Joseph's Birthday

It is likely that there are more journal entries while I was pregnant with Joseph because I have a few months that have gone AWOL. I know it isn’t just that I didn’t write because the last entry before the great silence stops midsentence. However, having just finished writing what I have, I think is suffices.
 
Friday, August 3, 2006: “Eleven days until this baby is due and I’m just about as ready as I can be. I finished getting all the supplies I should need yesterday and that’s always a good thing to have done. The only think I wonder about is the gloves because on the list it says sterile and all I’ve seen is the boxes. I got one yesterday hoping it will work. Yesterday afternoon I finished getting everything washed, folded and put into bags. Currently, everything is on my cedar chest.”

Sunday, August 20, 2006: “Still no baby yet but Laura was a week late. In talking to Diane yesterday, she said the water (we’d been going to the pool almost every evening) may be keeping things from happening. That makes sense because I’ve been having some fairly good contractions for the last couple of weeks but they always stop when I go to bed. That is rather annoying because I really am ready for this baby to be born.

“Today is the day everything has to be picked up from the fair. I’m not sure who is going to go down but I know that I’m not. I’m not going to church either for a couple of reasons—one, sitting is uncomfortable, standing is uncomfortable, laying down is uncomfortable so church is bound to be uncomfortable as well; two, I don’t feel like listening to anyone’s ‘cute’ comments about the state of pregnancy we’re in. Also, I’d like to contemplate castor oil and milk.”

Finally, on Monday, August 28, 2006, I wrote: “Well, Joseph Eoghan was born Tuesday August 22, at 2:14 am. Alisha said her clock said 2:11 and she’s most likely right because it always takes a minute or two to get things recorded.

“Joseph was 9# 3oz and 20 ½” long. He has dark hair currently and is very cute. Today when he got weighed he was 8# 12 oz.

Last Monday I went in for a prenatal visit as usual even though we were a week late and I said I might call the next morning about castor oil if nothing had happened by then. When I got there and they checked baby’s heart beat, it was really fast. Barb had me drink a big glass of cold water and just sit and relax. I was quite warm when I got there and sometimes that causes fetal heart rates to be high. When she listened again, they were lower but she said she’d come over and check the next day if nothing happened before then.

“I sat down on the bed in the afternoon/evening to finish reading a few chapters of Proverbs. It was very uncomfortable and I said so and moved around and suddenly there was a pop and a gush—my water had finally broken.

“I don’t know what order anything happened in but we called the Scotts, started getting things ready, ate dinner, etc., etc. Laura and Joanna helped quite a bit getting everything ready to go over to the Scotts and getting things ready here. My mom and Becky had gone out to dinner so they didn’t know anything was going on until they got back and there was a sheet in the window instead of the usual curtain.

“[The pool was taken] over to Les Schwab to fill it with air because the bicycle pump was taking too long. Then. . . we started filling it. We had to give the hot water heater a break part-way through but it worked out okay.

“Barb and Kendra got there sometime between 9:30 and 10 and got stuff out and situated. I was having some decent contractions but nothing seemed all that promising. When I got in the water at first, everything slowed down. After a while, Kendra gave me a cohosh tincture and . . . I went for a walk up and down the street. That was productive so I came back in and got in the pool. Things still seemed slow so I went for another walk, this time with my mom, and got back in the pool. Kendra gave me another dose of the tincture at some point and while I was out walking [again], Barb went to lay down in her car (she’d managed to get a cold or something, as I recall).

“I don’t know when things began feeling serious but I’d been visualizing for a while when I finally felt that things were really picking up. At one point, I had one and had to push. Kendra asked if I was ready but there’s no way I could have answered at that point. She later said that had she been a novice midwife, she’d never have believed that I was even in labor until then. When I didn’t answer, she figured it was time to don some gloves and . . . get Barb.

“I was fully dilated and it took by their calculations a whole four minutes to get Baby pushed out. He was a bit harder than the rest—it seemed like I’d never get his head out which was my goal because I knew the rest would be fairly easy. After weighting and measuring, it is no surprise he was harder to push out because he was so much bigger than his older siblings.”

Joseph’s birth was incredible. Looking back now, I know I would have done things the same because none of the circumstances would have been different but I think I would have liked to have done castor oil nearer his due date. He would have been a little smaller and most likely easier to push out. However, he made it out alright. Laboring and birthing in the water was heavenly. I loved it. Joseph probably liked it as well due to our going so often to the pool in the couple of months before he was born. The water felt so nice and toward the end, the only time I was truly comfortable was in the pool. The older children loved it also which was a nice added bonus.

I hadn’t remembered that Joseph’s heart rate was high that last prenatal visit. I think I would like to ask Barb what she would have done had it remained high. I’m pretty sure that partly it was due to my stress. My mom came out in time for the birth on the due date and some people did not like that so life was somewhat more stressful at home (which is saying something because it was way off the scale under normal circumstances at the time).

Cedric told me the other day that he remembered spending lots of time outside with Joseph. He was, like most of his older siblings, jaundiced, so we spent quite a bit of time outside sunbathing when it was a good temperature.

Joseph’s birth was another wonderful learning experience. I am so grateful and feel so blessed to have the children that I do.

This is an amazing picture because it was actually taken the day Joseph was born.
I do not have that for any of my other children.

August 23, 2006. Daniel holding baby Joseph and Amena smiling.

Probably this was taken in September.
Cedric often closed his eyes in pictures at this time so this was a nice one.

I'm guessing around September for this one as well.
This outfit was really cool. The planets were glow in the dark.

This may have been taken as early as August.

Probably taken in September.
Seth was a pretty happy big brother.

February 8, 2007.
Mr. Big Eyes.
This picture has an interesting story if you're brave enough to ask.