Our little girl, Josephine Idell Gibson arrived Tuesday, April 26, 2011 weighing almost 8 lbs and 19 inches long. She took her sweet time entering the world. I went into labor on Saturday night. I started feeling light contractions during the Easter vigil mass, and I was getting excited that we would have an Easter baby. I labored with relatively strong contractions, 4 to 5 minutes apart for about 10 hours. Then they sort of petered out around 11am. We spent the rest of the day trying to eat and get some rest.
Contractions started again Sunday evening at midnight, but stopped mid-morning after a call to the hospital to let them know my progress (or non-progress as it turned out). Monday evening (the third night of labor) my water broke. Although I still wasn't in active labor I checked into the hospital at 11am on Tuesday. After being admitted, they did an ultrasound (my first since 20 weeks) to confirm that baby was head down. Turns out what we always assumed was a butt was her head, and her head was actually her butt. She was frank breech, so her feet were up by her head which is why we mistook her position (I was always feeling kicks in the right place). This is likely why labor never progressed in the past three days. The crazy thing is that I was a breech baby too, which was discovered right before I was ready to come out. (Thanks Mom! Now I know what you endured for me!)
These days it's not easy to find a doctor who will do a vaginal delivery for a breech baby, and especially not for the first pregnancy. So, Josephine was delivered via Cesarean birth about an hour later after we heard the news. The whole experience was very emotional and rushed, as we had been hoping and preparing for a med-free natural birth. It was just another lesson that we are not in control, even though we make these great plans and expectations. I'm sure this is just one of many parenthood experience where we feel like this. Sometimes you just have to roll with it and remember the graces we are given.
Contractions started again Sunday evening at midnight, but stopped mid-morning after a call to the hospital to let them know my progress (or non-progress as it turned out). Monday evening (the third night of labor) my water broke. Although I still wasn't in active labor I checked into the hospital at 11am on Tuesday. After being admitted, they did an ultrasound (my first since 20 weeks) to confirm that baby was head down. Turns out what we always assumed was a butt was her head, and her head was actually her butt. She was frank breech, so her feet were up by her head which is why we mistook her position (I was always feeling kicks in the right place). This is likely why labor never progressed in the past three days. The crazy thing is that I was a breech baby too, which was discovered right before I was ready to come out. (Thanks Mom! Now I know what you endured for me!)
These days it's not easy to find a doctor who will do a vaginal delivery for a breech baby, and especially not for the first pregnancy. So, Josephine was delivered via Cesarean birth about an hour later after we heard the news. The whole experience was very emotional and rushed, as we had been hoping and preparing for a med-free natural birth. It was just another lesson that we are not in control, even though we make these great plans and expectations. I'm sure this is just one of many parenthood experience where we feel like this. Sometimes you just have to roll with it and remember the graces we are given.
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