My Water Baby. Maybe TMI...read at your own risk.

It all starts I guess with Nov. 4th, the "due date". First of all let me just say that having a "due date" is just cruel. That being said, it flew by without so much as a, hello honey, can I rub your aching back?, not the I expected it ;). My Mom flew in on Sunday the 7th for 2 weeks and immediately got busy sewing up a few things for our little guy (the only thing keeping her sane if you ask me). I finished the liners and soaker pads for his diapers, which I had been putting off and then waited...and waited. This all seemed so familiar. Oh yes, my sweet Aaron decided he would take his time as well. Classic story of Grandma flying out for a couple of weeks, baby not arriving until forced with castor oil a few days before Grandma has to leave. Well this time, I was refusing the castor oil scenario. I just don't recommend that option to anyone. After sewing and snipping our little hearts out, the weekend was arriving and I had decided this baby will be born this weekend no matter what!! Really I chose the weekend so that Jeremy wouldn't miss work BUT also it was time already! Friday's schedule went something like this...
Do some Laundry, NS for 10 minutes on each side, contractions, more laundry, contractions going away, NS for 10 more minutes, contractions up and going again, more laundry...you get the idea. Well, this just wasn't working so I researched NS in case I wasn't doing something right. I found a site that said 5 minutes every hour. So Saturday, this is what I did. Didn't work. 5 min. just wasn't long enough to get any contractions really coming. Sunday morning rolls along, Jeremy and the kids are getting ready for church and I, being mad that my attempts haven't worked, stayed in bed and decided I would MAKE IT WORK! So I checked the clock and after 15 minutes on each side I had contractions coming on every 5 min. or so. When they started to spread out I forced them on again with another 10 or 15 min. Half way through the day I decided to stop with the NS. I didn't really want to have a baby in the middle of the night so if they were going to spread out and drop off then I would have to deal. They did spread out to about 9 min apart, but kept coming. Jeremy, Mom and I settled down with a marathon of Lonesome Dove...yes, you read that right. Oh buddy. A 6 hour epic! After I think 3 hours, I couldn't take much more LD and decided I would try to sleep through these contractions, which had been quite painful for most of the day. Sleep was impossible. I'd start to dose and a contraction would hit me. After attempting sleep for about an hour or so I went back to join the LD group. Moving from my exercise ball to the piano bench to the couch and so on. When the movie was FINALLY over my contractions had made it to 5 min. apart. My Midwife had instructed me to call after an hour of 5 min. apart. So I got in the shower, hoping to relieve the painful contractions a bit. It didn't really help. They stayed consistent though and we called our friend Chelsea to sit with the kids and called the midwife to let her know what was going on. By the time the hour of 5 min apart was over, my contractions were 4 min. apart. The midwife didn't seem to be in much of a hurry to get me to the birth center and asked me annoying questions like, how long were your other labors? I was quite upset at the time over this, here I was going through these contractions and she wants to know how long I labored with my other kids?! I had no clue. I said, "well that depends on when you start counting." She said, "well why don't you call me when they are 3 to 4 min. apart." Anyway after talking to her I was so mad that I had decided I was going to ditch her and go to the hospital. Not even for the pain relief, but for the fact that he would get his first shot and his circumcision done and a hearing test. (things I didn't think about before) Not to mention the fact that there wouldn't be any porcelain cats or stuffed bears staring at me. I demanded Jeremy call the hospital but he wouldn't. Chelsea was at the house with us and I labored and put on a one woman show for her for about an hour until my contractions were coming 2-3 min apart. Jeremy gave me a blessing and I told him to call the Midwife and tell her we're coming. So we left the house at around 2:40 and got to the birth center 10 min. later. I waddled in and she checked to see how far dilated I was. Thankfully I was somewhere between a 7 and an 8 so she started the bath water. After just a few contractions in the water, the time had come. The water felt good and I remember having one last break that seemed to be rather long and very relaxing. (maybe 3 or 4 min) Then with the next two contractions which were right on top of each other this little angel was placed in my arms. Oliver Talmage McQuivey was born on Nov. 15th around 3:15 a.m. No one bothered to look at the clock until 3:16 so that is the time on his birth record. He weighed 6 lbs 8 oz. and 20 in. My smallest boy. The other two were 8 lbs and half an oz. under 8 lbs., so this surprised me. I remember asking if he was dead because he didn't make a sound and just snuggled up on me. I asked several times if he was okay and they all just laughed at me saying he was fine. I was so used to arms flailing around and a set of screaming lungs. He was just so peaceful. After about 3 hours we were on our way home. I was so glad Jeremy didn't let me go to the hospital. I didn't even notice the cats or bears. :) Water birth is definitely the way to go.