The day our Francie was born

it happened! we have a baby girl! she is the most most perfect little spirit and we are all so grateful to have her in our family and in our home. she brightens my day every.single.time i hold her. it really feels like christmas each time i look at her. i remember my brother sam saying that to me after his little hannah was born and it the absolute truth! newborns are such a beautiful thing. wow. their purity and goodness fill every part of your being when you hold them. sleep, house chores, laundry, make-up and all the hustle of life seem to fade away when a new life comes into your home. and when i say fade away, i mean don't get done :))

frances' due date was feb 18th and i was certain i would be with a day or so of that... if not earlier because i had a huge "UGE" belly and things were feeling pretty ready if you know what i mean. buuuuut she wasn't having any of that and stayed in a week longer than expected. friday the 24th was sunny and beautiful! it had snowed a lot the day before and everything was covered in a white, sparkly blanket of white . i had woken up the night before around 2AM with real rushes (we call them rushes instead of contractions-nicer ring to it) and i knew that we were going to have a baby within the next day (or so). when i was making the boys breakfast i noticed that i was bleeding a little bit which alarmed me a bit since that had never happened to me. i called my midwife and told her about the rushes and the spotting and she assured me that that was in fact "normal" and all was well. so we went about our day, wobbling around and stopping about every 10 minutes to breathe through contractions, i mean RUSHES! 

after lunch we decided to go for a drive and get out of the house to blow the stink off. we were headed to costco when my parents called and invited us out to dinner. I was relieved at the invite because i wasn't really feeling up for Costco, i was getting tired. I started to bleed more so I stopped by my Midwife's house so she could check on baby girl. She said baby was healthy and happy in my belly and that I was at a 4 and 90% effaced.... whatever that means! So off to dinner we went...! But all the restaurants in springville had over an hour wait so we decided just to have dinner at my parents house. Fried potatoes and eggs and then for dessert... MOANA! We put the movie on and sat down and that's when things started getting more intense. Rushes were happening about every 5-7 minutes now and they were much harder. I could feel when they were coming on, so I would stand up and hobble into the dining room to and sway and breath through each one by myself. 

After about 45 minutes of that, I told Daniel we needed to go home. He was just getting into the movie so he suggested we stay to finish. But it was time. I needed to be at home now and start getting into the zone, the rushes were too strong to be watching movies with :) 

We packed up the kiddos and off we went. It was a blizzard outside and everything was covered in snow. By the time we unpacked the kids, got them dressed for bed and asleep, I was in full blown labor. One of the sweetest parts of my labor was when I was waiting for Daniel while he put the kids to sleep and all the lights were off in our apartment. I was quietly singing "a Childs prayer" through each rush and the lyrics were more than just words, they were my prayer. I felt heaven all around me and I knew that everything was going to be just fine. I really do feel like heaven is so close while I'm in labor. When the boys were finally to bed I told Daniel to call the midwife, Micka (my sister)  and my mom. It was go time. He told me I should wait and that I was rushing it... (turns out he was probably right) but he obeyed and called in the troops. 

Before everyone arrived I was really feeling like things were getting close and maybe even wanted to push. But soemohow when everyone showed up, midwife setting up all the plastic on my floor/bed, everyone whispering etc,.... I lost focus and got out of my zone. My midwife suggested she check me and told me I was only at a 7 and that I was not ready to push- that made me mad! I completely lost focus and the next hour was really hard. I was laboring lying down because I just didn't have the strength to stand anymore. It was about 1AM at this point. After what seemed like eternity of really hard labor, (45 minutes) I decided I needed to pee and went to the toilet, as soon as I sat down the rush of all rushes hit and boom! My water broke. At this point it was either die or have a baby. The rush was not stopping so I decided to push that baby out and ride that rushhhhhh! I screamed and yelled and with every last bit of my being pushed the most perfect baby girl out of my body. Holy smokes it was hard. When they put her sweet little body on my chest I could not have been any happier. 8 pounds 14 oz of perfect and healthy. 

After the birth I had some blood clots which led my midwife to injecting pitocin into my thigh to stop the bleeding. Those next few hours were painful but we got through! The midwife and her assistant left at 6:30 am.