Jadyn's birth story

When I found out I was pregnant, the one thing I wanted most was to try to deliver naturally since I had an elective C-Section with Haylee and felt like I missed out on childbirth. For that reason we decided to go off base to a hospital in Cambridge where they would allow me to to try natural delivery. It was a scary decision being in a new country, not knowing what to expect but it was the most incredible thing I could have ever done!
As usual, things didn't go quite as planned. My due date was Oct. 18th so my mom flew here on the 16th and we all prayed that Jadyn wouldn't decide to come before that. 2 days after I was due I had a midwife check and found out that my body wasn't progressing at all towards labor and if she didn't come on her own, they would induce me the following Wednesday, the day before my mom was scheduled to leave! So we spent the next week trying to walk the baby out, smoke the baby out with spicy foods, drink gallons of Raspberry leaf tea, take Evening primrose oil, eat licorice, and after all of that, just relax and somehow not fret about it.
We had one false alarm on Friday night where I started having contractions about 5 minutes apart and decided to drive the hour to the hospital at 3am to see if I was in labor. After staying for about 4 hours, I was sent home but thankfully they did a membrane sweep to help things along a little. After that night the contractions I was having started feeling a little more intense and not so much like Braxton Hicks so I hoped things would start happening soon! Monday morning the contractions really started to hurt so I called the hospital and told them that I was having painful contractions but they weren't very regular and was told that I probably wasn't quite in labor, that the contractions probably weren't doing much and that real labor would be much more painful. Lots of good news! So we decided to do one more trip and took mom to the cathedral in Ely. I was still hurting pretty bad when we got home and had dinner but was determined not to go to the hospital until I knew that I was in labor. We went to bed but I couldn't go to sleep because the contractions started coming every 5 minutes so about midnight we decided we needed to go. By the time we got to the hospital, they were coming every 3 minutes and I was in a lot of pain.
I got settled in the room about 1am and the midwife checked me and I was 4-5cm dilated, my cervix was so thin she couldn't hardly even feel it and Jadyn's head was extremely low. I was so excited I almost started to cry!! After that everything went into fast forward...I decided to use the bathroom one more time before she did my IV and when I was walking back to bed, the feel of the contraction changed and I felt a lot more pressure. I got into bed and she tried to do the IV but couldn't thread it through my vein so she was going to try again. As soon as she pulled it out, my water broke and I had the strongest urge to push. I told her that I couldn't handle the pain anymore and wanted gas and air so she tried to get it hooked up for me but the baby was coming so fast that it ended up being tossed aside. I did about 10 pushes and within just a few minutes Jadyn was out and on my chest. It was the most intense, painful and overwhelming thing I have ever experienced and I don't think there is any way to ever prepare you for it. Your body literally just takes over and you have no choice but to listen and just remember that the harder you push, the sooner you will be done. I actually smiled through my last push because I knew it was about to be over and she would be here. I am so excited that I was able to do it all natural with no pain relief and was actually very thankful I didn't get any gas and air because I needed to be fully coherent to push.
Jadyn came out absolutely perfect and is a very healthy 8lbs 5oz and 20 1/2 inches long. She has really dark, almost black hair and I'm hoping she actually keeps some of it!!! She has really long fingers and toes and has quite the set of lungs on her!!! She is sleeping really well and only waking up once or twice to eat during the night. She looks so much like Haylee when she was born and Haylee couldn't be more excited about her little sissy. She kisses and loves on her as much as she can and loves to hold her and help me take care of her. I'm excited and very scared about next week when John's parents head home, John goes back to work and I am on my own with the two of them. But I am definitely ready to get into a normal routine again and be a fully recovered mommy!! I'm just so thankful I was able to have the delivery I wanted and even though it was the most scary and intense thing I've ever experienced, I would choose natural delivery over C-Section any day.