Taegen was due sometime the middle of May. I wasn't ever really sure what the "EDD" really was. It was sometime between the 15/20th of May though, based on Alex's return home, when I got a positive pregnancy test and my cycle.
May 15th came and went, May 20th did too. Alex had a four-day weekend coming up! We were excited. We had joked about how perfect it would be if I had the baby that weekend because he'd also get a 10-day on top of it (the army gives 10 days of free paternity leave). Friday came, nothing more than the prodromal labor I was used to. Saturday came and we went to a memorial day party, "mandatory fun" with his battalion. I chased Becka, who was 2 1/2 at the time, around and just had a blast. I was 40 weeks and some odd days there and people were shocked. "Aren't you going to be induced?" and other questions were asked, I just laughed and said "why?". I was definitely a giant though. It was neat, as I'd never been this pregnant (Becka was an induction at 38 weeks).
Even with all the activity and walking and being on my feet all day, we had no baby. Sunday and Monday were similar stories. It looked like Alex was definitely going to have to work on Tuesday.
4:30 am on Tuesday morning I was awoken by a strange feeling. I got up, went to the bathroom, and just felt off. I couldn't go back to sleep. Contractions were pretty regular, but I figured it was more of the prodromal labor that I had been having the last 2 1/2 weeks. I was on facebook chatting with my friend Cathi, who told me to time them, and who then told me I was definitely in labor. I was in denial the whole time apparently.
I woke up Alex, it was after 5 by now, and warned him he'd probably need to get up. I walked around, got in the bath and listened to music, I did little dances whenever my body needed to "wiggle". Around 6 I told Alex that he had to get up, this was labor, and Becka was starting to wake up so he needed to help me and her. It was interesting and the contractions suddenly became crazy intense, a feeling I wasn't prepared for. It's like suddenly my body was going from nothing to BAM having a baby. It was super hard to breathe through and work through. I was in the bathtub and began pushing. I wasn't doing it on purpose, my body was. I was making very animalistic groans (for some reason this helped me work through the intense contractions.
I made my way from the bath to my bed and I could feel my body pushing, I felt down and there was my amniotic fluid bags; intact. They broke moments later, all over the bed. I felt bad, I hadn't gotten down any of the sheets so our entire bed was soaked in amniotic fluid. I was on my hands and knees but needed to move. Alex got the pads down on the floor next to the bed and I kneeled there, head and arms rested on the bed. My body did everything it needed to, and this position was heavenly. Gravity worked with me, not against me. I felt down and I could feel a head. I called to Alex and asked him if it was a head and he said "that's definitely a head" haha. In 3 pushes Taegen was out. We hadn't known the gender so the first thing Alex said was "Definitely a girl" haha.
He helped me maneuver over the umbilical chord and brought Taegen to my chest. She latched on right away, doing her own version of the breast crawl. it was amazing. Becka came in as soon as she heard Taegen's cry and kissed her on the forehead. The blood and slime didn't bother her, she was so happy to see her sister for the first time.
I delivered the placenta shortly after, fully intact and amazing looking.
Taegen and I laid in the floor for over an hour, just enjoying each other. She ate for 45 minutes. We cut the chord, got dressed and snuggled on the couch. It took us hours to name her too. We fell in love with Taegen Savela (Savela in honor of Alex's mother's side of the family).
She has grown into a beautiful and crazy toddler. It's amazing how quickly the time passes. It seems like just yesterday I gave birth to her.
Her day of birth, after clean up of course!
Here she is now! My crazy toddler!
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