Natalie Leonard Duncan

Ok, I know 2 weeks have already past and I'm just now getting to posting about our labor/delivery! But, as you can imagine, I've had other things on my mind. :-D

So, Friday evening (the 20th) I was super crappy. Exhausted and somewhat nauseous. We went to dinner with my parents and my dad even commented to my sister later that night how awful I looked! That night I went to bed around 8:30pm trying to get a good nights sleep but that just wasn't in the cards. I ended up throwing up around 11pm and then not really sleeping much after that. I started having some contractions that would be probably about 30 minutes apart if I had been timing them. Finally, around 5am I woke Todd up. Contractions were anywhere between 8 to 15 minutes apart. I ended up throwing up again, passing out, then throwing up again around 5:30am. We went ahead and called my parents to come on over and calling the midwife on call to see if we should head to the hospital. She told us to stay at home until the contractions were closer. Since my parents had plans to go to Winston-Salem to watch my niece and nephew's basketball games, they took Molly with them. It was really nice not to have to worry about her while having contractions.

Once the contractions got to about 5-8 minutes apart we headed to the hospital. We were the only ones on the ward the whole time and that was fabulous! Of course the nurse checked me and I was about 4cm, and she talked about sending me back home! The nurse let me walk for an hour around the ward before she checked me again. Still about 4cm but since the ward was empty she let me relax in the tub for another hour to see if that would help things along. Luckily, at the end of that second hour the midwife called and said she was in the neighborhood and asked if I wanted her to come and break my water. After discussing it with Todd, we decided that yes, we would like her to break my water.

Ok, I know this has already gotten super long so I'll try to speed things up. I was 5cm when my midwife broke my water and 4 hours later I had a baby! I pushed for probably 15-20 minutes and she was out. No epidural and only 1 stitch! And let me tell you, if you have heard that pitocin contractions are worse than non-pitocin contractions......SO TRUE! Labor was much easier this time around.

But in the end I was holding the most beautiful (I can say that cause she looked just like Molly!) baby girl! 6 pounds, 11 ounces. 18 1/2 inches long. Perfectly petite.