the birth story of jonah.

I delivered my sweet Jonah on December 31st, 2008 at 5:50 AM,
sixteen days before his due date.
he is my second born.
he came out with my strawberry hair and his daddy's features.
his birth was really different than what i had expected it to be.
it was a natural birth.

and here is the story...

the day before jonah was born i woke up feeling as if my belly weighed an extra 100 pounds.
it was so tight and i could feel that things were changing, like maybe his head was about to come out...
that day i walked a lot, ate an oreo mcflurry, washed baby clothes,
and then i wondered if today would be the day.
but then again, he wasn't due for 16 more days.

the evening rolled around and we decided to go swimming.
it felt so good to be weightless in the water.
we went home, put our little girl to bed at about 8:30,
and it was then that i knew i was feeling "real" contractions.
i labored at home until the pain really set in.

we went into the hospital at 2 am.
i was only at a 3, so they put me in a recovery room thinking it would possibly be 10 plus more hours until he came.

shortly after, my contractions were coming hard, really hard.
i asked for my epidural, but my nurse said it was too early.
all the while i'm sure she was thinking i was such a wuss!

the hours passed...still no epidural.
those hours were almost unbearable for me.
i hadn't prepared for a natural birth at all and was in too much pain to think straight.
my husband did his best to help me get through the pain, but i remember his voice sounding so faint as i tried to take myself to another place to run from the booming contractions.

at 5:30 i told my husband that he was coming.

and coming he was...

we were in the room alone when i started to push, in fact we had been in the room alone all along.
then pam came in.
she was a calming, obviously experienced nurse, who then announced that the baby's head was in sight.

she delivered my jonah right then and there.

it was all so indescribable!
the pain, the joy, the fulfillment.
and although i hadn't planned for a natural birth, there were so many amazing things about it.
i have never felt so much in my life...physically, emotionally...
and although it went different than i had planned,
it all turned out just fine.
beautiful in fact.




the first time my daughter preslee met her new brother...

here's pam, the nurse that delivered him:)

and here are my jonah and preslee now...

p.s. just so no one is scared to deliver a baby now...my nurse was new and inexperienced, hence the unusual circumstance of jonah's birth... that probably happens one in a billion times, so don't be scared that your nurse wont give you an epidural per your request.