Birth of Link Ryley May 10th 2008

On friday May 9th I woke up starving and having some contractions. I had some other symptoms that I will keep to myself but if you've ever had a baby, I am sure you can imagine. I called Jeanne and let her know all of the juicy details and then continued eating. I felt like this was "it" and for some reason I was feeling so sad and emotional about it. Every time I would look at Leif I would think about the changes in his life that were about to take place and how it was sort of unfair to him. I also thought about all of our sweet moments that were coming to an end. All of our rocking to sleep or snuggling to sleep or waking up together in the morning...they would all have a new added element, or would be near impossible with an needy infant. I cried all day. I called Jeanne at around noon and let her know what I was feeling and I called into work and asked them to find someone to work for me that night. I felt like the contractions were happening kinda high in my back, so I thought I had a long ways to go, and that when it started feeling "lower" then I would know they were serious.
Throughout the day I tried to hold it together and prepare myself for possibly having to go into work. I wrote in Leif's little journal that I keep for him all of what I was feeling, all of the things that were making me sad, and all of the things I was looking forward to with him being a brother. He was excellent all day and very sweet to me. I then called back into work at 3, only to find out that no one was able to come in and cover for me, that they all had plans. Ryan came home and I went into work. I called Jeanne on the way and let her know what was going on.

I will not go into how bad work was, but I was scheduled to be there til 10, and I left at 8. I called Jeanne on the way and she asked if I wanted her to come now and I said to wait until I got home. I wanted to make sure things didn't fade away once I got relaxed at home. I came home and rocked Leif to sleep, and then waited for Ryan to come and put him in his bed since I as having a little trouble getting him up and into bed.

Things didn't settle down, and a little after 10 we called Jeanne over. This was the happiest moment of Ryan's life I think. He was finally almost in the clear for delivering a baby himself. haha. I went and laid in bed and listened to my playlist. At around 11:30 Jeanne got there and checked on me and then went about getting things ready. Pam got there at about 12 and then there was always someone in the room with me. I turned off the tunes and started talking about what was going on, little updates about how I was feeling. I must have peed 57 times before the baby came out. I was spending most of the time sitting on my knees and kinda rocking when I had a contraction, but then my feet started going to sleep so I decided I wanted to lay on my side for a while. Ryan came and sat up on the bed by my head and when I laid down I started to hear my heart beat in my head really loud and started to feel pushy. My body pushed for about 2 minutes straight. I think it was 2 contractions, but it felt like one long one. My water broke right as his head was coming out, and then he settled for a few seconds and then came out. His head and part of the cord came out together and then the rest of him came out. They laid him up on my tummy and threw a towel over him. I just looked at him and checked him all out. A little bit after that we lifted him and saw that he was a boy. Pam asked if we had a name picked out and I said Link. A little while later I delivered the placenta and Ryan cut the cord and the whole time I just held Link. After about an hour I took a shower and then settled into bed, Leif woke up and came and snuggled with me while Pam did a little check up on Link. Measuring weighing, all that good stuff. He was 7lbs and 5 oz and 20 inches long. He was born at 1:58am. Things are going very well.