I try to keep most of my blog posts wedding related since that is what our business is about.  But from time to time I do like to make personal posts so you can get a peak into my life and get a better picture of who I am.  Also I have had many clients asking about the birth of our last child so I thought this was a good way to spread to word!  🙂

 

Izabelle Faith was born on March 31st at 12:19 AM (right on our actual due date!).  It was easily the best birth out of all four of our children, but in the most crazy unexpected way.

 

I had been having contractions for weeks (yes, weeks) on end, and was coming to the point of utter exhaustion.  My patience was running thin as I would have strong contractions that were five to six minutes apart, but then after 6-12 hours they would abruptly stop.  I had no idea when to tell if I was truly in labor unless my water were to break.

 

My midwives were telling me that baby was low and ready to go, but she was laying on her side which was preventing my body from going full force into labor.  They gave me some tricks to try to turn her at home which I was doing as frequently as I could, but nothing seemed to be working.

 

On Friday evening I began having really strong contractions again as my husband and I sat down to watch TV.  I inwardly rolled my eyes and thought – ‘great, another night of fruitless contractions.’  After a few hours I decided to try and go to bed and sleep through the contractions.  While I was laying in bed breathing through a contraction I felt a sudden jolt inside of me and was instantly worried that something had snapped or broken inside.  But then I felt my water break and knew that it was time to go to the hospital.

 

My husband rounded up our three little girls (who were asleep in their beds) and put them in the van while I got dressed and made the necessary phone calls; then we were on our way!

 

We were supposed to be stopping by my parents house to drop off our girls but as soon as I got into the van my contractions became very close and very painful.  I kept going back and forth in my head whether or not we needed to head straight to the hospital.  I didn’t want to make my parents leave their house if we were able to drop the girls off to them, but I couldn’t tell how fast this was going to progress.

 

My husband asked me if I wanted him to call my parents and have them meet us at the hospital instead (he knows my body language and vocal cues in labor now). I thought about it for a few seconds; weighing things in my mind, and then decided it would be best if they met us there.  In the back of my head I was thinking of the process that we would go through once we got to the hospital – getting to the ER desk, being transported up to the 5th floor, sitting in triage waiting for paperwork and test results, and then finally being admitted to a room.  With how things were going I wasn’t sure if I would be able to make it through all of those steps before I was having a baby.

 

He finally got my mom on the phone who agreed to meet us.  But while that was happening my contractions changed once again and I could tell that this was pretty much it.  I tried to breathe steadily and focus my concentration on keeping that baby inside of me.  I was already being pretty vocal and was worried how my four year old, two and a half year old, and one year old would react to hearing and seeing that, I certainly did not want to have a baby in front of them.  My mind flashed back to my last birth where I was screaming in pain and felt utterly hopeless and lost because I did not think I had it in me to push her out. I didn’t want to be there again.

 

I asked my husband how close we were to the hospital knowing that there wasn’t much time left.  He looks around the road and responds, “Almost to Locust Street?”  Locust Street.  We were on Harrison.  We were still at least five minutes out.  There was no way I could hold off that long.  And I could feel another contraction coming.

 

So I shook my head and told him, “No, you have to pull over.  We’re not going to make it.”  He looks over at me with a look that asked ‘are you sure’?  I said, “You have to pull over.”

 

He no sooner pulls over to the right lane of Harrison Street, runs around the van and opens my door and we were ready to have a baby.  He had one hand ready to catch and the other dialing 911.  Knowing that we were on a curb and I was sideways out the passenger side of our van I was worried that she was going to hit the pavement.  I held off as much as I could on pushing and asked him, “Do you have it?”

 

He says “Yea, I’ve got her.  I’ve got her.”  And just like that, not even five seconds later, our sweet Izabelle was born.

 

The police arrived on the scene first, followed by Fire Rescue and the EMT’s.  I cannot say enough about Davenport’s First Responders.  Each and every one of them was kind, courteous, involved, and genuinely cared about the situation that we were in.  They laughed at my jokes about not being able to return our leased Kia, they continuously asked what I needed and reassured me of both mine and baby’s condition.  One of the police officers even went so far as to find the right people and have our camera speeding tickets pulled from the system.  I wish I could find every person that was on duty that evening and thank them personally for the phenomenal job they did taking care of us that night.

 

The rest is history.  We made it to the hospital and both checked out beautifully, and now we are at home adjusting to life with four little girls.  Thank you all for your well wishes and messages over the past few weeks, it means a lot to know that my clients care about me as much as I care about them!  🙂   <3