Happy Birthday, Baby Ben!

We welcomed our second son, Ben, just after Thanksgiving. We had been planning an unmedicated VBAC (Vaginal Birth After Cesarean) with a fantastic group of hospital-based midwives. Since I had a c-section with James due to his position (he was footling breech and wouldn't budge despite all our efforts), the odds were in my favor for a successful VBAC. The day after Thanksgiving, we went out to breakfast with Mark's parents before they headed home. That afternoon I thought maybe something was happening, but wasn't sure if it was just start/stop labor, or if things would pick up and I tried not to get my hopes up. By about 11pm there was no denying this was it, though I still thought we had hours and hours ahead of us. Fortunately, my sister and her husband decided to play it safe and come sleep over instead of risking getting called in the middle of the night to watch James. They arrived around 12:30, and by 1:30 I had hit the point where I just had a feeling I needed to leave for the hospital and be with one of the midwives. We arrived about 2am and after getting checked in and hooked up to the monitor, the midwife let me know I was at 5cm (this was a relief, as I was worried I was being a complete wuss and was going to get sent home at 2cm and all my nursing school friends would have a good laugh!). Shortly after, my water broke and things got even more intense. About 40 minutes later I started feeling "pushy", and sure enough my midwife let us know I was complete and could push when I felt like it. About 20 minutes later he was born (less than 1.5 hours after arriving). The room was quiet and Mark got to announce it was a boy (which shocked me, because everyone, including an older woman in Target who was a midwife in her home country, told me I was definitely carrying a girl!) It was fast, intense, and beautiful! Many thanks to everyone who supported us, especially our doula and local ICAN leader, Jenn Whitaker, and the wonderful midwives at WISDOM Midwifery.