One year ago today....

Olivia was born! In honor of her birthday I will relive June 11, 2007 for you.

I woke up around 6 AM with cramps. I thought it was probably from the 10 hours of gardening I did the day before--I just HAD to plant a tree and 20 perennials and lay pavers. Our neighbors just shook their heads when they saw me outside that day. :) So I figured it was just the gardening, although in the back of my mind I thought that maybe this could be something. I will still over a week out from my due date though so I was trying not to get too excited.

Ethan and I met Josie and Emmy for lunch. It was a terrible lunch--Ethan must have known that something was about to happen because he was just a stinker. I remember sitting there thinking, "How am I going to handle two kids?". When we got home, I put Ethan down for his nap and decided to rest. I put a garbage bag down on the couch (just in case my water broke) and tried to nap for a while. It didn't work at all. The cramps kept coming every 30 minutes or so and by that point I knew that I would be meeting Olivia that day!

Jay got home from work around 5 PM, right as the first real contractions started coming. I scurried off to our bedroom to deal with the pain away from Ethan--I didn't want to freak him out or have him asking questions. I folded laundry and took a shower between contractions. Around 6 PM I started writing the times down and quickly realized that this was going WAY faster than it did with Ethan. At 7 PM I called down to Jay to let him know we would probably be leaving soon and then I called family to get them on alert. At 7:30 PM I saw that the contractions were about 3 minutes apart so I told Jay that we needed to go NOW!





We got admitted to the hospital around 8:30 PM. They checked me out and found I was only at a 4. I felt like kind of a loser because with Ethan I didn't check in until I was a 6. Dumb yes, but I wasn't really thinking clearly. :) So the contractions kept coming fast (Jay took this picture in the midst of one) and I was anxiously awaiting my epidural. I finally got it around 10 PM (I have a picture of that too but I will refrain from sharing it!). Right as it was starting to take effect, I totally felt like I had to push. I asked the nurse what that was about (never did feel that with Ethan) and she checked me and sure enough, I was a 10 with a baby rapidly approaching. She kept paging the doctor and started getting things ready. I could tell she was getting ready to deliver this baby herself. The doctor finally gets there and I start to push immediately. They told me I didn't need to wait for a contraction so I just pushed like crazy and out she popped about 10 minutes later. She was so tiny! 6 pounds, 4 ounces. I thought I saw boy parts on her so my first question was a frantic "Is it a girl?". Jay kind of laughed and said yes.

So that is the story. It was great! I think the one thing I will miss about being done having babies is the actual day of delivery. There is so much excitement and drama and it makes you feel really strong and tough. It is truly amazing the way God created us.


Happy birthday to my little Livie! You are my favorite girl. You are the perfect addition to our little family.