Our little Liam arrived May 5 at 6:40pm and was 7 lbs 0 oz and 4 days early!!! Since he's taking a nice long nap, I finally have a chance to share how he made his entrance into the world!

I woke up at 5am feeling crampy enough that I couldn't sleep, so I got up, walked around a bit, and did some sitting on my yoga ball. By 7am I had had a few contractions, so I woke up DH and told him we wouldn't be making it to our dinner plans that evening. He jokingly told me to "cross my legs" and hold him in (We were supposed to go to his big work dinner that night and he was excited about it). Of course once DH was awake the contractions stopped, but I still felt very crampy.

At about 2pm I was still feeling very crampy and having a contraction or two every hour so I called my midwife. She confirmed that I was in early labor and told me to rest, drink lots of water, and eat small meals, since this could go on for quite awhile. Wouldn't you know, after talking to her I started getting more frequent contractions. An hour later they were about 5 minutes apart, so I called the midwife again. Since I wanted a drug-free labor, she instructed me to stay home as long as possible, but said if I was feeling scared I could come in and she'd be there.

Since my contractions weren't all that painful, DH decided to go out and do some gardening. Ten minutes later I came outside and told him I had had 3 contractions in the 10 minutes he was gone. He suggested we head to the hospital, but I insisted we follow the midwife's advice and stay home a bit longer. He came in the house to be with me and a few minutes later I felt a trickle. It wasn't much, but at that point I started to get freaked out and decided it was time to go!

As soon as we got in the car, my contractions started coming 2 minutes apart and were very painful. DH noticed he was low on gas and asked if we could stop!! The look on my face told him the answer was NO!

When we got to the hospital at 5:15pm a nice lady from the ER brought me a wheel chair and wheeled me up to L&D where a not so nice nurse made me get out of it and stand. Then a very slow-walking nurse brought me to triage and just stood there trying to figure out which room to put me in while I was doubled over against a railing in pain! As I saw my midwife walking down the hall I started to feel faint and told them I NEEDED to lay down so they took me to a bed in triage. My midwife checked me and I was disappointed to find I was only 4 cm after being 3cm a few days before at my midwife's office. With all that pain I thought for sure I would be further than that! I turned to my husband and whispered "I can't do it. I need the epidural." He told me to hang on until the next check and we'd see how much progress I'd made at that point.

After establishing that I was in fact in labor they asked me to walk to a delivery room. At this point I was writhing in pain and having contractions one on top of another and could barely breath so I told them "No way!" Then when they tried to wheel the bed to a delivery room, the nurses couldn't figure out the wheels so my husband basically wheeled me over.

Since this was my first baby, I don't think anyone realized how fast my labor was going and I got the feeling they thought I was a big wuss. I'd show them!!

At my next check, only 20 minutes later, I had gone from 4 cm to 6.5 cm and my water broke! I asked the midwife when I could get an epidural and she said after they got an IV bag in me. A few minutes later her and the nurses started prepping for delivery and kept saying this baby was coming very soon! I kept asking them if they were serious because I thought they were just telling me that so I wouldn't want an epidural. ha. Twenty minutes after the 6.5 cm check, I was fully dilated and ready to push. I couldn't believe it and apparently unloaded a whole lot of curse words and asked over and over how long we'd been at the hospital (which was only about an hour).

After 25 minutes of pushing, Liam was born, a mere hour and a half after we'd arrived at the hospital! I was totally in shock about how fast it had happened and had a hard time wrapping my head around it all. But I was so happy finally meet my baby! I always thought I would cry when they laid him on my belly, but instead I just stared in amazement. Everybody kept telling me how lucky I was to have such a fast delivery and I was so happy that I ended up with the natural birth I wanted!

Since we couldn't get any sleep in the hospital because of all the hospital staff that kept checking on us, we decided to take our little Liam home only about 24 hours after his birth.

Everything is going well and we are so happy to be a family of 3! He's an adorable, but tiny, baby who only cries when he's hungry or having his diaper changed. I'm so excited to watch him grow and snuggle snuggle snuggle!