So, we have four kids.

Friday, January 23:
I got a prenatal/induction massage. It was very nice, though the part where he used acupressure to help trigger the start of labor wasn't quite as pleasant. It wasn't too bad, just not a pleasant feeling. It was cool that I could feel something different every time he did it, though. The points he massaged (other than the full prenatal massage) were the webbing between the thumb and finger, halfway between the ear and the shoulder, a spot just behind the hip bone, and a couple inches up from the inner ankle. Different points do different things. He said to keep going through that sequence every 2 hours or so all day, but I didn't manage to do it so often. A little while later, mom and I had the kids at Walmart and I was a little sore and noticed that I was getting short of breath quickly.
Just before bed, I had Michael go through all the acupressure points again, and went to sleep.

Saturday, January 24:
We stayed around the house all day. I remember noticing that my lower back felt bruised, and wondered if it was from the massage. But he didn't rub the spot that felt bruised. In retrospect, I'm certain it was the very early twinges of labor, or his head moving further down. It was all of the tissue around my sacrum, and it was just sore. We did a lot of cleaning. Over the past few days, I'd had a shooting pain going from my pelvis down the front of my right leg. This day, it was much more frequent, and stronger. As I vacuumed the playroom, it was doing with with almost every step. Mom offered to vacuum for me, but I wanted to do it myself. I knew that the more active I was, the more he'd move on downward and things could get started.
Some friends came over to look through some boxes of baby girl clothes that we need to get rid of, so I rested only to sit and chat with them. Every couple hours throughout the day, Michael and I did the acupressure stuff. At bed time, we did it one last time, and I listened to one of my CDs. I think the Birth Day Affirmations one, but it might have been the Fear Clearing session. One thing I was always a little worried about, was that these CDs had one little line that wasn't in my ideal birth plan: "I will have an easy and fast birthing..." Whenever I heard that, I consciously thought, "Not fast! Slow enough for Lulu to get here!"
Around 11, I checked my cervix (yes, I can do it myself), and while I wasn't dilated any further than I had been over the past couple days, I could tell things were changing. I called Lulu to let her know that I wasn't 100% sure, but that I was pretty certain she'd need to come up in the morning. She said to call her back at 7:30 am to confirm, so she'd have time to make the first flight out.

Sunday, January 25
Around 2, the contractions were getting strong enough to make me start worrying. The first flight up wouldn't get Lulu here until around 11 or 12, so every time I got up to pee (literally, probably every 15 minutes), I rubbed my belly and told him to please stay put for X more hours. But by 2, it was picking up, not slowing down, and I was around 4 cm dilated. I called Lulu back and asked what we could do to slow it down. She suggested taking some of my wild yam supplements every 30 minutes, taking a hot bath, and trying to sleep.
At 4:30, I was between 5 and 6 cm, and knew that this baby was coming faster than we'd planned for. I called Donna, the backup midwife who I'd met the week before. When we met, she said that she really felt that if I was confident that my body would do it slow enough for Lulu to get here, then I was probably right. So, when I called, she suggested that I wait an hour and call her back with an update. I woke Michael and told him it was time to get the pool ready. He was groggy, and really didn't realize that I was truly in labor. He figured we still had several hours to go, and was not at all happy that I was making him get to work so early.

So, he trudged down the stairs and got started, as I slowly made my way down the hall and down the stairs, waddling and stopping during contractions, and wondering if it was too late to change my mind about giving birth again. I knew though, that with my natural births, I've never taken longer than 3 hours to go from 5 cm to baby. While I waited for him to fill the pool, I got on all fours with my head resting on my big ball. I'd ask Michael questions, and I noticed that he still sounded a bit annoyed at me. It clicked in my head, that he really had no clue what was going on. I knew that if he knew just how fast I was progressing, he'd be different. But he also needed to hurry and get things set up. So I suggested that he wake Mom, so that I wouldn't just be laboring alone.

Around 5 am, I called Donna back. I explained that I knew it hadn't been an hour, but that I felt like it was quickly getting more intense, and she should go ahead and come over. By then, Michael had a twin mattress set up beside the pool for me, but the pool wasn't full yet. I laid down on the mattress to try to rest some. Plus, I could tell that being on all fours had just been speeding things along. Donna arrived around 5:30, with Jessica, her assistant. Michael was still running around getting the final touches ready. Specifically, he couldn't find the tripod. I tried telling to forget about the stupid tripod, but still, he just didn't get that I was seriously in labor! Finally, as Donna was about to check my cervix, he knelt down to tell me that he was going upstairs to do something. I don't even know what. I turned and looked at him and said, "No. You need to stay here." I think he started to protest. I said, "Do you understand that I'm, like, seriously in transition here?!" "Oh. No, I didn't know!" Poor guy. I woke him up early, and had a totally different labor pattern, and he just was too busy setting up to realize it! So, Donna checked, and declared that I was complete, other than a slight lip of cervix left on one side. Needless to say, Michael was surprised. Hey, even I was surprised to have gone from 5 to complete in just an hour!

By then, the pool was nearly full, but it was too hot, so they took out some hot and put in some cold, and I got in. She'd said that I had a huge bulging amniotic sac, and that if I wanted her to break it, his head would probably come right on down. Labor isn't as intense with an intact sac though, so I opted to wait it out. I figured surely it would break on it's own soon enough. In between contractions, I kept going over it again in my head - water breaks, faster baby, more intense... water doesn't break, slower baby, less intense. At some point, I began favoring the speedier of the two options, and probably around 6:30, I managed to gather my thoughts enough to tell her in between contractions. I'd been on all fours, so I rolled over onto my back so that she could get better access to do it, and she broke my water. I got back onto all fours, and started focusing on relaxing as much as possible during contractions.
Like with the others, I never did feel an "urge to push," but when I relaxed, I noticed that my muscles were gradually pushing him downward. We think I pushed through four contractions. With one, I could tell his head was part of the way out, and thought this was it. Then the contraction ended, and he slipped back in. I was pretty determined that I would get him out with the next one. Apparently, that was clear to Donna too, because as we waited for it, she gave me instructions on pushing slowly, blowing, and listening to her to slow down when I needed to. And with that next one, I focused on breathing and blowing, and walking the fine line between wanting to push the kid out and be done and pushing slowly to prevent tearing.
And with that long, hard, slow push, Gabriel was born into his Daddy's waiting arms. It was 6:52 am.
We hung out in the pool, nursing for a few minutes, waiting on the placenta. Michael cut the cord, I got the placenta out, and we rested for a couple minutes before getting out and moving to the bed. He and I cuddled up in bed for an hour, then it was time for both of us to get checked out by Donna. He weighed 8 lbs 1 oz, and was 20.5 inches long. Michael guessed his weight just before she put him in the scale, and he was dead on. After I'd eaten, Donna left, and we all snoozed for most of the day.

We're both doing great. I was recovering very very well, much better than last time, until I was stupid and carried a 51 pound box into the house this morning. That caused a bit of a setback, but I'm praying I'll bounce back some tomorrow. I'm okay, though. And he is wonderful. Nursing well, and gaining weight, fattening up those little cheeks.

And now, he's upstairs crying for more dinner, so, I'm off. More pictures to come soon, I promise.