Thursday morning, May 21st, 2009, I had an appointment with Dr. Park, my OB, to check the baby and see how much I was dilated. To my surprise and great excitement, he said I was dilated to "almost 4" !!! I went home feeling less energetic than I had the last couple of days, and just had a general "yucky" feeling. I felt like labor was going to be soon... would it be a matter of hours or days?
I told Seth when he got home that I just felt like watching movies and eating ice cream. I wasn't up for our nightly walk that we had been doing to try to encourage Josiah along... so he went to the video store and rented 2 movies, and got some ice cream and tater-tots... he had planned on going to a "guy's night" at the pastor's house, but decided it would probably be better if he stayed home, since I wasn't feeling good and labor might be close... he also decided to load the car with our stuff for the hospital, just in case...
At 8:15pm, I started having contractions. They weren't too intense, but they did hurt a little, and they were already coming about 3 minutes apart! We clocked them for about 15 minutes, and then we decided we better call everyone and let them know that we were probably heading to the hosptial soon! Could this be it!?
Seth started calling people while I layed down with James in his bed, and told him to go to sleep, and when he wakes up in the morning, Great Grams will be here and she will take him to the hospital to meet his new baby brother! I told him to pray for Mommy because Josiah was going to come out of her tummy really soon. We prayed, and I think we sang one song before I was having a pretty intense contraction, and I decided I better get up and gather my last minute thoughts...
We told Great Grams that we would like to leave for the hospital in about an hour, so if she could come over in a half hour to 45 minutes, that would be good. About 20 minutes later, my contractions were getting more intense, and I knew that this was the real deal, so Seth thought he better call Great Grams and tell her to come right away. Just as he was picking up the phone to call her again, she pulled up in our driveway.
We quickly got things settled with her, and just as we were heading out the door to get into the car, my water broke! It was about 9pm. I called Lyndsey and told her that my water broke and she should probably leave Chico as soon as possible if she wanted to make it for the birth. I had no idea how right I was going to be!
We got to the hospital just after 9pm, and had to enter through the emergency room, since The Birthday Place entrance was closed for the night. By now the contractions were so close together and so intense that I wasn't sure if I could walk to The Birthday Place, so the nurse wheeled me over in a wheel chair while Seth moved the car from the curb to a real parking spot. He just grabbed my stuff and came right in, thinking that he would come back for everything else after I was admitted to the hospital......
I was checked and dilated to 6. About 10 minutes later, I was already dilated to 7! My parents and Lyndsey and Ryan arrived right after the nurse checked me and said I was at 7. I was having an intense contraction. Seth could tell that he wasn't going to have time to go back out to the car before this baby was born! He remembered the Viacord kit, and sent my dad and Ryan out to the car to get it so that the cord blood could be collected right away after delivery...
The nurse asked me if I wanted to get into the shower after this contraction, and I said that the contractions seemed really close together and I didn't think that I would be able to walk to the shower before the next one. I asked if Dr. Park was there. She said that he wouldn't come until she called him. That concerned me, because I could tell that it wouldn't be long at all... then I had another really hard contraction. The nurse checked me again. In less than 10 minutes, I had gone from 7 to 9.5! She said, "you're not getting in the shower... I'm calling Dr. Park."
Dr. Park was there SO FAST. We found out later that he lives only 6 minutes from the hospital, and I swear he got there in 5! He had no time to change into his scrubs! I was ready to have the baby! I pushed for about 20-25 minutes, and before I knew it, they were laying my second gift from heaven right on my chest! It was soooo.... well, there just aren't words....
Josiah Daniel Condit was born at 10:37pm. He was 7 lbs. 9 oz. and 22 inches long. His skin was red, he cried right away, he was laying on my chest (and not on his tummy on a bed next to me, like James had to).... I didn't have to have an epidural, or an episiotomy, or a c-section, or pitosen - not even an IV! (these were some of my fears)... It was such a joyful experience!!! Relief. Awe. Joy....pure joy!
Josiah: The Lord has brought healing indeed!
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