Our Baby - Marian Edith

Our  baby arrived last week!

 

This is Marian - two days before she was born. :) I was fully convinced it was still going to be a week or two before the baby came, as I felt on the whole quite normal, and I expected things would slowly change so I would know when it was time. (wrong!)

 

At 3:44 in the morning on February 17th I woke up and went downstairs to the restroom. I went back upstairs to bed, but couldn't get to sleep because of some rather uncomfortable cramps. I was restless enough that Jordan woke up as the cramps got a little harder, and our whispering woke up Mom, who came to see what was wrong. (Mom and 3 of my siblings had come to stay until the baby was born to help us out)

I was still convinced it was nothing, but the three of us went downstairs and I tried to get comfortable on the couch or the floor, but couldn't. Finally about 5:30 am they decided to call the midwife, we had timed the contractions and they were about 2 to 3 minutes apart, and varying in intensity somewhat. The midwife said to keep monitoring them and call back in 1 hour. In 45 minutes they were more regular at about 2 minutes apart, and noticeably stronger. They called her again, and she said she would be on her way after breakfast.

We decided to move back upstairs to the bedroom. By this time I was getting pretty miserable, nothing seemed to help get through each contraction except holding on to Jordan. I wasn't able to relax through them like I had read about in various books.

So many ladies I knew had had very long labors with their first birth, that I expected that too. I assumed labor would go on for a couple of days maybe. Mine came on so hard and fast, that I started to get panicky during the harder contractions, as they were almost more than I could bear, and I was thinking to myself - 'I don't think I can do this much longer, let alone all day and into the next!'

 

 Somehow I had missed the memo from Mom and from the midwife that I was actually getting very close to having the baby - I thought I was still in the beginning stages, and when I started getting the urge to push I was like 'Oh no!! This is way too early!', and I was shocked when the midwife checked me and told me I was fully dilated and had her permission to push the baby out any time I was ready!

Up until the last I didn't think I would be able to do it. During the last contractions the only bearable place to be was on my floor mat, kneeling mostly, and that is where the baby was born. The midwife handed the baby to me, and I saw it was a girl. What an amazing lot of feelings were mixed up that day - lots of pain, then so much happiness!

Holding our little girl Marian Edith

Marian meets Dad

The most wonderful feeling ever. Having her here safely - and breathing a big sigh of relief  that it was over, and enjoying getting to know our daughter! Having her at home was a great experience.

She was beautiful and pink from the time she was born - she was very alert and latched on to nurse only a few minutes after being handed to me. She was born at 10:38am, so total time for my labor was only about 7 hours. So thankful! It seemed even much shorter than that to me - I couldn't believe that I had gone to bed the night before not expecting to meet our baby for a couple of weeks, and the next morning she was here!

She is such a darling - it's only been a little over a week and I can't imagine how we ever got along without her!

We love her so much!! Thank you to everyone who was praying for us!

My Mom put together a video slideshow of her first couple of days, click here to see, or watch below:

Marian from Shannon Ranch on Vimeo.