Monday, January 10, 2011

time has flown by

Wow, where have the last 8 months went …. they have been the most blessed 8 months of our lives. It has been so amazing to watch Alyvia grow and develop her own personality. I’m going to do my best to try and catch up what I can from the last 7 months, starting with her birth story.

My due date was estimated for April 30th, and as most moms know that due date is defiantly an estimate. I had been preparing my self the whole pregnancy that there was a good chance I would go 2 weeks past my due date, I believe this allowed me to stay a lot more positive as the end neared. We had an OB appointment early the week I was due, I had, had a little change but not much. Anne told us she didn’t expect us to make it to our appointment the following week, I wasn’t going to fall for that line though, I was pretty sure we would be seeing her at our appointment the following week. The 30th came and went I was a little disappointed we didn’t have a little one yet, but knew it would be much longer.

The 30th was the last day I was scheduled at work. The day August and I woke up early to head to Jesup to go to a few garage sales before we had to head to Vinton for August to help a customer with a couple pigs at a show. After the show we headed to my parents to ride with them to my sister’s jazz band concert. When the concert was over I was talking with a family friend who is a nurse, she asked me to stand up to see if the baby had dropped at all. She said it didn’t look like the baby had dropped much so it would be a few more days. Little did she know, when I stood up I felt a gush of liquid… which meant we would be meeting our little on sooner rather than later. Luckily I had dark jeans on so I didn’t draw attention to my self and sat back down… since the contractions didn’t start right away. I stood up again and had another gush so, I got August attention and told him we needed to get going. On the way back to my parent’s house he called our midwife Anne to let her know what was going on. She told me to stay at home and try and get some sleep since I had been up since 7 that morning. About 20 minutes after I got off the phone with her my contractions started coming and were about 6 to 7 minutes apart. Once we got home I took a shower and August fell asleep, I tried to take a nap but that wasn’t quite possible.

At about midnight I woke August up and said we should call Anne and see what she thought about coming into the hospital, I wanted to try and use the water to relax and help with the contractions. She said we could head in if we wanted too. So, we headed to the hospital and got checked in. I was hoping to not have any pain medicine or iv at all. I had already talked to Anne about not wanting and iv and she said that would not be a problem since I didn’t need any antibiotics, she did let me know though that if I decided to get and epidural I would need to get and iv with fluids at least 20 minutes prior to getting it. We had tried to prepare ourselves as much as you can for labor, if that is possible. I kept telling my self I wanting to go all natural, but I think deep down inside I didn’t think I could truly do it.

August was amazing the whole time I was in labor, right by my side telling me to breathe when I was freaking out and telling him I could do it anymore. After, 14.5 hours of labor we were blessed with our amazing daughter Alyvia Marie. She is the best birthday present I could ever ask for, I’m not sure that any gift will ever top her. I surprised my self by having and all natural child birth, I think telling so many people I was planning on doing it helped, I didn’t want to let them down or hear the I told you so’s from them.

The past 8 months have been just amazing; we have grown as individuals and as a family. It has been trying at times, but so worth it!

I’m going to try and play catch up over the next few weeks, more for my self, but also for the few people who do read our blog.

1 comment:

Lyle, Sara, Elsie, and Lane McIntosh said...

i loved reading this Katie!!! I really need to update my blog - I totally forgot about it until recently when lyle needed to sign in and post a blog for school under my name. Hopefully we can get caught up on ours soon! Great reading this- Alyvia is truly a blessing to all of us too! She's such a sweetie & you and augie are great parents!