I'm finally getting around to recording the details of Erin's arrival- this time around it feels a little strange to detail in a blog, but since I did with Brennan and I want to record the memory somewhere, here we are!
On Wednesday night, April 18th, I had a few light contractions throughout the night. They continued at random the following morning, but because they were pretty easy and Erin wasn't due to arrive until May 1st, I figured they were just braxton hicks. I was actually excited, because I hadn't experienced any with Brennan and it seems like other pregnant women get a ton of them leading up to labor. I sent a text message to my sister-in-law Julie that morning saying "I think I'm having braxton hicks- maybe she'll be coming soon!" As in, within the next week. Julie responded "how do you know they're not real?". Good question, I had no idea! So I started to pay a bit more attention to how I was feeling.
Everything continued to be pretty manageable throughout the morning. I went to the park with Brennan and half-listened to the other moms chatting around me, wondering if they noticed that there was anything going on with me.
Around 1 or 2 p.m., the contractions started to intensify a bit. They weren't really regular, but I was definitely feeling them more and thinking more and more about Julie asking me how I knew whether or not they were the real deal. My parents happened to be at our house, and around this time I mentioned to them that I thought I was probably in labor. I don't know if I was just too casual about the whole thing, but at the time my mom was working on the computer and on the phone with some sort of tech support, and all she did was shout across the room "do you have lion or tiger? (or something along those lines regarding my safari access). My dad, however, was in the same room with me and was pretty quiet, just throwing uncomfortable glances my way occasionally before finally excusing himself.
I sat there on the couch focusing on my breathing. The contractions were still several minutes apart, and I felt pretty excited, thinking to myself "so this is what normal contractions (or braxton hicks?) feel like! (Just to explain, I pretty much woke up in transition with Brennan, when the stuff was hitting the fan, and had no idea what a "normal" labor would feel like). It felt really good to be so focused on how I was feeling and attempting to manage the pain at a slower pace.
I texted Billy at some point in the midst of all of this, letting him know that I could be in labor, but wasn't really sure, but he might want to come home just in case because we might be getting a baby soon.
I don't remember the rest of that afternoon very well, only that the contractions continued to become more regular and more painful. I think I went to lay down around 6 p.m., and just focused on what I was feeling, attempting to relax as much as possible, and BREATHE.
Billy went to sleep, and I just lay awake trying to manage everything. I became more and more excited as I realized that this was definitely "it".
My parents had left to go to Molly's house up the street, where they were staying to watch the dogs while she and Dave were down visiting Mike and Jen in San Diego. (Side note, Molly was planning on being with us through Erin's labor and birth, and planned this trip 11 days ahead of our due date with no idea that she would miss it). My parents left with the understanding that they might be getting a call at some point to return to our house to stay with Brennan while we were at the hospital. I was still honestly thinking that we at least had until the morning before we would need to go anywhere.
Around 11:30 p.m. I started to really struggle with the contractions. I worked at it, not wanting to wake Billy up and not wanting to call mom and dad unnecessarily. It was seriously hard, but for some reason I still had this sense of doubt. I was watching the clock so hard and timing everything, but everything seemed so irregular despite the intensity.
This is when everything sped up and happened all at once. At 12:27 a.m. I woke Billy and asked him to call my dad. By the time he arrived about 10 minutes later, I was shivering uncontrollably and unable to do anything (the same state I was in when I woke up in labor with Brennan). I dreaded getting out of bed and having to see my dad- there's something a little uncomfortable about your father seeing you in that state. I managed a quick "hi", though, and made it to the car. On the drive to the hospital I kept telling Billy (between contractions) to relax and slow down. I still thought I had several hours of work ahead of me!
Once we parked and started our walk into the hospital, I was a disaster. We would walk 20 feet, then a contraction would hit and I would frantically dive onto all fours and start moaning uncontrollably. We made it to the hospital entrance only to discover that it was closed and we needed to make our way to the emergency entrance, which meant several more dives onto the sidewalk, followed by several more dives along the hospital corridor. At some point a hospital staffer actually noticed me and offered up a wheel chair. We finally ended up at labor and delivery, where I attempted to calmly check in only to dive under the counter mid-sentence and start the crazy moaning again. Suddenly everyone started to rush around us, wheeling me to a delivery room (with a couple of stops for me to throw myself out of the wheel chair and onto the floor). We had a ton of people in our delivery room all at once and they were giving Billy a hard time for not coming to the hospital sooner. I was checked and told that I was fully dilated and ready to push, but there was no doctor currently present and I needed to "hold it". This was the worst. I lay in the delivery room on my right side, and with every contraction just writhing/screaming/whimpering/moaning at the top of my lungs. Everything about it was just so wrong and so miserable. The 10 minutes it took for the doctor to arrive were complete agony.
Once she was there, it took me two more contractions before I could get myself onto my back to actually push. I was determined to get through the pushing phase much faster this time around (Brennan was a few hours), and managed to give birth to our baby girl within just a few minutes. She was born at 1:34 a.m. on April 20th, 6 lbs. 12 oz and 20 1/2 inches long, calm as could be with kinky black hair. We had brought a list of seven potential first and nine potential middle names to the hospital, but Erin had been a frontrunner for about a week (can you beat a name that means Ireland and peace at the same time? Not to mention, I have only known awesome Erin's in my life...) and we quickly decided on Alise as her middle name because it meant noble and light (and we thought that it was a beautiful combination).
In the meantime, my dad was at our house with Brennan. Brennan NEVER would wake up at night at this point in time, but for some reason on this particular night, woke up, went to look for us, and then cried hysterically in the living room. My dad went to comfort him, then slept on the couch while Brennan comforted himself in his "tent" playing with his trucks. It's almost as if he knew what was going on and sensed that his world was about to drastically change.
Erin's arrival was so different from Brennan's, amazing and exciting in a totally different way. We became an entirely new family all at once, and it was perfect.
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