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The Birth Story of Lucas James

I started early labor on Friday evening. I had very inconsistent contractions coming all evening. I thought I might be in very early labor, but had a lot of contractions toward the end of this pregnancy, so I wasn't counting on anything. I went to bed late Friday night still having the contractions, but I could sleep through them fine. At 5AM I woke up not being able to sleep through them anymore. I was still unsure whether I was in real labor, but I went ahead and woke Michael (who had just gotten home from work two hours earlier) up and had him call Kelley, one of our midwives, to give her a head's up. We sat down and watched a movie and they continued to pick up in intensity. At around 9, we called Kelley again to let her know we were ready for her and Audra (our other midwife) to come. They arrived at 9:40. At that point the contractions were getting much more intense, but I was still able to talk and laugh in between. Baby's heart rate was doing great. At 10:01 my water broke, which was exciting because that meant that this labor was moving much faster then my last labor (28 hours). After that the contractions really picked up. Audra checked me at 10:34 and I was between 5-6cm dilated and the baby was already at a +1 station, so he was very low. I was disappointed that I was not as far dilated as I had hoped (my water didn't break with Noah until I was 7cm, so I was hoping for that at least) and at that point I started to panic with each contraction. I was having lots of tailbone pain because of baby's position being posterior and his head being wedged in there a bit. Audra had me walk around and move positions a bit to try and get him to get out of that position. I also got in the shower for a bit to help with the pain. I was really fighting the contractions and not letting them do their job. Michael was such a trooper and really took over and gave me lots of encouragement that I could do it. He really had the confidence in me that I was lacking and he was so good about staying calm. Audra checked me again at 12:09 and I had not progressed at all, most likely because I was fighting the contractions so much. I had a bit more of a panic and again Michael came to the rescue and finally I made a decision to stop fighting them and start doing what I needed to do to get this baby out. About this time Michael was also able to give me a blessing of comfort, which really helped me calm down and gain the strength I needed to finish this up. From then on things started progressing much faster. Audra checked me again at 1:23 and I was between 7-8cm and he had moved down to a +2 station. I was having a very hard time at this point not pushing even though my cervix was not at all ready to be pushed on. My pushing on the not fully dilated cervix was causing me to bleed a lot, so the midwives and Michael really had to coach me to not push, but to blow through the contractions, that was so hard! Audra checked again at 1:50 and I only had a bit of a cervical lip left, but it was swollen from the early pushing and she was having hard time getting it over his head. After trying for a bit to move the cervix and then having me blow through quite a few contractions, Kelley was able to move the cervix a little after 2:00. I was so ready to push! I had been so tired through the last couple of hours, Michael said I looked like a zombie, but when they said I could finally push I got a great surge of energy and was really ready to get the baby out. We had to move positions a bit to find one that would work for pushing, but the midwives had the idea of using their birthing stool and it worked really well. I pushed for 11 minutes and the baby was born at 2:37. He came out pink and healthy with Apgars of 10, 10, and 10. The labor was a total of just under 10 hours, much better then last time! I had predicted he would weigh 7 lbs. 8 oz. before the birth, but when I saw him he looked so tiny, I waivered in my prediction and said just under 7. But sure enough, he weighed my original prediction. All in all it was great labor and delivery, my husband did a great job supporting me and especially helping and encouraging me through the really tough spots and my midwives did an excellent job as well. We are so blessed to have had this experience and to have this wonderful new blessing from our Heavenly Father.

And for those of you that haven't seen them yet there are some more photos if you follow the link below:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/kmalmfeldt/sets/72157615742349506/