2 Years Ago Today

I don't think I ever posted Meg's birth story. Today is a great day to do that.

Two years ago today, my beautiful Meg was born late at night to a Dad who was nervous about leaving for sea and a Mom who was tired of being on bed rest.

It was the day before Justin was supposed to leave for sea. His first run as a new chief and there was a lot going on. I had been off of bedrest for about 3 days, after having been there for almost 8 weeks. I was 36 weeks pregnant. Mom was visiting, so Justin and I went to get some patrol things completed. We walked around the NEX and ran other errands for a couple of hours and I was tired when we got home. I washed baby clothes, loaded the dishwasher and counted contractions. I always had contractions, so I didn't think anything of them. About 2 in the afternoon I went to lay down for a nap and by 4, woke up having serious contractions. I walked around the house for a while, and then put my feet up wondering if they would go away with some rest. It wasn't to be.

Everyone was having dinner, except me, I couldn't eat and my back was killing me, when I decided I should go and get checked out. Contractions every 4 minutes and back pain that was to distracting to talk through were pushing me towards pain killers, however I could get them. We left for the hospital at 5:30, arrived at 6:00 and by 7 mom had arrived and they were administering and epidural. That was amazing. I didn't get one with Adam and the difference was night and day. I stopped yelling, stopped crying and decided to settle down and have a baby. There was some talk of trying to send me to Madigan because I was less than 37 weeks and had gestational diabetes. There just wasn't time. I was moving too fast.

We knew the boat was leaving the next morning and so Justin had made some calls to let people know where he was. At some point the Engineer for the boat came into my hospital room to talk to him. Nice of him to visit, but a call would have been fine. Especially since I didn't know the man at all and the first time he meets me in is labor. Not cool.

They asked if I thought I could wait until a pediatric specialist could be there before I started pushing and I was feeling no pain, so didn't think it was a problem. At 10:45 I was done waiting. The nurses were called and I pushed once before she freaked out, asked my not to push, breathe or move and called the team in. Within about 10 minutes I was ready to go and at 11:15 I had a beautiful baby girl, healthy and happy. She was 6 lbs and 1/2 an ounce and 19 inches long. Her APGAR's were great and she cried right away. No complications at all.

Justin stayed with me that night and she really did want some daddy time.She stayed up all night talking to dad. She grunted and groaned and cooed. He held her all night. I had to ask for her to feed her. He left for sea at about 7 the next morning and came home again when she was almost 3 months old. She was thrilled to see him then too and they have always had a special bond.

It took years of prayer, faith and fertility treatments to get Meg here. She is such a blessing in our lives, we wouldn't be the same without her. Happy Birthday Baby.