It's only been 3 weeks since June was born and we already can't remember life without her. She is the sweetest little thing and we've all loved snuggling and playing with her. She already is on somewhat of a schedule (which I know will likely change) with eating and sleeping and she really doesn't cry. She looks a lot like her big sister and has ever since she was born.
Her due date was April 21 which was a Monday. Everyone kept telling me I will have a lot faster labor this time because it's my second baby. I started having contractions on the Saturday before the due date but I knew they weren't strong enough to mean I was in labor but they were regular for 6-8 hours. I thought this must mean I'm close! Needless to say, she didn't come for another whole week later. Throughout the week, I'd have contractions but I tried to ignore them because I knew they weren't true labor contractions. On Thursday, I had to be admitted to the hospital because I was bleeding more than normal. They hooked me up to the monitors and decided the baby and I were just fine but my contractions were 8 minutes apart and they sent me home. I was dilated to a 1-1.5.
The next morning I had an appointment with my midwife scheduled. I had contractions through the night but nothing crazy. That morning I was already at a 4. I thought "wow, this is definitely going to be quick this time!" Well, my midwife thought it was a good idea to strip my membranes to try and get things going. All throughout the day, I had pretty strong contractions that were regular but I wanted to wait as long as I could before going into the hospital because last time my labor was so long. By that evening, I was convinced I was in active labor and needed to get to the hospital. We got to the hospital around 6:30 that night and checked in. I was still only at a 4 and when I sat in the hospital bed to be monitored, my contractions went from 3-4 minutes apart to 8-9 minutes apart and the intensity greatly decreased too. So, they had me walking around to try and keep things going.
I asked to have my water broken because with my last delivery, once my water was broken, my labor picked up and Aspen was born about 3 hours later. At 8, the OB hospitalist (my midwife wasn't there yet) came in and broke my water and we discovered that she had meconium. I knew in my heart it wasn't a big deal but the doctor kind of scared me when he said I won't be able to do skin to skin with her when she's born, Billie won't be able to cut the cord, I can't nurse her right away and that she might have to go to the NICU. Right away my contractions picked up and I was feeling confident things would progress.
Fast forward about 4 hours. I had been walking around the entire time minus being monitored for the past 5 or so hours. I was at a 6.5-7 at that point but was still laughing and talking in between contractions. I walked around for another 2 hours and was checked again and was only at a 7 and I was still nowhere near the intensity I remembered with Aspen. I was soooo tired at that point from walking around so much and just from it being so late at night. They asked if I wanted to start pitocin at that point and I decided it might be necessary because who knows how long this whole thing was going to go with my contractions basically stopping any time I took a break.
I was so scared about starting pitocin. I didn't know what it was going to feel like and how intense it was going to be. After 2 more hours of laboring with pitocin, I had only progressed to an 8. Things were really intense at this point: I was shaking uncontrollably inbetween contractions and I was SOOOOO tired. I think if I had known when the end would be it would have been easier. It's so hard when the end could be in an hour or in 5. After one more hour, I told them that if I hadn't progressed, I definitely needed an epidural. I was so discouraged and tired and I didn't think I could do it. At about 5:20 I was at a 9. I was using the squatting bar at this point to labor through contractions. All of a sudden, my midwife had the idea to have me roll over onto my right side to see if we could get the baby to rotate face down and move further into the birth canal (up until this point she was really high in there and wasn't moving down well). The minute I did that move, I had a huge contraction and felt her move right down where she needed to be and then all I wanted to do was PUSH! I literally couldn't talk at that point and didn't tell anyone I was pushing but I was pushing. Then the nurse saw the head coming out and everyone was yelling for me to STOPPPPP!! They called all the NICU people in and frantically put on gloves and told me to wait for the next contractions. I pushed and pushed on my side with my left leg wide in the air and her head came out in a few pushes. I was having trouble with her shoulders and so they rotated me to my back and then she came out the rest of the way.
Billie was able to cut the cord and I was able to feed her right away. She was perfectly healthy and adorable. I remember hearing her cry for the first time and that sweet little squeak was SO cute. We noticed how much she looked like Aspen.
We didn't have a name for her for a long time. We had a list but couldn't decide for sure what to name her. Finally, the next day in the hospital, we wrote down our names we liked on the hospital white board and decided on June. We didn't tell anyone yet because we wanted to sleep on it to see if we still liked it. We tried it out for a while and just decided it was the right name for her.
Aspen has been the sweetest big sister. She loves her "bay June Bug". She likes to hold her and especially loves to try to give her her paci. Our first few weeks have been an adjustment especially for Aspen but we are all learning and loving having two baby girls!
