BIRTH. A STORY.

This was my 9th pregnancy.  My 7th time giving birth. You'd think it would all be old hat, right? Nope.  Again, each of the children has something unique about their birth. 

I don't know if it was age or the heat of summer or a combination of both, but July was pretty miserable--it was disgustingly hot and I was tired and achy.  We have never had air conditioning in our bedroom--until this year and I am SO glad we did. I prayed that the baby would stay put until 37 weeks.  FYI, the midwives won't do a homebirth until the pregnancy has progressed to 37 weeks.  The way I was feeling, it was questionable.  So, 37 weeks came and went--and I was ready. Another week went by and things kind of settled down a bit.  I had some severe round ligament pains but that eventually went away too after a few days.  There were several nights I went to bed wondering if we'd have a baby in the morning.  It should be noted that all of the kids (except Travis whose birth story is completely different) were born overnight or in the early morning.  Each morning I woke up STILL pregnant.  So, I finally said to myself, who am I kidding--he is probably going to be late!!  I might as well make the best of it and come to terms with that fact that it is going to be awhile longer.  That was August 27th.  

I woke up the next morning, normal time--fed the cats, took a shower and started breakfast. I had plans to run out that afternoon and an appointment with the midwives after that. Around 8am, I started feeling....pressure.  I'm not sure how else to describe it.  Not contractions, just really low pressure.  And I had to use the bathroom just continuously it seemed.  The kids were up at this point.  They kind of took over making breakfast for themselves as I paced up and down the hallway and in the playroom.  It was a scorcher already at 8am and there is a widow a.c. in the playroom.  I ended up calling Mike, but he was with a customer so I told him to call me back.  I continued pacing. 

He called back as I was starting to text him--it was now around 9am.  I told him I wasn't sure what was going on and it was quite possible it was a false alarm, but I would feel better if he were home.  No hesitation, he said he was leaving and made me call the midwives to give them a heads up and ask an opinion.

I did.

There are a lot of new midwives in the practice since I'd last gone this route.

I reached the on-call midwife, a new one and the one I had hoped would NOT be attending my birth. She didn't really help.  Said to time things and call back in awhile.  Gee, thanks.  I called Mike back and complained..but a few minutes later the midwife who had attended all of my births with the practice texted me and asked what was going on and if she needed to come right over.  She was in Madison.  I still wasn't sure that this was labor, so I told her Mike was on his way home and something was going on--not sure what.

She ended up coming straight to us.

I am SOO glad she did.

I continued pacing in the air conditioning.

Mike got home around 9:45ish, Lisa arrived around 10:30ish..very shortly after she arrived the tub was set up and filled and all the paraphernalia was ready. The assistant and photographer (both of whom I had never met) arrived shortly after. I got in the tub around 11am, my water broke in the tub (yay! no mess!) and Levi William followed immediately arriving at 11:25am.  All 9lbs 10 oz, 21 inches of him.  He came pretty fast.  I probably could have slowed down the pushing process a bit, but I wanted him out in the worst way.  He did NOT come overnight or in the early morning.  The kids were pretty much herded outside and hung around by the porch until he was out.  They came right in once he was out to meet him.  

Want to hear a weird story?  We don't share our names.  Never have, not about to start.  Anyway, so Mike really wanted to tell the kids the names we had picked out, I nixed that.  He would joke around with the kids about different names and what they wanted to call the baby.. the girls especially kept asking what the name was going to be.  So, one morning Carina tells me that she had a dream that the baby's name was Levi.  Of course, I didn't let on at all, but I texted Mike asking if he slipped up and told.  He insisted he had not.  She insisted that no one told her the name, it was in her dream.  Levi is a biblical name that we liked.  It is Hebrew meaning "attached, pledged or joined."  As you probably remember, we do family names for middle names and William was the name of Mike's maternal grandfather.

We missed the two other cousin birthdays that week.  I'm glad of that as well.  

I don't have the pictures back from the midwives yet.  

Here are a few from us.

Definitely not flattering, but authentic.

I debated putting this up, but eh--here it is a few minutes before I got into the tub.

Baby boy!!

So, very grateful and blest we are.

Time to get weighed and measured..After he did an enormous poop on my tummy as I was holding him!

All cleaned up and dressed.

We are praising God for this beautiful gift and that all went well.

"You have turned for me my mourning into dancing: You have put off my sackcloth, and clothed me with gladness; To the end that my glory may sing praise to You and not be silent. O LORD my God, I will give thanks to You forever." ~Psalm 30:11-12