Molly is here! Part 1- Pre-Labor

First off, I sincerely apologize for not posting sooner. If you had not figured it out by the lack of posts, Miss Molly is here! She arrived on February 21st at 1:52 pm!

I have been recovering and taking my time writing the birth story, so that's why this has taken so long to post. I will warn you, it is long, and it starts with a lot of the same stuff I posted on the Tuesday I last wrote. But at the end of it will be a beautiful birth slide show as a reward for reading :) I will post in parts. The first part will be Pre-labor days. The second part will begin the day before she was born. And the third will be "birth" day. Please enjoy <3

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Friday (February 15^th) morning, I started feeling weird. I had a gut feeling in my heart that Katie and Kevin needed to get here as soon as possible. That feeling overwhelmed me. I started having loose stools, started just feeling “off” and super emotional. I debated calling Katie that day and asking her to leave. I decided I would wait the night out and sleep on it, and if I woke in the morning with the same feeling, I would let her know. That night I became so overwhelmed that I just let it spill out in one huge ugly cry.

Saturday Morning I woke up with the same feeling, but was still struggling with telling them to come down. I didn’t want their time here after Molly was born to be cut short, so I didn’t want them to come earlier than necessary. Around noon, we were getting ready to go out for the afternoon as a family. I was sitting on the exercise ball and started noticing a pretty good cramp pattern. I sat for a couple hours and we timed them. They were coming about every 6 minutes. About two and a half hours after they began, I decided we needed to let Katie know they probably needed to head out from Montana now. I let her know I didn’t know if it was time or if it was just my body getting things ready, but it was up to them to leave or not. We had a few errands to run, and decided that since they were staying at 6 minutes apart, we would try to encourage them to change and get closer together or stop if they weren’t real. So off we went to run our errands and have a late lunch. They continued through our late lunch and all the way home. As we neared our apartment complex they started getting pretty intense. I cried through a few of them. So I texted Katie and asked if she maybe would be able to get on a flight at their next major airport because they were getting more intense.

We got home and I sat back on my exercise ball to encourage movement downward. (I had not experienced Miss Molly “dropping” yet, so I was hoping sitting on the ball would help with that.) Unfortunately, just a few minutes after we got home, and probably about the time Katie and Kevin left Montana, the contractions stopped completely. I tried a few things to see if they would come back, but they didn’t. I don’t remember if I texted Katie that they had stopped right away, or if I waited a few hours to see what happened. Either way, I let them know the pressure was off to get here so quickly.

Katie and family arrived late Sunday night, and Monday morning Jack woke up sick. They decided to rest for the day and come over for dinner. Since it was a work holiday, Shane was home and we went to the park in downtown Dallas. Shane parked at the garage he parks at for work, and we walked around down town for a bit and to the park. We didn’t end up actually staying very long at the park, but the walk back was fun… if you like getting lost. At least I was getting my walking in. By the time we got to the car, I guestimated we walked about 3 miles. It was a good walk, just not as productive as I had hoped. My husband dropped me off at the salon for a manicure and pedicure, which felt amazing! After we got home, Katie and family came over for Chinese food. We had a great evening, the boys played great, and it was very relaxing. Just what all of us needed, I think.

Tuesday morning Katie and I headed to my doctor’s appointment. I was 3cm and 25% effaced when my doctor checked me, then she stripped my membranes and said we’d likely have Miss Molly in the next 48 hours. I didn’t doubt her, she really dug in deep to strip them. Unfortunately, she was going out of town and wouldn’t get to be there for it. I was sad about that, but felt I was pretty comfortable with most of the doctors in the practice so it didn’t bother me.

Tuesday night, I started doing some natural labor techniques, like nipple stimulation, sitting on the ball, walking, and threw in a couple funny lookin’ squats for good measure at the end of the night. I checked the weather and seeing that rain and thunder were scripted for Wednesday night, posted to my surrogate group that I bet I was in labor by the time the storm hit Wednesday evening, it was slated for around 7pm.

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