Intorducing Samuel Judah Roerdink

Jude decided that he did not want to wait until Election Day to make his grand entrance into this world. However, as it turns out, he is not 5 weeks early, but only two. The midwife that came to supervise could tell this by looking at the lines on his feet. The big one would have been much shorter, apparently, if he was five weeks early. So, here's the birth story:

Thursday early in the morning, I began to pass clots again. The first one was large and them several smaller ones throughout the day. I figured that since my midwife said it was just my cervix getting ready, it was no big deal. Around 3:00 am on Friday morning, I felt a pop in my pelvis. It felt like when your elbow pops. I thought, "man! That was a big kick!" but I knew that his feet were all jammed up in my diaphragm, but at three in the morning, who's thinking clearly?

Then the contractions started. Thinking it was just braxton hicks, I got up to sleep in the living room so I wouldn't wake Jeff. At 4:00, when they hadn't gone away I decided to take a bath, which woke Jeff up anyway. All the bath did was irritate me because the water didn't reach my belly unless I laid on my side. So, I got out and that's when things really started cooking.

Jeff began to time the contractions and around 5:00 am they were two minutes apart and a minute long. So, we called our midwife (hi Debi!), who it turns out, was on her first vacation in four years. At that point, I was really glad that I finally met her apprentice, Michelle, on Monday!

Michelle got lost (don't you love Mapquest) and by the time she got here, at 7:00ish, those contractions were right on top of each other. Every move I made would bring on another one (the pelvic exam was super fun, let me tell ya).

Jeff also called our dear friend Angel, who has done work as a doula, because we didn't have the towels, pads, newborn diapers, food, basically about half of the stuff we needed! And I thank the Lord that Angel stayed the whole time. She did dishs, let me pull on her hands, held a foot while I pushed, got us lunch, made us dinner, you name it! She certainly lived up to her name that (and many other) days.

It was probably around 8:00 when I felt like I had to push, but Michelle said I wasn't quite there. But by 8:30 I was definitely there and by 9:46 Jude made his entrance, with one arm up along side his head. Jeff said he came flying into the world like Superman.

We had Michelle's first birth without her supervising midwife. Another midwife drove up from Dallas, GA to supervise, but by the time she got here, our little man had already arrived. I was also Michelle's first stitches (my first stitches, too) thanks to that hand by his head.

So, our birth pool arrived today:-) Oh, well. I do not think I would have been able to get up off of the bed to get it because everything went so fast and the contractions were so intense. I have very little to complain about and not too many first time moms get to say that their labor from start to finish was around six hours.

So, he's here, weighing in at 7 lbs, 15 ozs and measuring 20.5 inches, a head full of dark hair and a score of 10 on both parts of the APGAR.

Praise God that His plans are better than ours. can you imagine how big he would have been if he WAS born on Nov. 4th? Now I can cancel my absentee ballot. I guess my son is in favor of his mom doing her civic duties:-)