The Birth of Jack Oliver

I know I've fallen behind horribly on the whole blog thing, and did zero blogs throughout this pregnancy, and I apologize! Sophia killed the charger to my laptop (again), and we just haven't bought a new one yet. And before that, Nate would bring my computer to work since it was our only laptop and he needed to have one for the job, and before we moved his desktop would never connect to the internet. BUT, now we're in a new place where it will connect, so I'm going to attempt to get back into it, because I've really missed it! Even the last post I made with the tutorial was done from my phone, and it was a bit of a pain to post from there!

Anyway, moving on, our family has grown! I'm pretty sure that I mentioned on this blog that we were trying to conceive, and after five months of trying we found out I was finally pregnant again! I really wanted to have a home birth, but in the end we just couldn't afford it (the ones here are all out of pocket), so I opted for the next best thing, and that was a natural birth at a birthing center. At 19 weeks, we learned that I was carrying a healthy baby boy, just as I had suspected. My pregnancy was completely uncomplicated, so always a good thing!

Parenthood hopes

So, I've got to say, that I'm a little bit proud of how this time around of parenting is going. Not that I didn't think I did a good job with Blake, but I was a first time mom who didn't really know what I wanted. Well, as far as parenting styles go. This time I am so much more educated. Not that I was uneducated before, but I just hadn't even given any thought to certain aspects and just went with what most of society in America did. I had no idea what I was missing out on. But then there were some things that I wanted that didn't work out, and I was so devastated by that. I think this birth experience was therapeutic.

Sophia has arrived!

Sophia is here! And what a story I have to tell about how she came. :)

So where to start. Well, my due date came and went on Wednesday (12/12/12 for those who forget). I had an appointment the next day, and my midwife agreed to perform a membrane sweep the next day after clinicals (so that way, if it worked, I would have the weekend off). So after clinicals I go in, and she checks me first. At this point I was about 80% effaced and 3-4 cm dilated, although she said she could stretch it to a 5. She also told me that Sophia was very low, which I knew already, and that she's ready and was probably just waiting on me. So, she did the sweep and there was a decent amount of blood after. She said she thinks that it would probably work, and the contractions usually start to pick up in 3-5 hours.