Here's a picture of him, 2 days old.

Well, I'm sure you know that we planned another homebirth, so, here's the story. I had been having a few contractions off and on during the last trimester. Some were barely noticeable, others definitely made themselves known! During the last week or two we started walking more. I wasn't as impatient as I was with my first pregnancy but I was ready to not be pregnant anymore. When we walked I would have some pretty good contractions, but they stopped once we got home. They only continued for as long as I walked.

Then, Wednesday June 2, we went for another of our walks around campus. Which meant up and down a few sizeable hills. No contractions. Not while walking, not when we got home. Then we went to bed. We decided we give the "other method" a try too. Once again, it worked! Almost immediately I started having some contractions. Within an hour or two they were rather intense. Once I felt them coming strong I decided to get up and walk around, just to see if they would keep going this time. As they didn't last time I had contractions this strong. Well, they kept up alright. However, they weren't "terrible" yet, so I decided I should try to lie down and rest while I could. I would have a long time ahead of me still. Remember, my last labor was 27 hours, so we were just hoping to cut that in half this time, 13 hours sounded pretty good.

I managed to doze off and on for a couple more hours. Around 3am I was in our bedroom, on my knees on the floor leaning over the side of the bed moaning with my contractions. Brad gets up and says something like, "is this it? if so let's get up and get to it" I said that I thought this was it. So, we got up and went to the living room, turning on some lights just so we could wake ourselves up enough. Ok, so it was to wake up Brad, not me. Haha Anyway, my contractions were coming a bit irregular just like they started last time. They were very strong though! They started coming in 3's. One would start, then just as soon as it died down another one came and then again. I would get about a 3-5 minute break then it would start all over again. It was killing me, I had back labor, again. Oh, how I hated that!

Whenever another round of contractions would start, I'd start crying, saying, "no, not again, I can't do it anymore, it hurts too much" to which my wonderful hubby would reply, "yes you can and you will just like you did last time" I would somehow get through another set of contractions. This went on for about an hour. Then, Brad decided this was getting too hard for him. I was too negative and it was just too early for that. So, he asked about calling someone, as I had told him I wanted to wait longer before calling anyone this time, especially family. I told him he could call our midwife, Juliet. So, 4 am he calls her, telling her there's no big hurry. She has to take her daughter to the baby sitter then run by a store to get me some Gatorade then she'd be there.

Around 4:30 am my contractions as still very intense, I'm still in the living room leaning over the couch, moaning through every set of contractions, saying I can't do it, that it hurts to much, I can't do it anymore. Then all of a sudden, I tell Brad I have to push. He says, "no" I said, "yes, my water just broke" I still have my pajama pants on so between these contractions were are trying to get my pants off and Brad's still saying, "no, I'm not ready for this yet" He's telling me to wait because he knows Juliet is almost here, saying she's probably just around the corner. I try to breathe through the urge to push or whatever...that's useless! There's no stopping the urge to push, I'm telling ya! I tell him I can't, I have to push. All the while, I'm pushing. heehee So, he finally realizes, this baby's coming, so he gets in position, supports me and the head is out with the next push. Now, Levi has woke up and the doorbell rings. That would be our midwife. Brad sits behind me, "what do I do? I can't leave you with a head hanging out" I told him it was ok, that I didn't have another contraction yet, to just hurry. So, he ran down the stairs, opened the door for Juliet, flew back up the stairs telling her the head was already out. He got back in position and immediately another contraction came and he delivered the rest of the baby. I ask what it was, Brad says a boy as he hands him over to Juliet who had just sat her bag down at the top of the stairs.

Brad then goes to get Levi out of bed. They come into the living room, Levi looks over, smiles real big and says, "baby". He stood by us just watching the baby. Then I get turned around so I can sit down and hold Joel and wait for more contractions. Well, that didn't take long. I no more got settled and I had to get back up so I could deliver the placenta. That was much easier this time too. The contractions weren't as intense as with my first pregnancy and I barely pushed. It just flew out. That was a major relief.

So, here we are, a family of four. First labor, 27 hours, 2 of that spent pushing. Second labor, 5 hours, 1 minute spent pushing. Just 4 pushes and he was out. We figured Brad would catch this one but we didn't plan on him having to deliver. He did a great job though. He started to panic a bit at first, which is understandable, this took us all by surprise, but he recovered and did wonderful! Now we really think he should become a doctor after he gets done with seminary. :o) No one would give us a hard time about homebirths anymore, that's for sure.