I had to go in to the midwives at 41 weeks to do a non-stress test on the baby. They put a heart monitor on my belly so that they could check her heart beat for a solid 20 min. At that point I was only 1 cm dilated. Over the weekend I had lots of cramping and then Monday night I was having contractions. Everything would stop during the day, which was very disappointing. I had to go in at 41.5 weeks for another non-stress test (which was a Tues) and we were 3 cm dilated! My midwife told me that at 42 weeks I'd be considered high risk so they wouldn't be able to deliver my baby, and I'd have to go to a new dr. We didn't like the sounds of that, and so we scheduled an induction for the next day. That night I had contractions again, lots of them all night long. They weren't close enough or consistent enough to go in. We got to the hospital at 7am and turns out I was 5 cm dilated! They did give me some pitocin at that point as my contractions weren't in the right sequence to get things going. By 2:49pm, our little Emery Kate was born! She was 7 lbs 14.8 oz and 21 inches long.
Nan, a lady from our church who used to work as a nurse at the hospital we were at, was with us for most of the labor and for the delivery. I was a little nervous about having someone else in the room, but she was a huge blessing. I wanted to give birth without any pain medication, and I was able to do that! Nan helped a lot... with each contraction she would tell me (and show me) how to breathe. She also held my hand the whole time and Jason had my other! My nurse and midwife had to be in and out of the room as someone else was giving birth at the same time, so it was helpful to me and to Jason to have Nan there.
We had Gilmore Girls playing the entire time :) It was a nice little distraction when I wanted it/needed it.. and Jason and Nan could talk about it while I was in a hard contraction (I didn't like people looking at me while I was having contractions). I would also hiccup at the end of every contraction!
It was incredibly painful, but doable at the same time. I told Jason about 3 different times that I couldn't do this. He was so great... he was so loving and caring and knew what to do for me. Neither one of us had eaten since the night before, and he had to watch me be in such pain... towards the end he almost fainted! The midwife (Kathleen) looked at Jason and said "Dad, are we okay? Take off your sweatshirt and sit down. Eat some crackers and have some juice".
**Side note.. for some reason, it helped me to think about getting an epidural. Not sure why.. but every time I had a contraction all I could think about was "epidural...epidural".**
After 8 hours in the hospital (34 min of that pushing), our little Emery Kate was born! Oh how we love her! She has been doing so great. She wakes up on her own about every 3 hours to eat, she has been sleeping in her crib in her room for over a week now, and she recognizes us!
Here are a few pictures from when we were in the hospital and then her 2 week picture I took. Stephanie did a photo shoot with Emery when she was 1 week old, and I can't wait to get those pictures back!