| Josiah's birth When I was 29, I discovered one morning in late September of 1995 that I had an aversion for my morning coffee. Now this is a sure sign of pregnancy for me, and the only one I had to go by because my periods hadn't returned regularly because Ihad just weaned my 5th daughter who was at the time 17 months old. I didn't even bother buying a test because I just knew, and I called my midwife and made an appointment to come in October. When I went in thinking I was about 10 weeks along. She examined me and thought it felt more like 14 weeks! We set my due date as May 10th. Everything from then on went along as usual. I didn't detect anything at the time to lead me to believe anything was different about this pregnancy. My due date came and went as had happened the last time. 9 days past my due date I started having contractions at about 11:00p.m. I waited until they were five minutes apart before I called the midwife over. She arrived about 3:30 a.m. and I was about 3-4 cm. I tried to stay up walking so they wouldn't stop but I got too tired. We all laid down to nap and my contractions slowed to down to almost nothing. We got up and called my mother to come get the children because we all thought labor would pick back up soon. Finally about 10:00 a.m. my midwife decided she would go home and wait for me to call her back when labor started again. Well, it was evidently the LORD'S protection that stopped my labor because when she got home she found her husband gravely ill. He recovered eventually but if she hadn't found him when she did it might not have turned out as it did. Anyway, Jerry started his vacation that day because he didn't want to leave me alone that night as we thought labor would return anytime and I was already 4-5 cm so it could happen pretty fast when it did start. I had contractions off and all for 4 more days and was beginning to wonder if this baby would ever come out! Finally, at 10:00 p.m. on May 22nd 1996 contractions began and were 10 minutes apart. They weren't hard but they were regular, they did however prevent me from getting much sleep at all that night. When I got up in the morning and went to the bathroom I noticed some bloody show. I knew this was really it at last! I called the assistant, who was filling in because my midwife was unable to be there because her husband was in the hospital, and let her know I would be needing her at some point soon but things weren't going to fast yet. I said I would call her when I felt I needed her. I went about my day and the contractions stayed regular but 10 minutes until about 12:00p.m. They finally got closer together, more like 5 minutes apart and by 1:30 p.m. I called my mother to get the children again and the midwife because she had an hour and a half drive to get to my house. She arrived about 3:00 p.m. and found I was 7 cm already. The contractions started to increases to 3 minutes apart by 5:00p.m. but were still not to hard to deal with. They started with the warm compresses on my lower abdomin and back and they helped alot. By 7:00 p.m. we decided I had better move to where I was planning to deliver because it was upstairs and I might not be able to walk up if I waited too long. After I got settled she checked me and I was 9 cm and almost ready to push. There was a bit of anterior lip which she held during a contraction to see if the head would come on through. My water was still intact and just like last time I didn't feeling a pushing urge yet. I told her I needed her to break it because I was exhausted from being awake all night and was ready to get this over with. After the water was broke I felt the urge to push very soon. I said, however, how much I hated this part and didn't want to do it! My friend who was there reminded me how GOOD it would feel when it's over, and she knew because she had six as well, and this gave me the courage to just DO IT! One contraction with pushing brought the head to crowning. I more brought the head and shoulders. The rest of the body then was born. Jerry was sitting behind me holding me in a semi-sitting position and was the first one to see what the baby was. I had my eyes closed still and hadn't looked yet when I heard him say "We have a SON!" My eyes flew open in disbelief, I thought he must be wrong, it's the cord he's seeing or something! When I saw the boy parts all I could say over and over again was "OMG! OMG!" I held him to my chest and was in shock. He just looked around and was so beautiful. I nursed him about 15 minutes later and he never made a sound until the apprentice took him to rewrap him in dry blankets and dress him while I went to the bathroom. He was born at 8:06 p.m. on May 23rd 1996, he weighed 8 pounds and was 22" long. I was very tired but still didn't get much sleep that first night because I keep looking and checking on him all night. I was so afraid he was going to stop breathing or something. I also was still in shock and amazed that there had actually been a BOY in there and I didn't suspect a thing! We hadn't even picked out a boy name because I just thought what were the chances we would need one? We also were having a hard time agreeing on one. We finally agreed on Josiah Benjamin when he was 2 days old. I found out that boys truly are different from the get go! He broke all the patterns I had come to expect from babies. I nursed him 2-1/2 years and my periods didn't return until he was 25 months old. I conceived my 7th baby when he was 29 months old. I nursed him for 3 more months and then had to wean him because I wasn't able to do it any more. We had a really close nursing relationship and I was sorry it had to come to an end but I felt I needed time to prepare for the new baby. |