I promised I would share my sister’s birth story from my perspective as a little sister, a mama, and a photographer…and some of you have been patiently waiting! I don’t really think it can be done in just one blog post, so I am going to split this up into a two day post…mainly because that’s how long the labor process took!
A little background: Jessica’s first birth was an extremely long and difficult labor, then her second birth happened so quickly the midwife barely made it in time to catch her! I had in my head that this new baby would be quick like her second birth and I was so worried I wouldn’t be able to make the almost 4 hour trip to her house in time to be there and get the birth photos she was really hoping for! However, I have obligations here at home and I couldn’t just move in with her for the last month…so my anxiety was a little high about this! Jessica called me on a Tuesday evening, she had been having fairly hard contractions throughout the day and it seemed as if the baby had shifted and that birth would be sooner, not later. After some thought, Ryan and I decided it would be best to drop my kids off at my Mom’s at bedtime and I would head to Arkansas. Between Ryan and my Mom they could handle all the things the kids needed to do throughout the week and we really figured Jessica would be having that baby in the next 24 hours. I drank a lot of coffee, dropped off the kids and headed out. Now, what many of you don’t know is that I have Narcolepsy and driving is exhausting for me! Ryan was worried about it, but I was sure that my adrenaline would keep me awake for this drive! I had a back up plan that I could stop at a friend’s house that lives at the halfway point, if I felt like I couldn’t make it the whole way. Well, what you also don’t know about me is that I am a bit of a space cadet when it comes to directions and missing exits…which is exactly what I did. After I realized I had missed the exit to my halfway point option…I just decided I was gonna make it. I had to stop at a McDonalds somewhere and sleep for about 20 minutes…but then I was back on the road and made it to their house at 2am.
Wednesday:
When I woke up the next morning…Jessica tells me that, coincidentally…her contractions subsided and she slept the best she’d slept in days that night! Haha! Guess I could have stayed home…but who knows with these things?! We spent the next day getting things done around the house to prepare for the birth, made a trip to the library so the kids would have a load of new books for the quiet days after the baby arrived, even made a trip to the thrift store so I could look for a prop I was needing for my daughter’s upcoming pageant! Jessica had contractions throughout the day, but nothing crazy! That night Eric’s sister, Alana, who was coming to the birth to help take care of the kids decided to go ahead and come down, too! Mostly because she wanted to hang out and she decided that if Jessica wasn’t laboring by morning than she would just head back home (an hour and a half for her) early in the morning to make it to work on time! We all went out for tacos that evening and Jessica kept moving, in hopes that labor would really start! It didn’t…
Thursday:
Alana headed back for work at 5:30am and just as she arrived to work Jessica started to leak some fluid and it appeared that maybe her water had broke! Alana headed straight back! We got up and everyone was preparing for a birth to occur sometime during the day! Well, as it turned out…things didn’t move as fast as we had anticipated! Jessica continued to have contractions and had a lot of uncomfortable pressure…but nothing was really speeding up! Jessica kept herself so busy trying to get things moving! We all went for a walk, Jessica insisted on cooking, picked things from her garden, and just keeping busy trying to get that baby moving! As the day went on her contractions became more painful and by dinner time they were stopping her in her tracks. She was still able to talk through them, but not easily.
Check in tomorrow morning to read the rest of the birth story and meet new baby Bell!
