Evalette's Birth Story (A little jumbled sorry...)

8-17-2015:

2am:
Started contractions at 10pm the night before. An average of 45 seconds every 8-12 minutes.
Each contraction I would close my eyes and think different thoughts to make it easier like,
"It's only 45 seconds."
"This won't last forever."
"My body knows what it's doing."
"Time to get this over with."
It was 100 degrees that day so our house was hot and Pria was moving a lot trying to get comfortable. All I want is for her to sleep through most of the night at least. I don't want to have to wake her up earlier than 5am...
Each contraction I was experimenting with what helped be less uncomfortable. Different positions, thoughts, distractions, moving my hips in certain directions...etc. I wanted to see what worked best before I got to the birth center and contractions would be worse making it harder to think clearly.
There was no way I was going to actually fall asleep during these contractions. Déjàvu to last time when contractions started around the same time and I had early labor contractions ALL night before we even went to the birth center... I was afraid of doing that again but oh well. Hopefully it won't take as long overall. Again I am already so tired. Frustrating.
3am: "I should probably shower..."
The hardest part in beginning is deciding at what point should we go to the birth center and how long should I push time so Pria can sleep longer? When should I call and wake up the photographer to get ready to go? Is like to be home for as long as possible but at the same time this is the second time around and who knows how fast things will pick up?! Will I be that lucky?....
4am: Contractions are really intense. I'd consider it active labor stage.
5:18am: We woke up Pria by changing her clothes as she was asleep. She opened her eyes wondering why we were doing that and we said, "It's time for the baby to come out Pria, we need to go to the birth center." She responded with a smile and said, "Pria hold baby? Yeah okay." Love her.
5:23am:
Leaving the house. Contractions super strong and short
Was fully dilated when I got to Thrive Birth Center. The midwife Caitlin said she hadn't planned on it but would check if I wanted. I wanted to out of curiosity and so it might give me encouragement if I was farther along than I thought.
I got in the tub not too long after she checked me and was in there for about two hours before Dustin came in to help support me. Their tubs have no armrests or handles to make it easier to brace myself. I feel like a lot of the soreness I had later was mostly from me trying to support myself as I pushed. With Dustin sitting behind me and hold me up I was able to focus on pushing comfortably. He whispered words of encouragement to me while supporting me
 She was posterior making it really hard to push her out comfortably. At the very end we had to get out of the tub and sit on the birthing stool which I wasn't excited about, but the pressure and gravity was needed to get baby girl out. It burned so bad. The ring of fire...
Dustin again sat behind me while I was on the stool. He was sitting on the bed with me sitting on the stool against the bed.
Pushing her head out was the hardest part. After that I waited for them to say they were ready to catch her, I pushed not to hard and she was out. I remember that part not being that difficult or as painful.
Pria did really good. She wanted to come in the tub at the very end but was too late. She sat on the tub watching mommy majority of the time which I was happy she was there being involved.
My mom and sister were there in case Pria needed anything but like I had thought, she handled very well and didn't want to leave us. My dad was with patients all day but he did come and sit in the lobby with my mom for a while before the office opened.

Born at 9:49am
Weighed 9.02
Height 21.25

Jelina said when she looked at me and I looked at her at one point, that it was like I wasn't there and I was in another world. It is true that during that whole process everything is a blur and I am unaware of a lot of things going on in the room. When Dustin said Evalette was born at 9:49 I thought it was night time and not the morning still. I thought the room was completely dimmed and dark except for a couple candles when in fact it really wasn't that dark at all he said. It is strange. It's like I was for that time in another place, on another side...because I was bringing a little angel into the world, I was able to be that close to where she was before she was earth side.

After they cleaned us up on the bed and checked me I nursed Evalette and we rested for a bit. The photographer left for a couple hours to go eat and rest since she got one hour of sleep that night. While we waited we gave Pria her "gift from the baby" which was this toy horse stable with 8 little horses in it that she had played with before at a friends house and loved it! We also asked Jelina to snap pictures of the 4 of us on the bed so we would have some of our own pictures from that day, not having to wait for the photographer. Plus I don't think Pria would have been as comfortable doing pictures all together with our photographer. She was better with Jelina...
When the photographer came back around 2pm, all 4 of us got back in the tub to do some pictures in the water since I was unable to push her out in the water. It was nice getting back in the warm water to not only get relaxed but feel cleaner too. I am grateful the photographer recommended doing that because the pictures came out beautiful and so spiritual for me.
Dustin and Pria left right after the pictures to go nap at my parents while I rested/napped with Evalette at the birth center. They came back about 6 and we packed up to go home finally.

8-18-2015:
We put frankincense on Evalettes crown and myrrh on her naval/umbilical cord the next day.

8-20-2015:
Evalette lost her umbilical cord today. The myrrh helped it heal properly

40 Weeks

Counting down days...

The waiting game is hard. Only because you don't know if you should plan anything and you just have to see how things go day to day the weeks around your due date.

So far we have passed up a couple birthday dates of others and our anniversary which we are grateful for. We didn't really want to share our anniversary date with a kid. Just makes planning easier...

This pregnancy hasn't really been much different than when I was preg with Pria. Although, I have had more heartburn this time around during the last couple months. I also have had plugged eardrums in both ears the last month which has been very weird and FREAKISHLY ANNOYING. I constantly feel like I am in an airplane trying to pop my ears so I can hear properly. I read online that if it is pregnancy related it should go away right after having the baby. Lets hope it goes away...otherwise I have a problem...

I know Pria will be helpful and a good sister. She is very gentle already and loves seeing being around other babies. She gets excited and then asks when she can hold our baby. I just say a little bit longer. She's not ready yet...
As far as feeling any difference in my stomach it is also similar with kicks and moving around. This one, just like most girls, wants to take her time and is in no hurry to come out. I just hope the labor isn't as long as Pria's was...

Pria has watched multiple birth videos and gets really happy/smiley when the baby comes out and it is fun to watch her face. :)