I had been having off and on contractions for days and kept hoping that I would really go into labor any day.
We went on walks in the snow to try to get me to go into labor. No luck. When I got to my due date February 3rd and then past it I was ready to have a baby.
I bounced on an exercise ball and ran on the treadmill. Still no baby.I could have been a lot more uncomfortable and miserable those last few days, and I'm grateful I wasn't.
On Sunday February 6th we went to church in the morning and it was fast and testimony meeting. About halfway through the meeting Jon got up and bore his testimony about how miraculous the coming forth of the Book of Mormon was. When he sat back down he leaned over and whispered to me something like "maybe that was what the baby was waiting for." I thought, if all I have to do is share my testimony so we can have a baby I can do that. I got up and shared my simple testimony about the truthfulness of the gospel, the reality of Christ's atonement, and our Heavenly Fathers love for us. I went to Sunday School and my back started to really hurt and I was pretty uncomfortable. I don't remember if I was having any significant contractions, but I had heard that back pain is often an early sign of labor so I was very hopeful. I made it through Sunday School and Relief Society and I was having a few contractions but they weren't super close together. After church was over I got the keys from Jon because he had a ward council meeting he needed to stay for. When I got home I was having more contractions and I thought maybe I should do some things I would want done before we went to the hospital, so I threw some laundry in the washer and picked up a little. Then I started having some really painful contractions and I went to the bathroom because I wasn't sure if I was really having contractions or if I was just having some serious bowel issues. I started timing and they were happening about every 4 minutes, so I texted Jon to see if he was close to being done with his meeting because he normally would have been by this time. He responded that they were wrapping up and he should be home soon. I was to the point that I was ready to go to the hospital as soon as he got home, but then the contractions started to get less painful and less frequent and then Jon got home. I wasn't too happy because I was ready to go, but things had pretty much stopped. We decided to go for a walk in hopes that things would start back up again. They didn't. I was having contractions while we were walking but they weren't the same as I had been having before and they didn't keep on going after I stopped walking. I tried to accept the fact that it wasn't going to happen yet, so we went about our Sunday pretty much as usual after that.
At around 5 we went to my parents for dinner we hung out and talked about having babies and stuff.
I'm not sure how it started, but we put a balloon in my niece Alexis' shirt so she had a "big fat baby tummy" like mine. She thought it was hilarious.
At about 7:30 I started feeling not so great again. My back pain was back and I started having the ambiguous contraction/constipation pains again. The contractions weren't as distinct or regular as they had been earlier, but we decided to go home so we could maybe get a little sleep. We went to bed and Jon had me timing the contractions on his iPod touch, so I would wake up and press the lap button whenever I had one. At first they were about 18 minutes apart and not super consistent or not all of them were painful enough to wake me up. As the night went on they got closer together and more painful. At about 4 in the morning I was having contractions about every 8 minutes and they were very painful. I woke Jon up because I was ready to go to the hospital even though I figured they might send me home because the contractions weren't very close together. We got up and gathered our stuff together. It was snowing as we were driving to the hospital and on the way there I was having contractions about every 6 minutes. I was hopeful that this meant things were progressing. We went up to the 5th floor of the hospital and we filled out some paperwork and then they started to monitor me to see how things were going. My contractions had slowed down a lot and I was not happy. After monitoring me for an hour the nurse asked Dr. Rees if they were going to keep me or not. When she left to go ask she told me that they would probably send me home. I was happy when she came back and told me that they were keeping me. This was at about 6 in the morning and the nurse who had been monitoring me was about to finish her shift. She told me good luck and that if I was still there when she started her next shift she would probably be taking care of me again. My new nurse came in around 7 and told me that things weren't progressing and they could start me on the pitocin to try to get my contractions going again. I figured I was there already and I wanted to get this show on the road, so they started me on that. I was only dilated to a 2 at this point and after the contractions started back up I got some stuff in my IV for the pain. When the IV drugs weren't cutting it I had them give me the epidural. I was dilated to a 4 when they gave me the epidural at around 10. I had been a little worried about the epidural being painful, but it was nothing. I felt kind of weird after getting the epidural and I really didn't like that I couldn't move my legs, but I had been complimented on how small I was by my first nurse and the anesthesiologist so at least that was something I could be happy about. I could still scrunch up my toes but my legs were just big tingly blobs of flesh attached to my body.
I sat in my hospital bed and waited. I watched movies on the iPad and tried to sleep. It was slow going from here. They put me on oxygen at around 11, I think because the babies heart rate was dropping when I would have a contraction but I'm not completely sure if that was the reason. At about 12:30 Dr. Broberg broke my water in hopes that this would speed things along. Nothing much happened and the baby's heart rate was going down with the contractions so they started to worry that because I was over my due date the baby was not going to fit and they might have to do a c-section. The nurse said the doctor was going to come in and talk to us about the c-section option, but I guess they decided to just wait and hope things started progressing. At about 3 my mom came over to the hospital because she was all worried that I was having an emergency c-section and was going to die or something. This was about the same time that I got really cranky, and it wasn't because my mom was there. I was cranky because I was hungry and I couldn't move my legs and my hips were hurting and I didn't feel like things were progressing and I figured if this was all going to end in me having a c-section anyway I wanted them to just do it rather than making me wait all day and then doing it. Very cranky. Jon was very sweet all day he brought me ice chips, gave me a blessing, told me to relax and try to sleep, and would push the nurse button for me whenever I needed something. After being very cranky for a while I decided I would start pushing the button on my epidural that would give me an extra dose of the medication to see if that would help with the pain in my hips and in turn help with the crankiness. I think that helped a little. I also determined at about this same time that when it was time for me to push I was going to push that baby out like it was no body's business because I was sick of being in labor. At around 5 pm or so I started feeling some pressure and had the nurse come check me. I was dilated to an 8! This made me happy because that meant I was getting closer to the end of this whole labor thing.
I finally made it to a 10 at 5:45 and I was so happy. (In the picture the red line was the baby's heart beat and the blue line was the contractions)
The nurse who had been taking care of me all day was off at 6 and then the nurse who had monitored me in the morning came back in for her next shift. She got me all ready and taught me how to push and had me start pushing. I was doing some pushing and the baby's head was starting to come out, so she had me stop while they called the doctor. I started feeling really nauseous and then I started throwing up. This was not pleasant, but the nurse said that this would probably start pushing the baby out even more because the same muscles you use to push you use to throw up. Sure enough the vomiting was pushing the baby out a little more and the nurse was saying things like "I might have to catch this baby myself" and was sending people to find the doctor. Another doctor who is not part of the group that I see came in because they thought that I might pop this baby out at any second. Luckily right after he came in Dr. Thorpe came in and got all ready and he had me do some small pushes and then had me stop pushing for a little bit because he thought if we took it slow I might not even tear. He had me push again and the baby's head came out. He had me look and see the baby, which was a little weird because I leaned over to look between my leg and my gut and saw a baby's head sticking out. He then worked the baby's shoulders out and Daniel just kind of slid out of me like a fish.
When he first came out he wasn't breathing so they called in the respiratory team and they worked on him for a little bit and got him to start squawking a little (I like the face he is making in this picture; he still makes this face and I call it his pirate face). As the respiratory team was working on Daniel Dr. Thorpe delivered the placenta and was stitching me up, I had torn a little.
They let me hold Danny for a few minutes and then they took him over to the ICU to make sure that his breathing was going to be ok because he had a hard time when he was first born. I was shaking like crazy from the adrenaline of having a baby and I ended up throwing up the juice that the nurse got me because I was finally able to eat. My parents came in from the waiting room and visited with us for a little bit and they took our stuff down to the room in the mother baby unit while we went and saw Daniel in the ICU.
They said that they had put him on a CPAP machine to help with breathing, so he had this little thing on his head that they used to hold that in place. I was feeling kind of sick and shaky while in the ICU so after a bit they took Jon and I down to our room and they said that the baby would probably be down to the nursery soon because he was doing really well and wasn't having any problems breathing on his own. Because I was in labor so long and the way the doctors and nurses shifts worked I had one doctor admit me, one doctor monitor me during the day while I was in labor, and another doctor deliver the baby. I had two different nurses and three student nurses that all took their turns helping out before I had the baby too.
We spent two days in the mother and baby unit recovering and Danny passed all his tests.
We bundled him up and took him home. Time for real life to start.
Daniel Hugh Ware was born at 7:01 pm on February 7th 2011. 7lbs 6 oz. 21 in.
This was his first bath. He didn't like it very much.
Luckily my mom was there to help with the first bath. It is a lot easier with an extra set of hands.
I gave him another bath and couldn't resist taking more pictures of him in his duck towel.
Ashley came over and brought Dean because I needed some moral support and to interact with another adult. She took this picture of Danny staring at his cousin. I think they are going to be good friends.
I took a few pictures of Danny to try capture some of the funny faces he makes. I like the hand under his chin in this one. 
Human baby or turtle baby?
This is his pirate face. It is pretty funny to see him make this face when he is really upset because his face gets all scrunched up and he looks even more like a pirate.
