Thursday, March 26, 2009

Welcome to the world Miss Turner

Turner Elise Gonzalez was born today at 1:22 am and being her mother's daughter she did not follow her mothers plan for her entry to the world.

I had planned, in writing, to have a long labor that slowly progressed and I would give birth to our daughter in a warm tub of water at the Allen Birthing Center.
Instead as Mike and I were lying in bed tonight talking about if Mike was ready to be a daddy and wondering what our daughter would look like, I had a contraction. A nice big contraction. Who hoo. The red raspberry leaf tea I had been drinking and other natural induction methods I had done that day may be starting to work because 10 minutes later I had another long contraction. Then when I had another one that lasted for a couple of minutes five minutes later, I told Michael to get the bath tub ready and I called my mom. Then the next contraction came 3 minutes later and lasted over a minute and then after that they were seemed right on top of each other with out a discernible break between making them nearly impossible to time. I told Mike to call the birth center we needed to get moving.

Mike tried to start to get things together, but I wouldn't let him go far because I needed him to hold me and put pressure on my lower back for every contraction, so we decided to wait for my mom to arrive so she could tend to me and then Mike could get everything in the car. By this time I had made it to our bathroom and found great comfort lying sprawled out on the bath mat with my face on the cool tile floor. A few minutes after my mom arrived and Mike had dug the car seat out of the box and threw it and our bags into the car I had a very strong urge to push and there was no way I was going to leave my cool tile let alone ride in a car for 30 minutes. Especially since on one of my attempts to stand up while having a contraction, I could feel Turner's head already crowned. Mike called Becky, our Nurse Certified Midwife to tell her there was no way we could make it to her. She decided to come to our house and her assistant who lived in Little Elm would be there even sooner.

I wanted to push so badly. It is really true that it feels better to push when you are having a pushing contraction, but since there was none of my experienced attendants were here mom would not let me push. I had to blow through them like I was blowing out all of my daughter's birthday candles from a mile away. The only good part to this stage of my short labor was that I was able to at least get a break between contractions and become somewhat more aware of my surroundings, like the fact that in my sprawled out state some of my hair was in my dogs water bowl and I probably should be laying on something a little more sanitary than my 5' brown shag bathmat. With out moving my body I remedied my hair and had mom and Mike lay towels under me. Oh but the urge to push was growing greater and greater and harder to fight! Someone better show up real quick!

Debbie the birth assistant showed up first and was not aware we had not planned a home birth and was surprised to find we did not have our birth supplies. I heard her asking Mike for some string and scissors and heard Mike pulling shoe laces out of his boots. I did not have time to let my mind focus too much on what they were doing nor did I want to know as none of it sounded sanitary. Becky finally arrived and after getting her bearings in my house and her supplies in order I was given the OK to push! Oh what a relief and a pain as Turner's head was out in two very quick pushes and her body came out with I guess gravity or momentum and then the next thing I knew I was holding our daughter kneeling in our bathroom floor looking at my husband's amazed and shell shocked face. She had arrived!

My first contraction was at 10:59pm and Turner was born at 1:22am. A very fast 2 1/2 hour labor.

A very healthy and angelic Miss Turner Elise Gonzalez weighed in at 7lbs 14 oz and is 21 inches long. I am doing well also, as evident by my desire to blog with in a few hours of birth. I'm sore in the places I should be sore, but have no tears.

I must say it is so amazing to be in my own bed with my husband and daughter sleeping soundly next to me.

Next time we will not even waste time writing out a birth plan because God's plans are always so much better than our own.