Life With Emmitt, The Beginning

Two years ago today, Mr. Emmitt joined our family.

 I woke up about 7:30 in the morning feeling a little crampy. Sam had a tee time set for 8. He asked me if he should stay home, but I told him to go ahead and go since I wasn't even sure if I was starting labor or not. Off Sam went. I called my mom to tell her that I thought things were starting, but I wasn't sure. After a couple of hours of this, I thought she should probably head down from Ohio since it was a 6.5 hour drive to Virginia, and I wanted her to be there for the birth. I was really stressed out though because I really needed to do laundry since I had nothing to wear that fit, and I had been too tired to do it the night before. Well, now I was too worried about hauling our baskets of clothes down to the laundry room of our apartment building without Sam. He came home before noon and started the laundry, and that made me feel better. 

By around noon, I was sure that I was in labor. It was just really confusing because I felt like I should have been in more pain. My family has extremely painful periods with debilitating pain that is constant all day often accompanied by throwing up, so this seemed easy since the pain only came in easily manageable bits, and then it was over. 

I called the midwife about 4, I think, but didn't hear back for about 20 minutes. She said to come to the hospital. We called our friends who were going to watch Mila, but couldn't reach either of them. My this time I was feeling a little worried, but didn't want to tell Sam since I didn't want to worry him. My contractions were getting pretty close together, our friends hadn't come yet, and we had 45 minutes to drive to the hospital.

Our friends came, we left, and we called my mom to see where she was. She was on the highway we needed to take to the hospital. We told her to drive slow, and we'd catch up with her. We did, and she followed us to the hospital. Along the way I was having some pretty strong contractions, and they were really close together, like 3-4 minutes. 

We got to the hospital at 6:05, and had to get to the maternity floor. I had to stop 3 or 4 times on the way to make it through contractions. My favorite part of checking in at the hospital was how they weighed me on an industrial-size scale. Like a normal one wouldn't have been able to register my pregnancy heft. Thanks for the ego-boost ladies! It really made me laugh! 

Once in the room, I changed, and they checked my progress. The nurse asked if I had a high pain tolerance. I thought she was making a jab at me since I wanted to birth with no meds, because I squirmed a little when she checked me internally. Sam and I laughed a little because we've never considered me to someone who handled pain well. But she said that I was at a 5, and the bag of waters was bulging. I guess all those years of crappy periods had some benefit because I still didn't think things were very hard.

With Mila, I was induced and had an epidural, so I had no idea what being in real labor was like. I really wanted to deliver Emmitt with no medication. My midwife was so great at doing whatever I needed to make that happen. I was having bad back labor and wanted Sam to put pressure on my back during contractions. I stood up beside the bed to have him rub my back, and it really helped. Right after that, my water broke, and immediately I felt the most intense and painful pressure of my life. That put me into a total panic, and I remember looking at my mom and saying, "I can't do this! I can't do this!" Fifteen minutes and LOTS of screaming later, he was born at 7:32. There is nothing in this world like seeing your child's face for the first time! We spent such a nice evening together getting to know our new little boy. That night when I was trying to go to sleep, I was thinking about how scary my water-breaking experience was, and I started thinking about all the places I had been that my water could have broken like the bouncy wagon at the Safari Park, Wal-Mart, church, or in the car on the way there, and I just cried and cried about it. I knew that all the other situations but the car were unlikely since I wouldn't have been doing any of them in active labor, but you know, crazy post-birth emotions.

I was so in love my sweet, mellow baby. I miss snuggling with him all the time and his new baby smell. He's a lot more exciting now, but I miss him like that sometimes. I can't believe he's 2!

Happy 2nd Birthday to Emmitt! You're growing up so fast!
Birth Day

1st Birthday

2nd Birthday