Hallee's birth story

 I've been blessed to have had 4 wonderful experiences with bringing my first four children into this world. I wish I could say Halle's delivery was perfect and wonderful, but it wasn't. It was really hard and scary for me. My favorite part of pregnancy is the actual delivery. I love everything about it. I have always felt fortunate that my deliveries have always gone so well. I've always been able to go into labor on my own. I like not knowing when the baby will come, I do get impatient towards the end but it's fun not knowing when the baby will make it's grand entrance. We also like not knowing the sex of our babies, Rich always said it would be like peeking at our Christmas presents. We peeked with Brooklyn but enjoyed the surprise with the last 4 babies. Once labor starts we love the thrill of rushing to the hospital, Rich loves that he can speed and run red lights:) When I get to the hospital, I ALWAYS look forward to that epidural! I've never had the desire to feel the pain of child birth, to me it would be like passing up the Novocaine when getting a root canal. Everyone is different though, and I respect that. Some prefer the drugs and some don't. So with Hallee I didn't get to end my child bearing days like I would have liked. I wish it would have turned out differently, but she's here and that's all that really matters. This is her story and how she made it here with a bang. On Wednesday, September 12th I was having contractions all day. They weren't consistent though, but very painful. Around dinner time I started having them about  every 15 minutes. That's still not close enough together for me to feel like we should hop in the car and go to the hospital. I started to have a few contractions that were 8 minutes apart and I told Rich that this could be it. My doctor knew I lived 40 minutes away, and he said to leave the house when they were 6 minutes apart. So that's what we did. Our friend Brenda was planning on coming over when we went into labor but she was out of town that day. Brenda has type 1 diabetes, so we were glad to have found someone willing to come over incase one of the kids went low in the night. She would know how to take care of them. So we scrambled trying to find someone to come over. We did not want to wake the kids and load them up in them car. Rich was finally able to reach our friend Stacy to come over. We left our house around 11:00ish I think, the minute we got in the car, the contractions got really intense and were two to three minutes apart. Holy Moly I thought I was going to die!! Half way into our drive we got pulled over, Rich was driving over 100mph.  I yelled at Rich to not get out of the car because I was afraid of the cop shooting him. The cop makes it to our car and begins to question us and ask if my water had broken. We didn't have time for his  questions! He eventually realized I was in real pain and escorted us the rest of the way to the hospital.  We arrived to the hospital and I knew the pain would soon be over once I got the epidural.  The nurses checked me I was dilated to a 6. I then begged for epidural, because I knew I would dilate quickly. They told me I had to go through half of a IV bag. It was then that I knew that I wasn't going to get drugs in time. I begged anyways. As they put the IV in I was still holding out hope that I could get the epidural in time, they told me it would take 20 minutes to get through half the bag. I seriously thought about crossing my legs, because I did not want to deliver this child with out the drugs. As soon as I got the IV in they checked me again(I asked them not to because I hurt too bad but they checked me anyways).  They told me I was fully dilated and time to push. FEAR struck me, I didn't want to do it. I felt like I couldn't do it. I wasn't prepared for this,  a lot of people who choose to do natural child birth prepare and do research on how to breath and push and stay calm. I was a absolute wreck! While I started to push I could hear another lady in the room next to me screaming, the doctor told me she was dilated to a 9 and needed to check on her real quick while I kept pushing with the nurses. Rich said I kept giving him crazy eyes when I was pushing. Trying to push the baby out felt impossible, it hurt worse when I pushed but I knew the only way to stop the pain was to push harder so the baby would come out. I was loud and I screamed a lot. Rich then told me to stop screaming because it made it harder for the baby to come out because I was using my energy on screaming rather then pushing hard. I then yelled and Rich for telling me that I couldn't scream!! Oh boy was I mad. (Later I realized he was trying to help me, but at the time I was irritated). Never in my life have I experienced pain like this. The doctor ran back into my room to check on me, I could tell she was stressed trying to deliver two babies at once. A few more pushes and she came out sunny side up, which made it much harder to get her out.  At 12:40 am on September 13 Halle Marie Stowe was born weighing in at 7lbs 13 oz, 20 inches long. They laid her on my chest and I could barely hold her because I was so shaking and tired. I wanted to hold her but felt completely wiped out, I felt like I couldn't enjoy her like I did with my other deliveries.  I felt guilty I felt that way because I had waited 9 months to meet this little person.  I had 2nd degree tears and I felt the doctor go back and forth with that needle(not fun), after I was stitched up the nurses said" Since you didn't have a epidural you can get up and walk around if you like". I thought... Are you kidding me? Why would I want to walk around right now I'm exhausted. Soon after they gave me a couple of pills to help with the pain and I was able to enjoy our sweet new arrival. We were really surprised to have had another girl, I was thinking it would be a boy. The moment I held her I was in love. I stayed two nights in the hospital, some people hate hospitals, I love having the quiet time with my babies after I deliver. The hospital food may be terrible and the bed is hard but it's time with just me and the baby and I love that. I'm not always ready to get home and jump back into life. Hallee completes our family and it's strange to think that this will be our last. I have a hard time putting her down when I need to get things done, I hold her ALL the time. I love the name we've chosen, her name is pronounced like the actress "Hallee Berry's" name, some people get it confused with the name Hailey.  We chose the name Marie because it's my sister Holly's middle name. We like to choose family names for middle names, and my sister Holly is someone that both Rich and I admire and really  love. Hallee is laying on my chest as I type this post. I love everything about her, she's growing and changing everyday. I'm so happy she's finally here and that I get to be her mom.

Hallee Marie, 1 week old