I Did It :)

 I tend to think delivery stories are a bit personal, so I normally wouldn't share something like this on my blog, but it was a pretty exciting evening, and looking back I am much happier with the way things happened than I was with my first.  My due date was June 19th.  I went in for a check up that morning and made plans with the doc to come back in a week to have her break my water if I hadn't gone into labor before then.  I felt fine the rest of the day.  I began having Braxton Hicks at around 20 weeks and they did get more intense as I neared the end of my pregnancy, but it seemed they were still just Braxton Hicks and nothing too serious.  Because of the unpleasant and scary experience I had after delivering Norah, I was determined to have a natural delivery this time and had been practicing relaxing through my braxton hicks(contractions) for months.  So I am sure I was having actual contractions a few weeks prior to delivering, but because I was able to relax through them it didn't seem too bad. 
Still feeling fine, we went out for dinner when Ben got home from work and then headed to the park.  I thought maybe if I walked a bit it might help contractions get started, it was such a nice evening.  We got home and put Norah to bed and then Ben and I caught up on a few of our favorite shows.  I had a few uncomfortable contractions that I had to relax through and I started to not feel very good, but I thought I was probably just tired.  Around 11:00 pm we got ready for bed and after we had been laying down for a few minutes I felt it, a huge burst and my water had broken.  Yikes!  This got me excited though because now I knew it was finally happening.  I told Ben that we would probably have a baby by noon the next day.  We started getting our things together for the hospital and then we planned on getting back to bed.  With my first pregnancy my water had also broken and I went to the hospital right away, only to labor all night long in an uncomfortable hospital room.  I was not about to do that again.  However this time my contractions got intense VERY quickly.  I was on my knees leaning over the bed just to get through them.  I only had about 3 minutes in between contractions.  Ben got ready to take Norah to our friends house and I was going to finish packing.  I had decided not to pack until I was getting ready to head to the hospital, because I was hoping it would help distract me while I was laboring at home.  I didn't realize I wouldn't have any time to labor at home, so I was panicking to get the things I needed.  Thankfully I had already packed Norah's stuff, but I told Ben to wait for me and that we would all be leaving, otherwise I was probably going to have this baby at home!  Once we left the house the rest of the journey was miserable.  We dropped Norah off and I got in the back seat to try and lay down.  We live about 20 minutes from the hospital, so I was seriously worried at this point.  I only had about 1 minute between contractions at this point and I wanted to scream during them, but I knew it would only make it worse and probably freak Ben out while driving.  Surprisingly Ben made it to the hospital in less than 10 minutes.  He says he was driving VERY fast. 
Once at the hospital I got out of the car, suffered through a contraction in the parking lot, and then waddled into the front doors as fast as my body would let me.  A man at the front desk saw me coming and got a wheel chair to take me to the labor and delivery unit.  I couldn't even talk the contractions were right on top of each other.  We got into the triage room and a Nurse asked me to get on the bed so they could check me.  She sounded pretty anxious when she announced that I was dilated to 9 1/2.  I was so relieved to hear that and then I felt it, I had to push.  I said it out loud and one of the nurses replied, "you are NOT pushing in here".  I disregarded her because obviously, I had to listen to my body :)  I heard someone say, "she's pushing", and they tried to roll the bed out of the room.  Another nurse said something like, why are we moving her?!  There were about 5 or 6 nurses around me, all in a state of panic!  Ben tells me that the nurse that was actually helping me deliver was calm and collected.  I don't think I pushed more than two or three times and little Emmett was crying and in my arms.  One of the nurses was so panicked that she was trying to suction out Emmett's mouth.  The calm and collected nurse had to swat her away and said, "he's breathing!"  I guess they just get so into the routine that they forget to think :)  Everything else went beautifully, the doctor got there once I had been taken to an actual room and helped me deliver the placenta and stitched me up.  Unfortunately I was so overwhelmed when I was pushing that I was lying down instead of sitting up like I should have been and I tore quite a bit.  But other than that I have had an excellent recovery this time around.  When I had Norah I got so exhausted laboring all night long that I had pitocin to speed contractions, then got an epidural because I couldn't handle it anymore.  A resident delivered me and pulled out the placenta instead of allowing it to come on it's own, and then the nightmare started.  I went unconscious, had to have emergency surgery to stop the bleeding, and then had 4 blood transfusions.  And then over the next few weeks I went back in to the doctor twice because I was still bleeding too much; both times they found more placenta leftover.  It was not a fun experience but I am of course grateful everything turned out ok and we have our beautiful Norah.  My experience this time was much better and I am so thankful for the miracle of childbirth.  We are loving our family of 4 and I am feeling so great that I don't think it will be much longer before I can get out and run again.  And it's a good thing, because the stress of 2 kids is much greater than 1! :)