london's birth story.

on the late night of May 15, 2013, i was getting ready for bed and our dog, wrangler, was just a little more clingy than usual. he even followed me into the bathroom while i was getting ready for bed. that should have been clue number one. i tossed and turned in bed completely restless. just wasn't tired. at. all. should have been clue number two. now, it's early morning on may 16, 2013. charlie comes home from his late night shift at work and i figured i'd get up to go pee since i'll need to soon enough! [gotta love having that bladder smashed to the size of nothing! haha] after that, i go back to laying wide eyed in bed. charlie decided to make a midnight snack and that's when i noticed i felt a little wet down there.."hmm but i just went pee?" i get up to the bathroom, charlie comes in to go to bed and that's when i realized… at 2:56am that MY WATER JUST BROKE! oh my gosh. OH MY GOSH. this is IT! i got a little nervous. charlie went into awesome husband mode. got EVERYTHING ready. told me "babe. we got this. YOU got this! let's do this!" love him and his ways of being able to calm me down in literally any situation. i married right. i then took a quick shower, fixed my hair, got the last minute hospital essentials together all while charlie called the hospital letting them know we're on our way! we got to the hospital around 3:30 am, went into triage to make sure that my water was broken. well, their test gave me a "false negative". they sent me home. all while my water CLEARLY broke. i was so frustrated. i kept saying "my pants are obviously wet! i did NOT pee myself. my water broke! why don't they believe me?!?" we waddled back [we meaning i haha] to the parking lot and that's where my doula/sister in law bethany met us. she was just as shocked as we were that they sent us home! but, looking back, being sent home was a huge blessing in disguise. i was able to get a couple hours of sleep, eat and walk walk walk to try to get my contractions regular.

around 2pm on may 16th, we decided to head to the hospital again even though my contractions weren't completely on a "normal" pattern yet.

we arrived at the hospital again and just in time for my parents that were driving from southern california to arrive! this time, the nurses and doctor on call had no question that my water did indeed break. [told ya!] i was 1 cm dilated, 80% effaced and she was at a zero station. woohoo! a nice start!

we were then admitted into the room where our beautiful daughter would enter the world. room 258. soon after, my doctor, dr. david johnson [best labor and delivery doctor EVER!] came in, talked to me about the possibility of starting me on pitocin if my contractions haven't gotten stronger and closer on their own. graciously, he decided to look past the 24 hour mark of my water breaking and would let me be in labor up to 36 hours. bless him! unfortunately after all the walking and ball bouncing and swaying, by 10 o'clock pitocin had to start. after about 30 minutes of pitocin running, the contractions started to get more intense but i was handling it all pretty well. when it started getting hard, i counted on my awesome team of bethany and charlie. they were there for me for every second of every contraction cheering me on, letting me pull on them, lean on them and squeeze their hands until they were blue haha- whatever i needed to do to get through. i could NOT have done it without them. i'm so thankful for my husband and my sister in law. 

a few hours later, they checked my cervix and i was a 2-3cm. immediately i was discouraged. but bethany quickly jumped in to remind me how awesome that really is. the first 6 cm is the longest, especially for first time moms. that gave me enough oomph to continue on. about 2 or 3 hours later, these pitocin contractions were getting unbelievably intense and started to "piggy back" each other. thankfully, the nurse checked me again and i was at a 6! which meant- no more pitocin for me to see if my body can continue with these contractions naturally. and good news- it did! HALLELUJAH! and it was sooo much more bearable. still painful! but, not pitocin painful. a couple hours later, it was 7am and my doctor was back! yay! i was so happy to see him. i wanted him to deliver my baby so badly, not the doctor on call who i barely knew. he checked my cervix and i was a 9! A NINE! such exciting news! dr. johnson told me to let him and/or the nurses know when i get that urge to push. about 10 minutes later, i was begging to push even though i was deathly afraid of pushing. turns out my intuitions were right. pushing is literally the hardest thing ever. EVER. mainly because i had to push for 2 hours and by this time, i was utterly exhausted. but, my team was keeping my spirits up. the doctor came in again around 9:30 and said "okay! are you ready to have a baby?!" umm 31 hours of labor and you're asking me if i'm ready to have this baby? haha. the answer is YES, YES I AM! after a few more pushes, at 9:54am our gorgeous daughter was born with her right hand on her face. [partially why it was 2 hours of pushing!] i looked at charlie and he had tears in his eyes. we were now a family of three! i'm a mommy! he's a daddy! and we have a healthy, beautiful baby girl. we are so blessed. we had skin to skin bonding for a good hour. the whole time everyone said "oh my gosh! what a peanut! she's tiny!" we were expecting AT LEAST an 8 pound baby. charlie and i were both big babies, my belly was pretty dang big and my doctor was estimating a larger baby. but, to our surprise our little girl was 6 pounds 6 ounces and 18.5 inches long with a head circumference of 13.5 inches. perfectly petite. 

dr. johnson came up to us after he cleaned everything up and asked if he could pray over our baby. what a sweet surprise! charlie and i looked at each other in awe and said "of course!" it was a short, sweet prayer and one thing that still sticks out to me is that he said "I pray that throughout her life, this little girl will be able to draw closer to Thee, God." that is what i pray for our daughter, as well. i am still put back with this kind gesture that we weren't expecting at all.

i am so thankful that my goal of doing natural labor with no pain medication came true! i am feeling great! and i do feel quite accomplished, if i'm being honest. :) 

words literally can never express the love charlie and i have for London. she is the answer to our prayers and we feel so blessed to be able to be HER parents. 

London Estelle, you are everything we imagined and more. i pray we will be able to be the best parents to you that we can be, and to give you the life you deserve. we love you baby girl. never ever forget that. xoxoxo