Perhaps I haven’t written this yet because I just want to put the whole experience behind me and move on with life–enjoying my little family of four, growing together and getting to know our newest member!
But here it is.
My contractions started the evening of May 28th. They weren’t very painful, just enough to feel the start and stop and kind of count. By midnight they were painful and five to seven minutes apart. Darren called the birthing center and had my midwife paged. She called us back within ten minutes from her house. I was pretty embarrassed by that! The poor lady had been asleep. She said that she was glad that I had called since it’s nice to know in advance if someone thinks that they’ll need to be coming in. She told me that I should call back when the contractions became more intense. They didn’t that night, so we stayed home.
By 9am the next morning I was pretty useless complaining of intense back pain and that silly ole hip was acting up again. The contractions weren’t in any sort of neat pattern, there were ten minute breaks and then here and there I’d have two minute apart ones that really hurt. That was Thursday, the last Thursday of Deeder’s music group. Darren didn’t want to take him and leave me home, for fear that I’d go into active labor and have no way of getting to the Birthing Center.
So we called his friend Jen from work who had offered to watch Deeder while I was at the hospital. Thankfully Jen was more than happy to come over and suggested that we go in to the clinic to have me checked, so we did that. I wasn’t even quite four centimeters dilated. Arg! They told me to come back in two hours and that they would check me again then.
We went out for breakfast. I wasn’t able to eat much as I loose my apetite during labor and was having contractions fairly close and hard enough to cause discomfort. Darren kept telling me that this wasn’t anything real, that he’d tell me when the real thing came. I suppose I could have gotten upset by that comment, but he didn’t mean any harm by it!
After breakfast we went to the park where Deeder and I used to go swimming last summer. There are lots of neat trails there so we decided to walk around until it was time to go back to the clinic. What a beautiful day for pictures. 
A couple I took:
Interesting, where a laboring lady points her camera, isn’t it?
The middle one is an old ski lift.
Back at the clinic those two hours later we learned that I hadn’t made any progress at all. So we went home, and I showered and lay down.
Jen brought Deeder home and told us that she was busy throug the evening until 9PM after which time we could call her and she’s rush right over. We thanked her and put the tired Deeder boy down for his nap. My contractions were on and off, sometimes hard and sometimes hardly there at all.
Then at 5PM the real stuff, as Darren called it began, and all with a big bang. I was lazily snoozing and ouchie! my whole body cramped up and my abdomen stung. I must have made an unearthy howling noise because I heard Darren say “It’s time!” He came out of the room he’d been entertaining Deeder in and grabbed my bag and headed downstairs. There weren’t breaks between the contractions now.
As soon as one would end, an even stronger one would begin, seizing me with a greater grasp. I needed help getting down the stairs. I could see Deeder through the door that Darren had left ajar. He was sitting motionless, wide eyed with his mouth open as if he were about to speak but nothing was coming. Poor boy! He shouldn’t have to see this.
Darren came back up the stairs with Deeder’s shoes and sweatshirt in hand. “C’mer buddy, we’re taking Mommy in the car now.” He scooped Deeder up and took him out to the car, then back up the stairs to help me down.
Once everyone was buckled up in the car Darren and I looked at each other and it was like at that moment we realized that Deeder was there and that he wasn’t supposed to be. Who would watch him? The house where we used to live is only a block away and our landlady from there had offered to be the emergency Deeder Watcher way back when I found out I was pregnant with the baby that I miscarried. Maybe the offer still stood? Couldn’t hurt to find out! So we stopped by there and Darren knocked on the door.
Her parking lot (she runs a bed and breakfast) was full so we knew it wasn’t a good time, but there weren’t any other options.
She said that she couldn’t keep Deeder there but that she would meet us at the hospital and supervise Deeder while I delivered.
The hospital’s parking lot was packed, even by the emergency entrance. So Darren had to let me out while he drove around looking for a spot to park. By some miracle I did make it to the sliding doors, holding on to whatever I could reach. When I had gone in with Deeder they had a wheelchair waiting for me, but this time no one was around. I went in, made it down the hall to the elevators and got in, pressed “2″ which I knew was the Birthing Center floor.
Why was this place empty?
I reached my destination with my baby still inside my belly and in gaspy breaths told the woman at the desk my name. She checked the schedule and said, “Yes, come on back, Laura.” She showed me into a small room with a bed that looked like it was made for a child, certainly too short for an adult. What had happened to the room that I was in last time with the full size bed? 
Oh well. What mattered was that I was there!
I changed into the hospital gown and the nurse helped me up on the bed. It felt like an examining table. “Oops” she said, “Looks like someone didn’t make the bed properly”
She left me and came back a couple minutes later with a bundle of sheets in arm. Those got set on a nearby chair and she left again. Returning within five minutes she told me that she’d called my midwife who would arrive soon.
The nurse called in a second nurse and they proceeded to remake the bed, under me. Like “would you lift your bottom up?” swoop sheet from under me and put on another one. “Ok there you go, Sweetie, now that’s better, isn’t it?” She remade the whole bed, including the pillows. All in record time, considering that it was all done under a big preggo lady! Then she offered me an extra blanket. “Maybe for later, eh? You might want it then.
The midwife came in then and asked how I felt. I told her that I felt a lot of pressure in my lower back and she offered to break my water. What a luxury compared to last time when my water broke in the toilet at home!
Darren and Deeder along with our landlady arrived.
Deeder had a completely serious but not scared look on his face, I wanted to cuddle him and tell him that everything was OK but I didn’t since I knew I would start to cry. I think that with Carly I was far more emotional than I was in delivery those 22 months ago with him.
The next contraction was very hard, and very real since I didn’t have that water anymore. From there my next memory is the two last pushes which were burning, hard and horrible.
I tried to keep my eyes on Deeder, smiling so that he wouldn’t cry and it did wonders for me.
Those first moments when your new baby is in your arms are such a rush, a crazy wildness unlike anything else. A beauty that is worth everything in the world and more. All of the sudden you’re more than you ever could have been, so complete.
Even though you know you’ve never looked nastier!
It’s love, true true love!
After holding Carly in my arms for a few minutes I started feeling very cold. I was colder than cold and bleeding in rivers. My teeth were chattering uncontrollably like I’d just jumped into freezing water. I cried because I didn’t know what else to do. I knew I’d be dying if this were a hundred years ago. Once I started crying I just couldn’t make myself stop. I felt a nurse take Carly from me. I guess they figured they’d take this opportunity to weigh and measure her!
Someone came in with a bunch of blankets and covered me in them. Another person brought in warm compresses and topped the blankets in those. Thankfully there aren’t any pictures of this going on! Between tears I could see Darren crying too. Deeder was solemn, sort of stoic, and I tried to imagine what he was thinking.
Wasn’t this what the Vitamin K was for that I’d been taking the last four weeks of pregnancy–to help my blood clot? It was thin and just kept pouring. My midwife came back in and told the nurse to give me a shot to help. Darren and Deeder hed left by this time and when Darren asked me later about the shot I couldn’t recall what it was called. Whatever it was, after two of them I did pass a clot (the size of Carly’s head) and the bleeding slowed substantially.
By 10PM I was asleep and had removed a few layers of blankets.
Breakfast the next morning tasted SO good. I hadn’t realized how hungry I was! There were two pieces of French toast and two sausage links, a fruit bowl and a cup of cranberry juice.
Darren and Deeder came to visit at a quarter past ten and stayed until lunch time.
That night the nurse told me that I could go home the next morning after the midwife came in to check on my recovery progress.
At 5AM Friday morning someone from the lab came in to do a blood draw. I remembered that happening when I gave birth to Deeder, but didn’t recall anyone reminding me that it was going to happen. Hmm. Anyway, just as the nurse promised I was discharged Friday morning at 9. While I waited for Darren and Deeder to come pick us up I filled out my admissions paperwork and signed the discharge papers, funny huh, that those two things would be done at once.
So there’s my version of Carly story.
We came home with a beautiful baby girl and called her Carly Annalise Taryn Harr.
Stats on Carly:
* Arrival time: 7:45p.m. on 5/29/2008
* Birth weight: 6 pounds, 12 ounces
* Birth length: 19 inches
small and perfect.
Silly guy!
)
Mom—About 2 hours later
I hope you get some good sleep tonight, Dearie. Is the little boy still a bit sick, or is he possibly teething?