Madison's Birth

My mom is at the store with Ty and Bryn, and Madi is sleeping. So even though I want to nap too, I really need to just write this out before I forget all the lovely details.

Saturday morning I woke up and said, "I really want her to come this weekend. I'm going on a walk." So I did, but nothing happened. We went about our day as usual. I started having contractions late morning/early afternoon but nothing very strong and they were random. As the evening progressed they kept coming, but I was trying to not get my hopes up. We put the kids to bed at 8 like usual and I decided I should start timing them. So we put in a movie and just wrote down whenever they happened, which by now was about every 10 minutes. Then they were getting closer, like between 5-7 min. Around 10:00 I called my friend Rochelle, who had actually called earlier that day reminding me that she would take my kids whenever I went into labor. She must be very in tune :). So I told her what was going on and she offered to come over and sleep on our couch instead of having us wake up the kids and transfer them to their house. I was SO grateful for that. She seriously helped my stress level go way down, I was so concerned with how Ty and Bryn would do while we were gone, and now they wouldn't even have to know. So while we waited for her to come over, we got everything together and Kenny gave me a priesthood blessing. I was so grateful for that blessing because the words he said, and certain phrases kept coming back to my mind throughout the remainder of this process and it gave me a lot of comfort and peace. I feel so blessed to have Kenny.

Rochelle got to our house a little before 11:00. By that point my contractions were slowing down and I thought oh great! As we started on the road I kept praying that my labor would not stop and I'd be able to have her that night. We decided to go to Wal-mart since they were still open, just to walk around and see if we couldn't keep things going. So we did that for an hour (they closed at 12) and then headed over to the hospital. They checked me and I was at a 3, but their little machines weren't reading very many contractions. I was having a lot of back labor pains, which was a whole new experience. I didn't have that with the first two. So they said we'll keep you for an hour and if you haven't made progress you have to go home. So we got up and walked around in the hospital for the next hour and that certainly worked. So they said I was at a 4 and could stay! woohoo! A couple hours later I asked for an epidural. It was about 3 a.m. and I was pretty tired. I had gone to the hospital wanting to do it naturally, like I did with Bryn, because I was still scared of epidurals from Tyler's birth. But aside from not wanting all the pain, I really did feel like that's what I should do. It turned out wonderfully and they were very considerate and kind, knowing of my hesitation and previous experience. So anyways, right after I got the epidural, my doctor (midwife, actually) came into break my water and she checked me and said I was at an 8!! An hour later she came back and said, we'll start pushing in a few minutes. Sure enough, little Madi was ready to come. I only pushed for a couple minutes and she entered this world at 4:29 a.m. and mad as could be! :) She had the cutest cry though and it was such a beautiful and emotional experience. She is perfectly healthy and doing so well. She figured out breastfeeding quickly and hasn't had any problems. They kept saying it was like a textbook birth, and she was a textbook baby, etc. and it's true. We have been so incredibly blessed. My recovery has been amazing. I didn't tear or get an episiotomy this time and I can't even believe what a difference that makes. That's seriously the worst part of birthing.

We are all just smitten with her and it's so cute to watch Tyler and Brynlee get so excited to see her and hold her all the time. She has such a sweet spirit and we're all just so grateful that everything went so smoothly. We couldn't have asked for a better experience.