...guess the last post worked!

Baby John was born Sunday, April 11th! When I woke up with contractions, I was so annoyed that I would be spending my Sunday in prelabor again.  However, a couple of hours later I found myself having to time them to see if they were real or not.  My midwife didn't believe me that I was in as much "discomfort" as I claimed because I was still talking through the contractions, so she made me stay at home for another hour or so.  When we finally talked again, she agreed to let me come in and get checked, but sounded like she doubted that I was very far along.  When we got there, you could tell that she still wasn't convinced that I was actually in real labor, and I was so scared that this wasn't real and I was just in a cycle of neverending painful prelabor.  Thankfully I was found to be 5-6cm, so we were allowed to stay.  I've never been so relieved to be told that I could stay in a medical facility in my life ;)

Early in labor I was moving around a lot and fairly peaceful -- I made use of the big tub in the room, lots of hands and knees positions, etc.  But after a few hours, I'd progressed to 8cm and really wasn't sure how I was going to manage the next two plus pushing.  The rest of the night is kind of a blur, with me moving around the room and bracing myself in a variety of positions.  My contractions finally turned from "retractive" to "expulsive" and I pushed for an hour.  The midwives were (weirdly) surprised that I was able to push him out in under an hour (54 min to be exact lol.)  They were also impressed that I was so relaxed through the vast majority of the labor -- though I was making a lot of noise during the last part.  I didn't scream though, and I'm proud of that :) I know I don't get a medal or anything, but it was definitely a personal goal of mine and I'm really happy that I was able to prepare for a natural birth and go through it.

John (the husband lol) was absolutely amazing and critical to my ability to get through everything.  He was so calm and patient... couldn't have had a better coach :)  It's pretty interesting that he and I have such different experiences of my labor, since he experienced it in an entirely different way. 

It took about four days after baby John's birth for me to say that I could imagine going through it again.  Of course, that won't be for a loooong time ;)