In the early hours of Dec. 24th I laid in bed timing some medium strength contractions. At 41 weeks + 1 day I was ready to be done being pregnant. They came every 10 minutes for a couple of hours, so I would doze in between and wake up during them. I tried getting up and going up and down the stairs a few times to see if I could make them stronger or closer together and they stayed the same. They went away about 5:30 AM and I went back to sleep. I slept until about 9 AM and woke up disappointed and feeling like this pregnancy was doomed to last forever. I always went into labor at night and delivered in the wee hours of the morning, and so, it being Christmas Eve day, my hopes of having a baby before Christmas felt completely gone.
We continued with our plans for the day, dropping off the kids at Grandma Wendy’s for their Christmas Eve cousin party and taking time for a nice lunch with Shawn and baby Lettie. After that we finished up the last bit of shopping and errands we needed. During all of that contractions came on and off. I had never had this strong of contractions throughout the day, so I was curious to see what happened when I settled in at home. We got home around 2:30 and Jesse spent the afternoon bringing up all of the presents from the storage room and hiding them in our bedroom. I settled in on the bed and watched Netflix and timed contractions. At about 4:30 I texted Janae and told her how frustrated I was because they were 5-8 minutes apart and I felt like they weren’t doing anything. She assured me that they were. Alan and Rebecca picked up the kids from their party so Jesse could stay with me and we got ready for our Bethlehem dinner. I felt really bad that I couldn’t help Jesse with all the preparations for Christmas Eve, and I felt so guilty asking him for help but I was having pretty painful contractions by 6 pm when we started our dinner with the kids. I was a little bothered even, thinking that these contractions were hindering our Christmas Eve and I didn’t feel like I was even making any progress. I sat on my yoga ball and breathed through contractions while the kids ate cheese and dried fruit and Jesse read the Christmas story out of Luke 2. I could tell it was a very tender moment for him, but it was kind of a blur for me because the contractions were getting quite intense by that point. I cut the dinner short and told him I needed to retreat into my room and I really needed help to deal with these contractions. I felt so bad ditching out on the kids in the middle of Christmas Eve and taking dad with me, but I really couldn’t do anything else. Back in my bedroom I had a little breakdown, I told Jesse I didn’t think I was progressing very far and I thought he should just take me to the hospital. In my mind I thought I was maybe 3cm since my water hadn’t even broken yet, plus my contractions were very difficult to get through. I was so discouraged that this was taking so long and it was so hard. He said maybe let’s just call Janae and see where you’re at first. So he texted her and my mom and Amanda to help with the kids. Jesse started pushing on my knees and it felt 10x better and more bearable. Amanda arrived and helped the kids get ready for bed and turn on a movie. Janae got there around 7 and checked me around 7:15. She started laughing and announced I was a 7 with a very soft cervix. I just needed pressure from the baby’s head and I would be complete. I decided to have her break my water, hoping that would put an end to this forever pregnancy and labor. We got everything ready for the baby and filled the tub. My mom got there just as Janae broke my water around 7:40. After that stepped right into the tub to wait for my baby. Contractions took a minute to reestablish once my water was broken so it seemed like I sat there forever. After a few contractions in the tub I started pushing. I remember after the first few pushes I started getting really mad that I couldn’t feel her moving down into my bottom. I felt like my pushing was doing nothing. I felt like this was going to last forever. A few more contractions, a few more pushes and I was praying (and told everyone else to pray too) that she would move down. The urge to push was inescapably strong no matter what position I was in. Jesse had stepped into the tub to push on my knees but I desperately moved around trying to alleviate anything. I ended up on my knees semi squatting against the side of the tub. I was sobbing that I couldn’t do it, no matter how hard I pushed she wouldn’t come. I had a ginormous push and felt the tremendous pressure of her head in my bottom. I couldn’t even talk to tell Janae she was crowning. I took a breath and gave way to the enormous burning push and birthed her head. I took another breath and the pressure from that push torpedoed her body out into the tub. I reached down and lifted my baby girl out of the water. Janae helped me untangle her cord and I hugged her to my chest and sobbed “thank you” to Heavenly Father over and over again. I knew no matter how many times I said it, it would never match my gratitude, my relief that it was over.
I melted down the side of the tub in relief. In sheer joy that she was here. As I looked into her face I thought of the many evenings we had already spent in that tub together trying to make it through one more difficult day of the pregnancy. How fitting that we should end it there together in that tub, at 8:06 pm Christmas Eve.
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