Screaming Bloody Murder, Guns Drawn

Last night was quite an eventful night to say the least. It all started at 4:30am when my husband and I were awoken from a dead sleep by the nonstop screams of bloody murder coming from our next door neighbor living in the unit connected to ours. We live in a fourplex if you were wondering.

This woman and her boyfriend moved in about 2 1/2 months ago, and we have had problems with them ever since. Mainly constant yelling and fighting at random hours of the night, or really loud sex at various sleeping hours up against the wall dividing our bedroom from theirs. Last night though, was a whole new level of crazy.

As we were woken up by these screams, I was sure something horrible had to be going on. Maybe her boyfriend had finally had enough of her loud mouth and was killing her. Or maybe someone had broken in and raped her. All these horrific things were racing through my mind as I asked my husband if we should call 911. He said yes and we fumbled around our bedroom searching for one of the cell phones. I dialed 911 and the dispatcher answered immediately and asked the address of our emergency. I gave him the address and explained what was happening, and he told me they would send police over right away.

At this point it seemed like forever for the cops to get here. I tried checking the call history to see how long it had been, but apparently 911 calls don't show up in the call history on cell phones. The whole time our neighbor continued her blood curdling screaming and sobbing. As I listened closer though, I didn't hear another person other than her over there and started thinking maybe she was just overreacting as usual to god knows what.

I am guessing it was roughly 5 minutes until the cops showed up. They quietly drove past our house and parked a few houses down. Our neighbor was taking a quick 10 second break from her screaming, but quickly started up again. Once the screams continued two police cars backed up and pulled into our driveway. A third police car came very soon after. While I peaked out my upstairs bedroom window I saw two officers sneaking up to the front door, using our car for cover, guns drawn.

The cops banged on her door and told her the police was there and she needed to open the door. All the while she kept screaming and screaming. They yelled to her that they were going to come in if she didn't open the door, and one of the cops ordered a few more to go around back. By this time there were 5 total police vehicles lines up on the street in both directions from our house. As the screams continued I heard one of the officers radio in for an ambulance, and another officer keep telling the neighbor to come downstairs and open the door to talk to them.

Finally after about 10 minutes of this, she comes down stairs and lets the police in. While they are talking to her inside another police vehicle along with a sheriff's vehicle and a fire truck pull up. The ambulance arrives shortly after and 3 paramedics calmly walk inside carrying their equipment. As the paramedics do their thing inside, the 7 police officers that have arrived throughout this ordeal stand in a circle out in the driveway and quietly talk amongst themselves. As I continue watching out my window I see one of the paramedics, a younger man who appears to be not as sure about himself as the other seasoned paramedics, comes out and unloads a stretcher and slowly wheels it up to the door and goes back inside.

The paramedics are inside for about 15-20 minutes, and all the while the officers stand in their circle talking and laughing. When they were done with their evaluation the paramedics walked back out, talked to the cops for a couple minutes and then packed up the ambulance and left. The officer that talked to the paramedics went inside and soon after came back out with my neighbor following him, wearing pajamas and texting on her phone. She got in the police car and everybody left.

This whole mess took about an hour, and judging by the way the paramedics and police officers were acting after they initially got inside to talk to her, and by the fact my neighbor came out texting on her phone I think I was correct in thinking she was just overreacting as usual to whatever arbitrary drama is currently going on in her life. It was clear by the end that there was no emergency. I just cannot fathom how she can think it is acceptable and okay to react to anything short of an emergency in the manner in which she did.

My husband and I finally got back to sleep around 6am. Come 7am, my neighbor and her boyfriend arrived back home, and what did they do? As soon as they got out of the car they immediately started yelling and fighting outside and going on about how so and so is "acting like a f***ing c**t". Then her boyfriend proceeded for the next 45 minutes to yell near our window at their worthless little dog who ran away, because guess what? They never use a leash on it when it is outside and just let it do whatever. This is about the third time in 2 months it has decided to take off while unleashed outside, and the first time this happened it ran out in front of my car when I was coming home one night and I nearly ran it over. Seriously, how dumb and clueless can you be?

Back in Action (I hope)

Man how time flies! It has been about 4 months since I've done a post.

Today mark's the day Tyler turns 7 months old. I just cannot believe my tiny belly fish has turned into this crawling, screaming, laughing, pulling himself up on everything, adventurous little person.




So, what new things have happened in the last 4 months you ask? WELL, my husband and I are currently in the process of buying our first house. It is an amazing four year old, 3 bedroom 3 bathroom, 1850 square foot house, and it sure as heck beats the tiny 750 sqft apartment we currently live in. I mean come on, we cannot open the refrigerator and the dishwasher in our current kitchen at the same time, nor the dishwasher and cabinet under the kitchen sink at the same time. Can you say tiny! So we are very much hoping everything with our loan goes through since we are scheduled to close on the house sometime between the end of this month and September 13th.

Hmm. My husband and I got a pair of guinea pigs. They are both boys and they were an early birthday present for my husband's 22nd birthday!



Coco Mocho showing off his awesome colors!


Hamlet and Coco Mocho in their temporary box cage when we first got them.


Oh, did I also mention that I have recently become addicted to entering free blog giveaways? I have discovered just in the past two weeks, that there are literally hundreds and hundreds of free giveaways on various blogs. I never knew! Just in the last 6 days I have won FOUR different giveaways. Talk about a good start to the month!

I also discovered just last night that you can sign up with a site called Sponsored Tweets and get paid for your tweets! It is very quick and easy to get started, just requires a name and email address and no strings attached. Feel free to check it out here and sign up if you wish.

I will update everyone on some of the really awesome giveaways I come across that way you can participate as well. I hope to get back into blogging and not go months in between posts again. We are under a lot of stress with the house right now though, so we will see how it goes.

Wisdom Teeth

Yesterday I had my wisdom teeth surgically removed. I ended up having to go to an oral & maxillofacial surgeon since I requested IV sedation and my dentist is not currently licensed for that. Let me tell you, the IV sedation is definitely the way to go!

When I went into the room where they did the surgery the nurse had me lay down in the chair. She then put a blood pressure cuff on my arm connected to a machine that automatically took my blood pressure every few minutes. She also attached a band around both wrists and one ankle that was hooked up to the machine to monitor my heart rate.

The laughing gas mask was put on me and I immediately began to feel very tingly and funny. Oh laughing gas, that's some good stuff. After a little bit the doctor came in and started my IV, first to give me some fluids to help with dehydration since I wasn't allowed to eat or drink 8 hours before the surgery. They let me sit there with the laughing gas and IV fluids for a while, and then the doctor came back in and did something to the IV.


(The awesome doctor Kevin Rethman who took out my wisdom teeth. You can find him at http://www.kevinrethmandds.com/index.html)

Next thing I know the kind nurse was telling me it was time to wake up and that I did really well. I didn't even remember going to sleep, or even becoming sleepy at all! I was so confused and didn't know what was going on or where I was. I kept feeling me chin and bottom lip which were both swollen and completely numb. I very much wanted her to leave me alone and let me go back to my peaceful slumbering, but she told me to try and keep my eyes open and wake up. I could barely control my body, especially my head and arms. I was also looking all around wide eyed and confused. It was all very weird and hard to explain the sensation.

After I was awake enough the nurse helped me walk down the hall and put me into a wheelchair. Then they called Mark back and went over the instructions on how to take care of me for the rest of the day and said the doctor would call that night to see how I was doing. I remember they handed me a pack of gauze and a syringe and I just stared at it confused not understanding what it was for. I thought they were giving me a syringe of medicine to inject into myself at home for some reason, but the nurse told me it was just to irrigate the tooth sockets starting in a few days.

Once Mark was given all the instructions the nurse wheeled me outside and helped me into the car. My mouth and tongue were so dry. There was not a single drop of spit in my entire mouth. Oh how badly I wanted something to drink, but I had to bite down on the gauze for an hour before I could take it out. I had Mark feel my tongue and he was shocked by how dry it was! In the car Mark handed me an envelope and a pen. Not understanding I just stared at them confused. He told me it was to write stuff down if I wanted to communicate, and I immediately started laughing at his response. I am not really sure why this was so funny, but it certainly was at the time!

Today I am really sore and my jaw is stiff and hard to open. I am on Percocet but have only taken a couple over the last 26 hours. I'm supposed to take it every 4-6 hours as needed, but the pain isn't super terrible or anything. Most of the time ibuprofen is working just fine. I also pumped 17 5-6oz bottles in the 2 weeks before the surgery that way I can give Tyler breastmilk in bottles while I'm on the Percocet. I doubt anything would happen if I nursed him while taking it, but since it is a narcotic I would rather be safe than sorry.

My bottom sockets are also oozing blood, but I was told they might do that for a few days. Still really nasty though having the constant taste of blood in my mouth. Yuck! I am living on yogurt, applesauce, ovaltine, and will have some tomato soup later. It really just isn't doing it for me. I hate not being able to eat real food, I'm hungry all the time! Boo!

Overall everything has gone much better than I thought. I was so afraid in the waiting room, dreading every second for them to come out and call my name. I was also really afraid for some irrational reason that I was going to die while under the anesthesia. Two nights before the operation I was laying in bed going to sleep and holding Tyler on my chest wanting to have as much cuddles as possible before I died. Silly me :P

The Birth of a Second

Last night I had a beautiful dream. In this dream I was giving birth to our second child. It was much like our first birth with Tyler, at home in the birthing pool with my midwife present. It was so peaceful and calm.

The lights were dimmed, and as the baby's head came out there was no fear. Pain, yes, but no fear. With Tyler I was so scared as his head was coming out, but in the dream there was just a calm endurance of the pain. Once the baby was out my midwife Paula went to get Tyler, who appeared to be about 3 or 4, to meet his new baby brother. We hadn't known with this second baby whether it was a boy or a girl until the birth. Tyler hadn't been watching the birth but was upstairs playing in his room waiting to come meet the new baby when it arrived. He was so gentle and excited to see the new baby, and lovingly kissed him on the head as he stood on the outside of the pool, while I was sitting on the inside holding the newest member of the family.

While I want to enjoy my almost 3 month old for a few years, I am so excited to add another member to our family and see how Tyler is as a big brother. It's hard to imagine my little baby as a big brother, but one day he will be one. My birth experience was so beautiful and wonderful that I cannot wait to do it again. I am also so curious if our next precious bundle will be another beautiful boy or a little girl. I don't care which I have, a second boy or a girl, either will be excellent and greatly loved.

"I like dreams of the future better than the history of the past." - Thomas Jefferson

Family Fun

It has been a busy last few days. My sister Vicky, step-sister Marci, and my step-dad Don all drove down from Oregon Friday to visit and see baby Tyler. It was the first time Don and Marci had seen the baby, and the first time my sister had seen him since he was about 2 hours old. It was so much fun seeing them all again, they have only been gone half a day and I miss them already. Some of the fun things my husband and I did with them while they were here were:

- Ate at a couple different restaurants, one of which we all walked to.

- One of my (and Marci's) old friends from high school drove from Mesa and spent a night with us.

- Went to the mall and bought the game Apples to Apples. Mark bought some nerd book.

- Played Apples to Apples for an hour.

- Played Apples to Apples for an hour.

- Played Apples to Apples for an hour.

- Played Apples to Apples for an hour.

- Played Apples to Apples for an hour.

- Played Apples to Apples for an hour (Count 'em, that's 6.).

- Bought and played the amazing game Jenga Max. Such an incredibly fun game!

- Looked in some stores at the square while my husband was at work, and bought an insane amount of goodies from a candy store. Well, my sisters bought an insane amount. I only got some jalapeno peanut brittle (see below.)

All in all it was a very nice visit, and I can't wait to see them again!

In other news, the king mattress Mark bought for us finally came today. I am so excited about this upgrade (used to have a full) and our little guy will finally be able to sleep with us full-time. He's only 11 weeks old but every night I wake up either falling off the edge or smashed between him and Mark to where I can't even roll over. Looking forward to our first night on the king mattress!

The jalapeno peanut brittle I got for Mark and I to share is so tasty. I'm thinking about making some of my own and looked up some recipes for it today.
Here's the one I'm thinking about implementing:
(It originally had green food coloring in it, but who wants green peanut brittle? yuck!)

Ingredients:
1/3 cup fresh jalapeno peppers, cleaned, finely chopped
(no seeds and no white part)
1/4 cup light corn syrup
1 1/4 cup granulated sugar
1/2 cup raw peanuts
2 tablespoons butter, divided
1/4 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/4 teaspoon almond extract
1/2 teaspoon baking soda

Yield: 1 lb.

Directions:

Grease a 15 x 10-inch jellyroll pan. Set aside. In a skillet melt 1 tablespoon of the butter; add jalapenos and peanuts, and cook over low heat until peppers are soft. In a saucepan, combine sugar and syrup and bring to a boil over medium heat. Add jalapenos and peanuts. Stir well, and cook until mixture reaches the soft crack stage on a candy thermometer. Remove from heat. Blend in remaining 1 tablespoon butter, vanilla extract, almond extract and food coloring until well mixed. Sprinkle baking soda evenly over the cooked mixture and stir well. When foamy, pour immediately onto the prepared jellyroll pan. Spread out into a thin layer. Let cool on jellyroll pan until until brittle and cool enough to handle. Break into irregular pieces. Store in an airtight container.

I'll let you know how it goes!

Night Time Panic

One night when Tyler was around a month old I nursed him to sleep in bed like I do most nights. Later in the night I woke up with a start and looked beside me to check on the baby who usually sleeps in between me and my husband. My husband was laying beside me right where the baby should have been. I freaked out and started panicking. My husband was sleeping on top of the baby!

Desperately I started shoving him, trying to get him off of our son who I knew was surely dead and squished into the bed. "WHERE'S THE BABY, WHERE'S THE BABY, WHERE'S THE BABY?!?!?" I yelled at him over and over while frantically shoving him into the wall and searching all over the bed. Bewildered, my husband woke up and started asking what was wrong and tried to help me search the bed, all the while getting attacked by his crazy wife.

I felt so sick to my stomach, and my heart was racing so hard. So much adrenaline. I couldn't find him. I just knew he had to be dead! Suddenly I heard stirring and little baby noises coming from the bassinet by our bed. Disrupted from peaceful dreamland by all of the commotion my little baby, safe and sound in his bassinet, started stirring. "OH, he's in the bassinet," I exclaimed to my husband as I jumped out of bed to check that it was really so. Relief washed over me when I saw my baby all cozy and without a care in the world. Apparently I had forgotten that I put him in his bassinet a few hours before after feeding him.

When my husband and I talked about it the next day he told me that I had scared him so bad that he thought maybe he really was sleeping on our baby. Poor guy. I still tease him about 'the night he slept on the baby.'

My Home Birth Story

For my entire life I have wanted nothing so badly as to be a mother.  It took my husband and I all of about two months before I was pregnant, and for two months I didn't have a period and had all the early
symptoms of pregnancy. Sore boobs, a little bit of cramping on and off, fatigue, and all that
fun stuff. We took a total of about 5 pregnancy tests and they kept coming out negative, so
of course I kept telling my husband that I was not pregnant but merely about to start my
period. On the fifth test he stood in the bathroom while I peed on the stick and instructed
me that I needed to "point the test down while you pee!!" My husband took the test and
watched it as I cleaned up, and then with the biggest smile told me I was pregnant!

I decided that a home birth was the way to go and my husband supported me 100%. We found
our wonderful midwife Paula, an absolutely amazing woman. She is so caring and gentle and
loves her job so much. She has also attended over 2000 home births in the last 30+ years, so
I felt completely safe in her care. At the first appointment we found out I was 10 weeks along and got to hear our baby's heartbeat for the first time. It took everything I had not to start bawling when I heard that precious beat of life.

(ultrasound picture at 16weeks)

 My due date was December 26th, 2009. My mother drove down to Arizona from Oregon on Christmas for the birth, and was supposed to leave around January 5th or 6th. For nearly two weeks after my due date we waited, and waited, and waited. Every day my mother would say to me, "Aren't you going to have that
baby already? I have to leave soon, I'm never going to get to see my grandson!" and things
similar in nature. I also had people from my husband's side calling and texting daily
asking if I had had the baby yet and asking why I was still pregnant. My mother in law was
wanting daily updates, even though there were no new updates, and texted us at 4:30am one day saying she was worried cause she hadn't heard from us (even though she knew my mom, mom’s fiance, and my sister were staying with us) and that if we didn't call her she was going to send someone over to check on us. WHAT?!?! We found out the next day she had meant for us to find the text in the morning when we woke up, not at 4:30am. So due to all the pressure from family and the deadline for my mom's departure quickly approaching I felt like I needed to do whatever I could naturally to make the baby come.

After talking to my midwife about natural induction (something I wont be doing again with any future pregnancies now that I am more educated and hopefully wont be so impatient like many first time moms are) I went into her office after hours on January 3, 2010 at 41+2 so she could strip my membranes (which she wont even consider until after 41 weeks). It was incredibly painful, but I didn’t expect anything less. She then talked to me and my husband and gave us a paper of instructions about inducing labor naturally, and said that it doesn't always work but that there was a good chance it would. At 3am January 4th My husband made me a castor oil shake with 2oz castor oil and vanilla chocolate chip ice cream. For the record, vanilla chocolate chip is by no means a strong enough flavor to even come close to disguising castor oil! Within an hour the dreadful stuff started working. Needless to say, I only got about four hours of sleep on and off. At 8am my husband made me another shake with 2oz more of castor oil. For the rest of the day every hour on the hour I drank 1 dropper of both blue and black cohosh in grape juice, followed by a hot shower, followed by nipple stimulation by my partner.. All the while having diarrhea about every 10-20 minutes, and attempting to go for walks whenever it wasn't too bad. I was exhausted, a part of me was hoping this wouldn’t work because I was afraid of having a long labor and I was already worn out. At the same time though, I did NOT want to go through all of this and have it not result in a baby. By the evening I was having somewhat regular contractions, so Paula came to my house to check me. Nothing! NO change! All that work, all that diarrhea for nothing! All it got me was false labor, exhaustion, and 14 hours of the runs!! She told me to stop doing everything, take a warm bath, and relax for the rest of the night.

The next day I went to my midwife appointment which had been scheduled the week before.
I was 10 days past my due date. I asked Paula what would happen if I went 2 weeks past my due date. She said that I needed to get the baby out in about 5 days or else I would have to fire her and go to the hospital. Something about Arizona laws and midwives not being able to care for a patient who goes 2 weeks over the due date. She also said if I hadn’t had the baby by Friday (it was Tuesday) we would try castor oil again over the weekend and that she was nearly positive it would work this time around! I went home feeling worried and a bit depressed. I so so so did not want to birth in the hospital, but it was looking more and more like that was where I was headed.

I woke at 9 am on January 6th when my husband got up for work, and I felt weird. I cannot
explain it. There were no contractions. I didn't feel anything different physically.
Just..weirdness. I had this strange feeling that I would be spotting when I went to the
bathroom and sure enough I was. I had also passed the mucous plug during the whole castor
oil fiasco. Since I wasn't having any contractions I decided to go back to sleep, but told
my husband to be prepared to come home early from work. I woke up again a little before
11:30am and went downstairs to make some chocolate milk.

As I was drinking my chocolate milk and talking to my sister in the kitchen it came on all
of a sudden. Strong painful contractions, nothing like the Braxton hicks I had been
experiencing for the last 2 months. My sister and I went for a walk while my mom was out
doing laundry since we didn‘t have a washer and dryer at the time. After the walk I decided to time the contractions and attempt to play mahjong on the laptop. In the birthing classes my husband and I took they talked about having a “labor project” at the beginning of labor to take you mind off of it while you can. I figured mahjong would be mine, but I couldn’t even get through one level because of the pain! Contractions were about between 4 and 6 minutes apart and I was only able to time them for about 40 minutes before it was too hard to concentrate. I called Paula's office and talked to her assistant Deborah since they were having appointments that day. I explained the situation and she asked if I would be able to come in to their office as they were having appointments that day. I went to the bathroom and there was
more blood than just a little spotting. Was this normal, should I be bleeding this much? Was I dying? I started to panic a little and called my mom and told her to come pick me up NOW and take me to Paula's office.

We got to the office at 2:30, 3 hours after the contractions began. Paula checked me during
one of the contractions and told me, "It looks like we are gonna be canceling the rest of
our appointments and heading over to your place to have a baby! You are a generous 7."
After only 3 hours of labor I was already at 7 almost 8 centimeters dilated!! My little sister
Called my husband and told him the news and to get home ASAP! When we got home my husband was already there and heating huge stew pots of water and toping off the birthing pool with a little more air,..using his mouth no less since we didn’t have a pump for it! Paula and Deborah arrived at our house within half an hour and started helping my husband get everything ready for the pool. I was calm, lost within myself as I breathed through the contractions. My mom helped rub my back and held the bowl as I puked a few times (3 total and my husband also held the bowl at least one of these times) during some particularly painful contractions. Let me tell you, grape juice with chunks of salad floating about is really quite nasty, and as I was throwing up my mom told me to just shut my eyes and not look at it! I remember after a particularly painful contraction looking at my mom and informing her that this wasn't so bad, I could handle a lot more! Much better than I had thought it would be! As soon as my mom, who is an E.R. nurse, found out about the home birth plan she started telling me horror stories about her natural birth with me and how unbearably painful it was, and that I didn’t know what I was getting myself into not having an epidural. She says having me was so painful, to the point of her passing out between contractions. She was 16 when she had me, and had a pretty traumatic birth experience.

Finally, finally the pool was ready! I got in and it felt so warm and nice. So relaxing,
almost sleepy. After about 30 or so minutes of laboring in the warm confines of the pool with my husband helping me through contractions, I tell Paula I feel like I need to go to the bathroom. I am helped out and she tells me not to worry, she will wait there by the bathroom and make sure everything is ok while I push through a few contractions and try to poop. It wasn’t happening. I tell her I feel like I have to but I just can't! She asks if she may check me. "You are a 9 and the baby's head is just right here, that is what you are feeling," she tells me. I get back in the warm
peaceful bliss and continue to labor as my husband comforts me and breathes with me. Not long
after returning to the pool I start having a strong urge to push. I tell Paula and she says
that that is wonderful and to just listen to my body, and I do! The pain of contractions was
completely gone! Instead of pain during the contractions there was merely an urge to push! It was such a nice break! I pushed! I pushed as slow as I wanted. As hard as I wanted. Whenever I wanted. I listened to my body, and did what it commanded me to do. My water broke naturally in the middle of the pushing. There was no chanting of "push push push." Just total silence as my husband, mom, Paula, and Deborah watched the miracle of a woman listening to her body and giving birth in peace as nature intended. It was WONDERFUL!



Once it was starting to get close to the baby's arrival Paula stood behind me and gently
massaged my perineum while Deborah started listening to the baby's heart rate with a small
hand held, waterproof, fetal heart rate monitor. I was on my knees in the pool with my upper body resting on the edge of the pool and one hand bracing myself on the bottom of the pool. With every push Paula would tell me that I was doing a beautiful job, and how amazing I was doing. All the while Paula kept asking Deborah what the baby's heart rate was.

"145"
"wonderful, right where it should be"
"120"
"good"
All the while massaging.
"135"
"excellent"
"75"
"Alright Elizabeth, stop pushing and take a few deep breaths for your baby so he can get enough
oxygen"
"back up to 125"
"good"
With the next contraction and pushing
"70"
"keep monitoring and lets see if it goes back up after the contraction"

At this point I knew something was wrong as did everyone in the room, but everyone was very calm, quiet, and encouraging. My midwife was awesome and very professional.

"122"
Thank you, thank you!!
"Lets put her on some oxygen, the baby isn't getting enough, and it should help."
Someone put the oxygen mask on me, I am not sure who.

All I know is I was holding my husbands hand and pushing, but backing off every time I felt the burn. I was scared. I could feel that I was going to tear. (which I did, a small tear on the inside of each labia minor, but not bad enough to need stitches.) I didn't want his head to come out! BUT, I wanted to see my baby so badly, so I kept going. With the next couple contractions:

"73"
"120"
"70"
"75"
"73"
"78"

Suddenly Paula tells me that it is time to get the baby out (I was scared of his head coming out as I could feel I was going to tear, so I would stop pushing every time I would start to feel the burning) For two contractions she tells me, "Push Elizabeth, give it everything you have. Keep going, keep going! You can do it!!!" She also tells my husband to come back there and help catch his son.

I wanted to jump out of the pool, jump away from the pain as my son's head came out. With
the next contraction the rest of my son slid out into my husband's hands. The room went completely deathly silent as everyone but me looked at my son. I could not see him since he was behind me. Paula told me in the calmest, almost cheerful voice, "Everything is okay Elizabeth, the cord is just wrapped around his neck a little bit. Let me just unwrap that and you can turn around and I'll hand your baby to you." They help me turn around and I was handed my baby.



He was completely blue and purple, but the most beautiful thing I have ever seen. He was so soft. The softest thing I have ever felt. I had never imagined how soft he would be fresh from the womb, and I was amazed! It took him a minute, but he finally started to cry. Once he started breathing and crying it didn’t take him long to pink up. He was fine, we did it! Paula talked to him soothingly as my husband and I stared at him in disbelief. This tiny, beautiful, perfect being came out of ME! I held my baby for about 10 or 15 minutes in the water with my husband right beside me outside the pool, umbilical cord still connected. Then my husband cut the cord. Paula gently took my son, wrapped him up, and gave him to his Dad to hold for the first time while I deliver the placenta.

I am so thankful for my midwife's knowledge and experience in seeing the signs that our son was distressed and knowing what to do (and also what NOT to do ie: cutting the cord immediately after birth). When my son was born the cord was wrapped tightly around his neck FOUR times! In all her years of experience and many, many births (over 2000), Paula had never seen a cord around the neck more than three times. He had a 48 inch long cord and every time I would push during a contraction it would compress the cord and make his heart rate drop. (I always wonder with such a long cord what would have happened if it HADN'T been wrapped around his neck: ie what would his chances of something more serious happening like a cord prolapse have been?) My midwife knew what was going on, and knew the cord was around his neck when his heart rate started dropping. He was very distressed and ended up passing meconium while he was being born. My midwife told me later that he probably lost about 4 ounces in meconium during the birth.




Tyler Philip Hoskins was born at 5:20pm on Wednesday January 6th, 2010 after only 6 hours of labor including 30 minutes of pushing. 11 days after my due date. His apgars were 9/9 and he was 7lbs 6oz and 20 3/4 inches long. A 48in cord wrapped around his neck four times and a heart shaped placenta!





(Tyler at 2 months old)

I am so lucky. I have the most precious, beautiful gift in the entire world. I am a mother.