Grace Louise Romney

She made it. 9 months of hoping and praying that our little girl would be healthy and safe finally brought us our perfectly healthy, beautiful little girl, Grace. Here's how she made her debut. My 38 week appointment was on a Wednesday and my midwife informed me she thought we would have a baby by Friday, I was dilated to a 3 and 80% effaced, having lots of contractions. Well I made it to my 39 week appointment the next Wednesday. At that appointment she said we'll be seeing you next week. Friday morning my water broke. I woke up to a thump like a hammer but internally at 2:30 am Friday morning. I got up to do my ritual pregnant lady bathroom break. Once I was done I noticed I just kept trickling, and trickling, and trickling. I couldn't stop. I let Grant know I thought my water just broke, just saying those words to him made my heart start racing. I wasn't having contractions so I thought I'd just wait it out a few hours, I REALLY didn't want to be induced and my midwife said if my water broke without contractions they would have to induce me. The minute I laid back down in bed I started having contractions. Grant and I started timing them, anywhere between 8 and 13 minutes apart and too hard to talk through. We hung out at home for another 2 hours getting everything ready with work and I did the dishes. Mind you this whole time I'm still trickling, how much water can a person hold?! Grant and I knelt down and said a prayer, I needed to know the Spirit would be with me. We got to the hospital at 4:30 am and by this time my contractions were getting more intense and about 5 minutes apart, but still bare able. My heart was racing, was I really about to have a baby? It was nothing like they show it in the movies with the running around like a crazy person and the husband accidentally leaving his wife behind. Between contractions Grant and I were totally talking and laughing and I was calling my family to let them know the news. They checked me at the hospital, I was only a 4! 2 hours of contractions and nothing!? The baby was also pretty far up so they had to keep me hooked to the monitors until my midwife showed up. Contractions laying down are no fun. By this point they were pretty painful and I really had to breathe through each one. My midwife showed up around 7 and checked me again, a 6! Hooray for progress. She also let me get off the monitors and move around. I found rolling my hips in a figure 8 really helped, but man those suckers were starting to hurt. It was at this point I started questioning myself and my desire to have her all natural. Could I really do this for a possible 10 more hours? I knew first time labors tended to be looong, and I was exhausted. I just decided, one contraction at a time, I could handle one more. By this point I was on the exercise ball sprawled out over Grant starting to think, maybe I'll die? No really, I was questioning it, dramatic I know. At 8 my midwife checked me again, 7. 7? One cm in an hour?! I started calculating, if that rate continued I could have another 3 hours. I really didn't think I could last another 3 minutes. From this time until Grace came out my eyes were closed and I was focusing all I could on just helping this baby out. They were coming 3 in a row with only a few second break, this is where I turned into a crazy person. Nothing can describe pain like that, but I knew it was good because my body was getting this baby out. I threw in the towel twice during the whole experience, and this was one of the times. I felt another contraction coming on and just shook my head with tears welling in my eyes, my midwife caught me and in her stern, calm voice said "Yes Zaundra you can do this." And I was back in the game. With every breath out I said to myself "you can do this." At around 9:30 she looked at me and said are you pushing? I couldn't help it the urge was too strong I just shook my head. "Ok let's push!" I found my second wind with that, I was going to have a baby! She had me hold my thighs and start pushing. Grant was right next to me feeding me ice chips and holding my legs between contractions for a break. Grant was right next to me the entire time, holding my head, holding my arms, supporting my weight, whatever I needed. Pushing was the second time I threw in the towel. Surely a person's body couldn't handle this much pain and pressure, I was going to split right in half. Every contraction my team of nurses and midwife chanted PUSH, GO, YOUR DOING GREAT, YOU GOT THIS! So I kept going. After almost an hour of pushing my midwife yelled "Zaundra open you eyes!" I saw our little lady be lifted up and put right on my chest and I lost it. Grace Louise finally made it and she was perfect.