she's here

so on wednesday, my due date, i wrote a little prematurely that there was going to be no baby that day. i think i wrote that post about 7 am. and at 1:30 pm, my water broke. at 4 pm i started having contractions. and at 12:30 am on thursday morning, our baby daughter, verity pearl flanders was born. wow. here she is:



we got to the birth center at about 6:30 pm and my midwife lisa gave me some unfortunate news- no i was not as far along as i thought and no, i was not gonna have the baby in the next hour. she suggested we go walk around and get something to eat. so we went and walked through a nice neighborhood close to the birth center. it must have looked hilarious to people to see a very pregnant women having contractions on the sidewalk in front of your house. not to mention all the joggers that passed by us and a nine year old boy on a skateboard who i must have terrified. i mean, i was really having contractions. i threw up in front of someone's house. good thing we don't live in that neighborhood. then we went to food lion to get some snacks. had a few contractions in there. again, must have looked hilarious to people shopping in the store. i felt like i was about to die. but little did i know it was just the beginning.

we got back and a couple hours later, lisa checked me again and said i was complete and whenever i felt like pushing i should push. YES. this was music to my ears. and i felt like pushing. i pushed for about 2 hours. which felt like an extremely long time. with the help of mark, the most encouraging and amazing husband i know, and three excellent midwives, and god's grace and strength, i delivered her at 12:35 am thursday morning without any pain medication or epidural. it was thrilling.