Mike with his Dad

On the morning of January 26th, Alan and I drove to Columbus for my weekly midwife appointment.  After checking things out, she informed us that absolutely nothing was going on and that it could be anywhere from a week and a half to two weeks before the weeha made his big appearance….

But the weeha had other plans in mind. :D

At about 11:30 that same night, while trying to fall asleep, I began having contractions that started out at about 12 minutes apart.  I was sure these must be just the practice contractions I’d been having, so I tried to ignore them and just rest.  By about 2am the contractions were five minutes apart and I was unable to talk through them.  Alan had been sleeping next to me in bed up to this point, but began to stir when he heard me breathing hard through them and moaning a little bit.  When they hadn’t stopped by 3am, we called the midwife who told us to labor as long as possible at home because I wanted to have a natural birth, without medication.  Alan and I waited until 6:30 when my contractions were about four minutes apart before making the hour drive to the hospital in Columbus.

When we arrived at about 7:30am, they checked me out and discovered I was already 5 centimeters dilated.  I was admitted into a room and the whole labor process began.  Alan was exactly like I knew he would be…calm and helpful throughout the whole process.  At first, I was wanting just to lie on my side in the bed but my midwife came in and made me get up and move around to speed things along.  She had me lean on Alan through contractions, lean against the bed, sit on and lean over an exercise ball, stand in the shower and finally get in the jacuzzi tub.  By the time I was in the tub I was about 8 centimeters dilated and the contractions were really strong.  I notified everyone very loudly at one point that I was done with this and didn’t think I could actually go through with it.  My midwife let me know that that meant we were almost done, so she got me out of the tub and into the bed where it was time to push.

For some reason, the pushing part really scared me but once I started it only took about 15 minutes and four contractions to birth the weeha into the world at almost 1pm on the 27th of January, 2010.

Alan was amazed by the whole process and I was amazed, once again, by this man that I’ve married that is always so supportive of me.  I was worried he would think the whole thing was weird and disgusting, but instead he was truly awed by it.  I was in labor for about 12 hours and he was with me the entire time…either rubbing my back, pouring water on my shoulders or letting me lean on him during contractions.  Having gone through it, I can’t imagine going through it without him there.  And I’ll never forget the look on his face when his son was finally born and laid on my chest.

I hope you all like the pic of our son, Michael Alan Haedge.

Our Little Man

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