Holland Grace Friesen finally arrived on April 14, 2013! 7 pounds, 13 ounces, 20.5 inches long. She was 2 days overdue, which really threw me for a loop. But, I'm glad she came when she did. God's timing is always best!
I'm going to post the birth story here, so if you don't feel like reading details about it, just close my blog now :)
Sunday, April 14th I woke up around 6:30 in the morning to go pee. Glamorous, I know! But that's the story of my pregnancy. Anyway, I noticed right away that something must be happening... if you know what I mean. Within a few minutes, I had my first contraction!
At this point, I was giddy, knew I wouldn't sleep more, and decided to sit down and time for a while, and then have a shower. It was a gorgeous sunny morning, and despite still having tons of snow on the ground, I posted about what a gorgeous morning it was on Facebook. Of course, that got a few people wondering right away if I was hinting at something, which I actually wasn't.
After I was showered and dressed, I went to wake up Keith. From there, I called my midwife and my parents, who were going to come and take the kids to church. If you have heard my previous birth stories, you know that my labours are not long, about 3-4 hours or so, and I wanted to get to the hospital before I was in really hard labour.
We arrived at the hospital at 8am and were sent right upstairs to the maternity ward where my midwife was waiting for us. (From here on I will just call her L, ok?) L was happy to see us, and quickly showed us to our room for the day. It was right at the end of the hall, which was nice. A bit more privacy :) We chatted for a while and L checked baby's heart rate with the Doppler. I had requested that she just monitor intermittently with the Doppler instead of strapping on the monitors. Those things were always my downfall in the past, basically confining me to the bed, which I hated.
At this point, I was a little confused as to why my contractions were not very strong. Usually by this time, I was having to breathe through and concentrate, but now I was easily able to handle them. So, Keith and I went for a little walk around the quiet hospital. We joked around and had a good time, which just felt strange to me.
I walked the halls for a couple hours, just stopping once in a while to use the doppler. By around noon, my contractions were much stronger, and I decided that I wanted to move into the birth pool. I was super excited to get the chance to have a water birth, or at least try the pool. So, I got in and tried to find a good position. This proved to be difficult, because I was experiencing back labour. Ouch!
The contractions started coming really hard and strong, and I barely had time to rest in between. I remember saying that I wished that I could know that it would just be like 1/2 hour longer. It would make it so much easier to bear! I whimpered and cried out a few times during this time, and my midwife told me she was pretty sure it would be in the next 1/2 hour. That helped!
Just before 3pm I started feeling a bit pushy. I knew that my water hadn't broken yet, and it was causing a lot of pressure. Finally, at 3pm my water broke, and after a couple pushes, Holland Grace was born, in the water, at 3:04pm! The immense relief is amazing, once that baby is out!
I was able to hold her to my chest for a minute or two in the pool, but she wasn't crying, and wasn't pinking up as fast as they liked, so they cut the cord and took her. Of course, then she screamed right away, haha! I was a bit disappointed about the early cord cutting, but I guess they figured it was too risky to wait since she didn't seem to be perking up. Either way, I'm so thankful for being able to use the pool, and have a say in how things went.
I should mention too that Keith was amazing the whole time! When I was in the pool, he just held my head and brought me a nice cold cloth when I was really getting hot. L was great too. She sat there so quietly, not wanting to disturb me at all. It was a wonderful (yet very painful, don't get me wrong!) birth.
So Holland is our "out of the box" child. 2 days late instead of 1 week early. She is also our smallest baby, which is kind of strange for being late. And, I wasn't expecting her to be a girl! I thought for sure I was going to have a boy.
Holland is now almost 3 weeks old, and doing well! She's going through a growth spurt, so I've been nursing her almost every hour during the day. Very exhausting, but I know it won't last. She hasn't been the greatest sleeper. Often she will be awake for hours at night, which is downright frustrating for me. A few tears have been shed.
Overall, she's a real sweetie, and I look forward to getting to know her better. I will admit that I've had a rough time accepting the fact that I have another child to take care of. I'm trying not to dwell on that, and hopefully things will go a little smoother sometime soon.
