Emilia Nell is here!

Emilia decided she wanted a fun birth story since her sister got one so here it is! I started having some mild contractions at 11:30 on Sunday night. Didn't realize that what it was and went back to sleep. An hour later I woke up again and realized what they were. I started timing them and they were 5 minutes apart lasting for about a minute. That's basically what they want you to be having before you go into the hospital, but they were still pretty mild so I didn't think it was time. I decided to get up and walk around to see if they would continue. They changed to 3-4 minutes apart, but shortened to only 30 seconds. I was still able to walk and talk through them, so I want too concerned. I got some stuff ready for Olivia just in case this was it, cleaned the kitchen, folded laundry and kept timing them. I was getting tired so decided to try laying down again. I slept a little between each contraction, but each one kept waking me up. They had slowed down to 6-7 minutes apart and were still only 30 seconds long. At 5am Brian woke up. I hadn't woken him yet since I figured someone should get some sleep.

Needless to say, Brian woke up pretty quickly when I told him I was having contractions! I decided to shower and get ready to go. We were still in no rush. The contractions didn't seem any worse than they had earlier in the night. By the time I was out of the shower though, they started getting more intense. Brian hurried through his shower and started to get Olivia up. At this point it was 6am. I was calling into triage when my water broke. It was the straight out off the movies huge gush. No mistaking what had just happened. The contractions immediately got worse. They were about 2 minutes apart but still only 30 seconds. Brian kept trying to get me down to the car, but I was getting really worried about making it to the hospital that was 30 minutes away in time, so we decided to call 911.

The ambulance arrived almost immediately, they got me loaded into the ambulance and off to the nearest hospital we went. Instead of going to U of M, we went to St. Mary's about 10 minutes from the house. I remember telling the paramedic to tell the hospital that I wanted an epidural as soon as we got there if it was possible. Other than that, I can't say I remember much if the ride other than the connections. Since Brian had Olivia, he had to drop her off at daycare and circle back to me.

When they wisked me into the birthing center around 6:45, they checked me and I was fully dilated to a 10. I realized this meant no epidural, confirmed that with them and proceeded to let them know that I was freaking out! Shortly after arriving I started pushing. Emilia was still a little high, so I had to push for about 30 minutes before she was born. Brian arrived about 15 minutes before Emilia did at 7:40am.

Emilia had pooped before she was born, so they had to take some extra precautions and keep her calm for about an hour, so we had to wait to hold her, but she did great! 9 and 9 on her agpar scores (which is fabulous), and she figured out how to latch right away. She was 8lbs and 21 inches long. She looks almost identical to Olivia when she was born! I'm sure to have loads of pictures for you soon! In the meantime, I have to go get someone who just woke up!

Much love to all from Jocelyn, Brian, Olivia AND Emilia!