Three

Heart beats fast, colors and promises, how to be brave? How can I love when I'm afraid to fall? But watching you stand alone, all of my doubt suddenly goes away somehow.

His name is Rory Heleumau'lanihekilikahiaualepo'i Dullanty. He is 6lbs 10oz and 19in long with brown hair and steel blue eyes that I'm sure will change. He is strong enough to pull his head and chest up when he is on his tummy and sounds like a teradactyl when he cries. His ears are perfect and his nose is perfect and his hands and feet are ridiculous big. He eats well, he sleeps well, he makes dirty diapers like a champ. He is the most beautiful thing I have ever seen. And he is mine.

One step closer.

I started having regulars contractions Friday, roughly 15-20 minutes apart, but I didnt't want to get my hopes up. Waiting to go into labor is essentially torture. Because you want your baby to get here and every little twinge feels like "Maybe this is it!" But, at the same time, you don't want to go to the hospital too early and be told to go home or have to sit around forever. By 7pm my contractions were 6 minutes apart and I had to really concentrate to talk through them, but I could do it and was not convinced. I wanted nothing to do with spending 36 hours in labor and I wanted to do as much as possible from the comfort of my own home. My parents took me out to dinner and Mark asked that they hang out with me afterwards (he was at work), just incase this really was the real thing. At this point my parents were sure and Mark was sure, but I still had reservations. By 9:30 contractions were between 4-5 minutes and had been that way for at least an hour, even I had to concede that this was the point I had been told to get my butt to the hospital. So I got in the shower and let my parents drive me to the bar.

I have died everyday, waiting for you. Darling, don't be afraid, I have loved you for a thousand years. I'll love you for a thousand more.

Mark had the bar shut down and the car ready to go by the time we pulled up at 10:30pm. He kissed me and we drove ourselves to Bellevue. If I thought really hard about it, I could still talk through a contraction, but maybe one or two words and they were breathy. Contractions don't hurt initially, they feel like a rather grumpy nurse has placed a blood pressure cuff around your insides. But then that blood pressure cuff starts to get too tight and squeeze things that do not want to be squeezed. By the time we got to the hospital, my contractions were still 4 minutes apart and I was terrified they were going to tell me I was a whiney little bitch and to go home. Triage nurses treat you in that exact manner. They expect that you are a whiney little bitch and that they will tell you to go home. It's not that they aren't nice or polite, but they probably send about half of the women who come in back home. Even I was surprised when she checked me and found me at 4cm, 90% effaced. But women can spend hours, even days at 4cm. So they had me walk around the hospital for an hour to see if I was idle or progressing in labor. 12:45pm came around and I believe the nurse's exact words were: "Wow. This is going to blow your mind, but you're at 7cm." Needless to say, I was checked in.

Time stands still, beauty in all he is. I will be brave, I will not let anything take away what's standing in front of me. Every breath, every hour has come to this.

Contractions are no longer blood pressure cuff twinges when you are 7cm dialated and headed quickly into labor. They are rolling waves of pain unlike anything I have ever experienced. Not because they are so horrible or anthing - it's just literally unlike any feeling I've ever had before. It's almost like a kaleidoscope. It starts in the middle of your low back and gets bigger and bigger until it wraps around to your stomach and gets small and tight when it suddenly starts spreading out again, rolling down your legs. I am GBS positive, which means absolutely nothing for me and never would have come up if I hadn't been pregnant, but it can cause infections with babies (especially if your water breaks early in labor) so they want to give you at least two doses of antibiotics through an IV. After setting all of that up, taking vitals, some paper work and other things I vaguely remember, the nurses ran a bath for me. And when I say bath, I mean jacuzzi. It's meant to be sensory overload and water aids in taking gravity out of the equation when it comes to contractions, and quite honestly? It feels pretty nice. But it was too hot and I didn't want to have my senses overloaded, I wanted to just get it over with and have my baby. Mark read to me and squeezed the pressure point between my thumb and pointer finger as the contractions rolled over me. If he was scared, nervous, or uncomfortable, I couldn't tell. He was an unbelievable anchor during the entire process and seemed to know exactly what I needed and adjusted the moment I was uncomfortable. Have I told you how much I love my husband?

One step closer.

After the tub I was still only 7cm dilated which was so discouraging to me, but the midwives and nurses seemed completely fine with it. I am, apparently, impatient. Or maybe I just knew that I was going to have a quick labor and needed to be further along than that. They had me stand next to the bed and lean down, putting my arms and chest on the bed. Gravity works. They say that alcohol lowers inhibitions and that's why people love to drink. We like feeling loose and not really caring what people think of us. Labor is like that, only your inhibitions aren't just lowered, they no longer exist. Before Friday night, I had never thrown up in front of anyone. And while I'm not necessarily the most modest of human beings, only my husband gets to see me in anything less that a swimsuit. Even in a swimsuit, I'm not the most comfortable human - at least, I wasn't until Friday night. As of Friday night? I am a wild woman who throws up in front of complete strangers and allows them to hold her hair and dab her mouth with a wet cloth and wanders around completely naked because it is too hot on top of the nausea and the pain and the inability to think straight. Oh yah, alcohol has nothing on labor. I ended up getting back in the tub and then out of the tub and wouldn't you know it, fully dilated.

I have died everyday, waiting for you. Darling, don't be afraid, I have loved you for a thousand years. I'll love you for a thousand more.

At this point I had been at the hospital for 3 1/2 hours, just a half hour to go before round two of antibiotics. The nurses and midwives let me know that I could push if I wanted and gave me tips. So I pushed through my next contraction. Pushing hurts, but I much preferred that to just allowing contractions to riddle my body. It's a much more tangible pain and therefore makes it seem more manageable - at least to me - plus you are actually participating in the labor at that point, rather than just letting it happen to you. I think everyone initially thought they had a little bit of time and were very encouraging, but I didn't make that second half and hour. The one thing I very distinctly remember was the midwife very suddenly saying that they needed to get gowned, "Yah, the quicker the better." I pushed through my second contraction. Mallory, the midwife in training, looked at me, smiled and said, "If you want, you could push your baby out on your next contraction." And I did. They dropped a towel on my previously bulging stomach and then placed my beautiful little boy there, toweled him off and then rolled him so he was on my skin.

All along I believed I would find you. Time has brought your heart to me, I have loved you for a thousand years. I'll love you for a thousand more.

His name is Rory Heleumau'ilanihekilikahiaualepo'i Dullanty. Born on the 11th of August 2012 at 4:34am. 19 inches long, 6lbs 14oz, brown hair, big feet, wiry hands, and already strong enough to pick his head and chest up while he's on his stomach. He has dark steel blue eyes that I am praying turn green and is so expressive it makes me laugh on a regular basis. He eats well and makes dirty diapers like a champ. He lets us get just enough sleep and keeps us up the rest of the time. Mark says he looks like me, but I think as he grows we will find out he looks like us. He tested perfect on all his response tests and everyone tells me how beautiful he is, but I think that is partially just what you say to anyone with a newborn. Most importantly though, he is ours. He is ours and we love him. Most ardently. I suddenly cannot imagine our life without him and I can't wait to write more of it with him.

One step closer. One step closer.

We had a nurse as well as a nurse in training, a midwife and a midwife in training. I didn't mind in the slightest, they were all phenomenal and encouraging and treated me like I actually knew what I wanted. Helen, the nurse in training, talked to me for awhile while everyone was out of the room and let me know how amazing it was that I had a natural birth. I thanked her, but she persisted. She has been doing rounds at Overlake for a year and had never seen a natural birth until me. Even the women who come in expecting to do natural child birth end up asking for drugs. That absolutely shocked me. Did labor hurt? Oh yah. Was it worth it? No doubt in my mind. Now, I was lucky and my labor was relatively short and I got to spend most of it at home, but still. The thought of not being able to feel any of that trauma to my body and then having to deal with the consequences afterwards anyway along with a longer recovery time? Far more terrifying. Plus, I wouldn't have been able to hold Rory until I could wiggle both my big toes and he would have been groggy and probably unable to feed for several hours. Far. More. Terrifying. To be honest, being pregnant again is more daunting to me than labor. Do I discredit women who want an epidural? Nope. I think labor is 90% mental. If you genuinely believe that your body was created to do this and consider that women have been giving birth for thousands of years, you are going to react to it much like I do. If you are afraid of the process? You are going to have a miserable labor and I truly believe that. For some women? Drugs are the best option because otherwise they are going to have an impossibly horrid time. There is also the last 10% that falls into the realm of chance when it comes to having a difficult labor. That's just my opinion though.

I have died everyday, waiting for you. Darling, don't be afraid, I have loved you for a thousand years. I'll love you for a thousand more.

Having a little one of my own is just as wonderful as I imagined it to be. I am sore and for the first time in my life I have a little tire around my waist, I can't wait to get the go ahead to work out and I would love to be able to do more than talk a quarter mile walk, I am exhausted and will probably not see the other side of 8 hours of sleep for the next two years, my breasts are full and leak milk, I am hungry and  change 8 diapers a day - but it doesn't even matter. Because I have the most precious thing in the world. I have no idea what I have done to be so blessed, but I am not about to second guess or question it. Just shut up and love every moment of it - that's the plan. We are now three. Mark and I have had such good talks and snuggles and cuddles with our beautiful addition and I am so excited for our future.

All along I believed I would find you. Time has brought your heart to me, I have loved you for a thousand years. I'll love you for a thousand more.