Easton's Story

I've been putting off writing Easton's birth story but I really wanted to get it down since I never got Emerson's written down and I'm sure I've forgotten details. This is really more for Easton and her baby book but if you're interested, enjoy!

Easton Claire, who I was convinced was a boy by the way, was due on February 15th, 2010. Emerson was 2 weeks early so I was spoiled in that I never was really, truly miserable and pregnant. With Easton I was pretty miserable I think the last 8 weeks. I was just ready. I couldn't get on the ground and play with Emerson like I wanted to and I wasn't sleeping well at all so I was just over it. As my due date came and went I was more bitter by the day. I didn't want to be induced (for some reason it freaked me out) so I was willing to go over by a week. On Wednesday morning, 2 days overdue, at 6 am I was woken up by some sharp pain. I waited 10 or 15 minutes before I woke up Ryan because we had had a false alarm a couple of weeks earlier and I didn't want a repeat performance. I could tell very quickly that these pains were different and woke Ryan up around 6:15. He hopped in the shower and I called my mom to come over to watch Emerson. I was pretty relaxed and told my mom to take her time and Ryan wasn't all that concerned. I'm not sure what happened in those 10 minutes but before I knew it I was doubled over with pain and wanting to be at the hospital pretty quickly. I'll never forget- while Ryan was in the shower, Emerson woke up like she sometimes does and I went into her room to lay her back down. I picked her up and just held her, knowing that life as we all knew it was about to change forever and it was nice to just have a quiet moment with my first baby before giving birth to my second.

I called my mom to see if she had left yet and when she answered her house phone I was sort of panicked and said, "please leave now!" We had had our bags packed for weeks because Emerson came early and we were not prepared and we swore that wouldn't happen again so on that front we were ready to go. We met my mom at the door and were on our way to St. Mary's in no time. I think Ryan made it there in about 3 minutes. He dropped me off at the emergency room entrance because the maternity entrance wasn't open yet (it was just before 7 am at this point.) I walked in and said in tears to the poor woman, "I'm having a baby...!" She got a wheelchair for me and I was taken to a room to be checked out. Ryan came in with all of our stuff and at this point I was VERY uncomfortable with contractions. It was in the middle of shift change for the nurses so things were a bit chaotic. They determined I was in labor and admitted us. I got my epidural at 9am and from then on it was smooth sailing. Ryan got my Dave Matthews mix going on our IPod and the environment was very soothing from then on. Dr. Dowd came in shortly thereafter and said I was at a 10, fully effaced and that he just needed to break my water and that things would move pretty quickly after that. I was terrifed for him to break my water- I just pictured it being painful and I didn't need it to be done with Emerson so I didn't know what to expect. He said he could come back to check on me and I agreed. He came back a bit later and asked if I was ready and I said no! He told me I was in denial and that I was having a baby today! My mom and Amber were in the room (Jonathan was at my mom's house with Emerson) and they encouraged me to have him break my water. He did it with them in the room which they thought was pretty cool- it was completely painless by the way. After he broke my water at about 11:45 he could see a full head of black hair and said I was ready to push. With Emerson my epidural(s) didn't work and her labor was very painful so I was terrified. I had procrastinated long enough so Amber and my mom went out into the waiting room and literally 2 (pain free!) pushes later at 12:17 pm, we met our Easton Claire. What a difference an effective epidural makes! I was certain we were having a baby boy so I was just shocked (and thrilled!) we had another little girl.

Pure. Joy.