Introducing Penelope Jane :)

Penelope made her grand entrance on Saturday, May 30th at 9:28 p.m. 7lbs, 8 oz, 19 inches long--our biggest baby by half a pound!

Birth Story:

My water broke 1:30 a.m. Thursday. For whatever reason labor would start up, then stop. I'm Group B Strep positive so the fact that my water was broken before the onset of labor was a concern. Our midwife was comfortable with us staying at home waiting on labor as long as we were comfortable and I didn't run a fever and Baby seemed ok (I monitored the baby with a Doppler every hour and kept track of her movements and made sure my amniotic fluid stayed clear).

Saturday morning my contractions picked up and were very strong. We were all sure this was it! From 3:30 a.m. until 9:15 a.m. I had a pretty decent labor pattern going and then it just...stopped. I called our midwife and she headed over to our house (she had already been over multiple times to check on us, gave me herbs to help labor get rolling, administered an antibiotic injection to protect Baby, offer moral support and make sure we were comfortable with our decision to stay at home).

Our midwife and her assistant arrived and we decided to do our first internal exam to see what was happening--a last ditch effort to stimulate labor and to see if perhaps I was dilated to a 7 or 8 and could be stretched). I was dilated to 3-4 cm--kind of disappointing since I had been laboring on/off for what seemed like forever. We did discover that my cervix was posterior so she pulled it forward and did a "rough" internal exam (no big deal) to try to stimulate contractions. I spent 4o mins on the breast pump and got one kind of lame contraction (the day before I had spent about an hour on the pump and had gotten several good contractions). Our midwife listened to Baby during the contraction and heard a small heart deceleration and recommended that we transfer. Of course we had no argument and we packed our stuff, made arrangements for the girls and then headed off to the hospital.

On the way there labor started up in a big way. By the time I was checked at the hospital I was 6-7 cm dilated and having SUPER strong contractions. After a lot of consideration I decided to get an epidural for several reasons: I had this horrible pain on one side of my butt that would not go away in between contractions, I could not stand all these strangers coming in and out of my room, I had none of the comfort measures that I had counted on using--I had figured I would be having a c-section since I had already had one with Reese, and I learned that my doctor would only allow pushing while lying on my back--and I have never been able to handle contractions while lying down! Plus there was this underlying feeling of hostility from the doctor and some of the staff and that was making concentrating on my labor nearly impossible.

I got the epidural at 8 cm and then relaxed and joked with the people I had asked to attend our birth. My two oldest girls were there and they were very loving towards their old mom :) There were a few run ins with what I call "dumb hospital protocol"--nurse didn't want our kids there, doctor only wanted two people in the room, doctor wasn't too keen when I requested no episiotomy, etc--but overall the staff (somewhat reluctantly) respected our wishes. I protested and our group was "allowed" to stay and I got a nasty tear instead of an episiotomy (no help from the doc there). The birth itself was extremely easy--I pushed Baby out within two contractions and we were all shrieking "IT'S A GIRL!" in no time :)

While certainly not the birth that we planned I can say it was a good experience. I managed to avoid a c-section. The absolute only intervention I received was an epidural--I was very happy to have avoided pitocin (not that I'm sure I could have had any considering I had had a previous c-section). I feel like my baby had a gentle labor and while I don't think the doctor handled her very gently she was in my arms quickly and stayed there. As well as everything went, this experience reaffirmed our love and support of home birth. Once you've had a baby at home, it is very difficult to "go back" to a hospital environment. Not that the hospital is bad--we thank God that it's there! But the two experiences are almost night and day. If we ever are blessed to be pregnant again (overwhelming thought that it is at this moment), we would definitely aim for welcoming our baby at home again!

Some of my favorite pictures from labor:

Checking Baby's heartbeat.


Contracting after pumping (all that colostrum wasted...such a shame).


I like Jason's pose here. I would have stayed on the potty forever if the seat were softer. I was being extremely whiny and felt very sorry for myself in this picture. Huuuuuurt!



It wasn't exactly planned but two of my teenage nieces ended being there for Penny's birth. My sister swears they weren't traumatized by the experience (Grace looks a little pale though...). As you can see, my two older girls thought it was a pretty rockin' event :)


Ahhh-the fruit of my labor. There aren't many moments in life better than this one!!!