I went to bed Thursday night feeling sore, but not really contracting. Around 1:30 or so, I awoke to some irregular but painful contractions. I decided to try to time them a bit, but kept falling asleep. A particularly strong contraction hit me at about 2:00 a.m., and then I felt and heard the familiar “pop” sound and felt a small trickle. I ran to the bathroom, and sure enough, I discovered that my water broke! I hollered to my husband, that “my water broke!” and he jumped up from the bed and together we started getting ready to call the drs. office and head for the hospital. Once my water broke the contractions started coming every 3-5 minutes, and they were extremely painful! We woke up the children, told them we were headed to the hospital, and that their Dad would be back by morning. We thought they would go back to sleep . (We later learned they did NOT go back to sleep!) The neighbor across the street agreed to be available to my children anytime we were at the hospital should they need an adult for any reason.

Once we got on the road to the hospital, we had about a 15 minute drive to get there. My husband was timing the contractions and they were coming every 3 minutes. What made us nervous was that I was already feeling pressure to push! We did have one child arrive fast, so my husband knew we better make it to the hospital on the double!

Once we got to the hospital, my husband jumped out of the car and got me a wheelchair and pushed me inside the lobby of the E.R. (After hours, maternity patients must enter through the E.R. entrance). He had the security guard valet park our van, and by now I was in tears and trying to breathe through the contractions. The lady at the front desk acted like she never saw a woman in labor before, and declared to my husband that he had to sign some paperwork. He told her that we didn’t have time for that, and asked “how do we get to the maternity ward?” She told us, and then reminded him that he would have to come back downstairs to sign the paperwork. My husband wheeled me up to the maternity ward, where it was a little slow, but once they heard me moaning and saw my tears all the nurses jumped into action. (I think what did it was that we said this was our 6th child!) I was quickly put in a room, and checked.   They determined I was at 5-6 cm. The monitors were put on and they asked me if I wanted an epidural. “Yes, please!” It seemed like it took forever for them to get me the epidural, but I was so glad I was able to get it! My husband quickly went downstairs to fill out the paperwork, and he returned in just a few minutes. During this time my contractions slowed, and after about an hour the dr. decided to give me a little pitocin. I had no trouble with this, and I knew it wouldn’t take long before I was ready to deliver. Sure enough, within the next hour and a half, the baby’s head descended into position (thank God!) and I was completely dilated. They called in the dr. and we were ready for action! 2 pushes and Adam was out! No episiotomy, no tears. He screamed and screamed, looked perfectly healthy, and had great Apgar scores of 9 and 9. I am so thankful to God for such a quick and successful birth and a healthy baby. It was my 5th VBAC and God answered all my prayers! After the baby and I were settled in our recovery room, my husband made it back home around breakfast time and discovered that instead of going back to sleep, my other children were so excited that they COULDN’T sleep, so they went downstairs and did their homeschool lessons until they got hungry. They made themselves some breakfast and when I talked to my husband around 8:30 a.m. he told me that they said they already finished their schoolwork already. I wondered how? Usually we are just getting our breakfast at that time! But it was because they did it at 3:00 in the morning!

We came home after a 2 1/2 day stay at the hospital…we are settling in and learning how to be a family of 8!

Linking up with Sarah at My Joy-Filled Life!