A Baby Story. . .

. . . a detailed account of the arrival of Darla Inez Petersen.

Friday morning I went to the Dr. with intense curiosity and found out that I was dilated to a 2.5 50% effaced. This is not great progress for me and I wasn't overly concerned - I figured we had another week of pregnancy and, not in a huge hurry, came home feeling fine. I had time. We planned to make a trip to Delta on Saturday and possibly to Emery

county on Monday. Saturday night I was feeling a little lazy so Ty took us to dinner and then we came home and played outside for a few hours, stayed up watching a movie (ok, he stayed up while I snoozed on the couch) and went to bed a little later than normal. Perfect Friday night.

1:30 a.m. - I woke up to some pretty severe back labor. I started timing things out of curiosity and wandered from bathroom to bed and back until 3:00 when they were 5-6 minutes apart and the back labor was pretty bad.

3:00 a.m. - I woke up Tyler and suggested we consider the possibility of going to the hospital. I think he may have been skeptical at first but at the mention of back labor he pulled out his table and started working on me.

4:00 a.m. - Ty's skills have transformed back labor to real life labor - the back pain is gone and the contractions are 1 minute apart and strong. We sneak out the front door and head to the hospital.

4:09 a.m. - I mention that I feel like pushing and Tyler hits the gas.

4:15 a.m. - We arrive at the hospital and request the room with the big tub (ha ha ha).

4:35 a.m. - The on call Dr. arrives and introduces himself to Tyler while the nurse tries frantically to get my IV in and Antibiotics started (ha ha ha).

4:40 a.m. - I need to push, right now. This is where I shame myself

by uttering the words, "get it out" (in my defense, we didn't know boy or girl so I couldn't say "get her out" which would have sounded a lot better).

4:43 a.m. - Baby "It's a girl" is born with her bag of waters in tact. She was pink and perfect and I was one HAPPY Mama. Daddy cut the cord (first time for that) and she was finally in my arms.

It really is a miracle to experience natural birth. I was blessed to work with Dr.'s and nurses this time around that actually listened to me and followed my wishes. No interventions, no drugs (until after of course) and no complications. Our beautiful daughter went right to nursing and ate for an hour and a half after birth. We got to keep her with us pretty much all day and I loved having that time with her.

Naming her was really hard. We read lists and lists and lists of names and between the two of us found something wrong with all of them. We finally narrowed it down to two names but since we couldn't agree on the correct pronunciation of one of them (Moira) we finally decided on Darla Inez Petersen. I'm thankful and think it suits her beautifully and will remind her of two amazing women.

The kids were so excited to come and see her. Ksenya had to make phone calls that morning at Grandma's house to tell everyone and was so excited to try on all her outfits. I promised she could change her diaper when we got her home and that appeased her little nurturing heart. Kabe was the first to ask to hold her and then just sat there staring and smiling at her. He was so tender and sweet with her. Ayvri was a little distracted by me and the IV in my arm and the fact that my stomach was still be and that there was food on one of my trays. Brig just kept saying "Beebee" over and over and running around the hospital room screaming. He sure has grown a lot this last couple of days!

We are so thankful for our sweet baby girl and that all went well with the delivery. We are home now enjoying this sacred time with her. She weighed in at 7 lbs 6 oz and 20 inches long. She has very long fingers and toes and nails. She has very little hair and beautiful little lips. We had some technical difficulties with our phones so we didn't get to make all the announcement calls we wanted but by now (thanks to facebook) the word is out. She's here, she's wonderful and we are SO happy.