be a false alarm and that the contractions could stop and it could be another week before the baby was born. She showed us a couple different tricks to make the contractions pass faster and smoother and sent us home to try to sleep through the contractions.
I could not sleep, but tried to rest as much as possible and to conserve my energy for the birth itself. The contractions did not slow down at all so later that afternoon Sherri sent over one of her assistants to check me again. I had made a little progress and it was determined that this was not a false alarm, but that we would be having a baby in the next 24-36 hours. Crazy. So all that day I labored at home while the husband was at school.
When he got home that evening we headed back up to our midwife's house to be checked again. Slow progress, but progress nonetheless. We decided at the point it was time to head to the birthing center. We had all of our stuff and met her down there with a couple of her assistants.
 |
| Birthing Center |
This was a long labor. A very long very difficult labor. To make a very long story short I spent hours and hours trying different positions and techniques to try to get Miss Evette to join us [tub, birthing ball, climbing stairs, swaying...]. She was occiput posterior and my cervix was stubbornly tough which is not a happy combination. We tried 3 different times to birth the baby before she finally decided to join us. It was a long grueling process, but we finally got her turned.
After 39 hours of constant labor, running on naps lasting less than 5 minutes, a few grapes and a berry smoothie, lots of water, lots of sweat, many many tears, a few choice words, and lots and lots and lots of prayers, Miss Evette joined us at 4:42 pm on Wednesday September 28, 2011 weighing in at 8 lbs 9 oz and 22 inches long. She was absolutely perfect.
I had lost quite a bit of blood during the birth and was quickly hooked up to an IV, but I could not have been happier - I had our little girl in my arms.
 |
| With one of the assistants - Brindie |
 |
| With Sherri, our midwife, and Roxanna, an assistant |
Giving birth to Evette was the most rewarding event of my life. She is an angel from heaven and I cannot believe that she is ours.
