Seven Years Ago Today . . .

. . . I was not in labor. This was unfortunate because I was quite heavily pregnant. In fact, I was 2 weeks overdue!! That is really not a nice thing to do to someone expecting her 4th baby! My first baby was 1 week early; my second one was about 5 days early. My third was born on his due date . . . and why wasn't this baby not even considering coming out into the big wide world?! I never even had any false laborto get my hopes up! He simply was not interested in moving on out!

So Jonathan should have been born in May, since his due date was May 22. Instead, 7 years ago today, on June 1, Bob and I were dropping the 3 other boys off at my parents' house on a Sunday evening so that the next morning we could go into the hospital at WPAFB bright and early--6:00!--to be induced. I was terrified. Bob was also nervous. So nervous that he backed the minivan straight into a tree at the end of my parents' driveway, shattering the back windshield. Ack! I just had to totally block that out of my thinking, however,and I can honestly say that I did not think about it one time during the next day. I just refused to go there! And it turned out fine. As I recall, it was fixed before we even came home from the hospital!

I was so worried about this induction, my first one. It also went fine, however. There was a friendly face on the OB ward there--the husband of a couple in our OCF Bible study was a nurse there, and he got me all checked in before he went off-duty. They finally started the pitocin around 8:30, but as the morning wore on, I could tell the contractions weren't doing anything. The contractions weren't any different than the ones for me in a non-induced labor, which was a huge relief for me. I never had any trouble dealing with them.

Finally they broke my water around noon, and that convinced Jonathan that his time inside me was at an end. I had to lay on my side and have an oxygen mask because his heart rate was decelerating during contractions. As I lay there, I was fully dilated, and I had a strong urge to push. But I had a thing about only giving birth in the standard half-sitting, with rear-end hanging off the end of the bed position, so I sat up right away. I never had such a strong urge to push again, which I have remembered in all 3 of my later births! I like laboring on my side during transition, and then I stay there and push a time or 2 to get the baby under my pelvic bone. After that, no problems! I had to push with Jonathan for 20 minutes, which is a pretty long time for a 4th baby. I think it would have been faster if I had stayed on my side a little longer. But he made his grand appearance at 2:40 p.m., and he was another big one--9 pounds, 6 ounces, and 21 inches long. My biggest one, 1 ounce bigger than Caleb! My Ohio babies were big--not sure why! I was ravenously hungry after delivering. Breakfast was a long time ago!

I think my dates were probably a bit off with Jonathan, since I was finishing up nursing with Caleb when I got pregnant. But when you are expecting to see a baby in May, and it comes into a whole new month with still no baby . . . you feel very, very, very overdue!!