She was actually born on her due date, which I was told only occurs about 5% of the time. She was born at 12:35PM. Tonja's water broke at 6pm the night before, so she had about a 19 hour labor. When we got to the hospital, she pretty much started having harder and harder contractions. The started getting quite painful about 10pm and then she went into the bath tub for some relief.

 

After that, she started experiencing severe back labor and things got very serious. He pain rating quickly went from a 3 out of 10 to a 6, then a 7, and then an 8. She felt like someone was breaking her back. She was only 2.5 CM dialated and couldn't take the pain anymore so she asked for an epidural. She felt like she gave up and was a wimp, but I told her who cares. Once the epidural started flowing, she was a new person again. He cherry attitude returned and we actually rested from about midnight to about 5am. After the epidural, she quickly went to 7CM and by 5am she was at the magic 10CM mark and the nurse said she was ready to start pushing.

 

I was half asleep at that point and when I heard she was ready to push, I got excited and was ready to go. Tonja was already ready. We both wanted to get this over with. Little did we know that we still had 7.5 hours of hell to get through (more hell for her than me). Anyways, Tonja started pushing during contractions at 5am. She tried all different kinds of positions. Things were moving along, but very very slow. Our nurse finally said that she could feel that babies head and could tell that she had a lot of hair. That got us very excited.

 

About 7:30AM, Tonja's OB, Dawn, arrived at work and came in for a visit. At this point, our new labor nurse, Kathy, had also arrived. Kathy immediately decided there was no way Tonja could deliver without a c-section, and Kathy's attitude really caused Tonja and I to hit a deep low. Tonja did not want a c-section and Kathy's attitude was not helping. When Dawn arrived, she examined Tonja and quickly told Tonja that she could absolutely deliver vaginally and Dawn had a quick argument with Kathy about the situation. It was a little awkward, but Dawn's confidence and encouragement really really lifted our moods.

 

From this point on, Tonja was convinced she could deliver vaginally, although, there were still many hours of hard labor and pushing ahead. Kathy continued to be a bad nurse. She ignored Tonja. Didn't help with pushing. Didn't tell tonja when she was having a contraction (Tonja couldn't feel some of them becuase of the epidural). Kathy flat out sucked, but Tonja was determined to deliver no matter what. Dawn made a few more appearences to see how things were progressing and each time she did, our spirits got lifted and Tonja was able to push harder and harder.

 

At about 11am, I was starting to give up on Tonja delivering vaginally. I didn't say anything to Tonja, other than she should give it one more hour and then make a decision. About 5 minutes later, Kathy started preparing the room for delivery. Kathy didn't say two words, but I knew that once they brought the baby warmer into the room and all the equipment, that Kathy had decided that Tonja was close enough to delivering that she better get things ready.

 

This is where I finally broke down into tears. I now knew that the end was near and that Tonja was going to do it. My breakdown caused tonja to breakdown and we quickly realized that this was not the time to breakdown since she couldn't push when she was crying. I pulled it together, and we got focused on pushing harder and harder, without Kathy's help of course.

 

Finally, Dawn came into the room in full delivery gear. I knew she was there to stay this time and this was awesome becuase Tonja and I were ready to kill Kathy. Dawn's confidence and encouragement and belief that Tonja could deliver vaginally was absolutely unbelievable. I'm quite certain that only Dawn and Tonja beleived that they could deliver without a c-section. I didnt' even beleive it. Anyways, once Dawn arrived, Tonja rolled onto her back, and the super serious, hard hard pushing started.

 

Tonja's epidural started to wear off at this point and now Tonja was feeling everything that had to do with pushing a 10.5 lb baby out of a small-framed woman. The pain that Tonja was experiencing was beyond belief. Her back labor started at this point. Tonja was begging for more drugs but Dawn said that she couldn't have them because it would totally stall labor at the most crucial point. It was a very delicate situation.

 

In between contractions, Tonja would be very close to giving up, but when a contraction start, she went into overdrive and did numerous hard pushing, sometimes up to 45 seconds. The nurses said that they had never seen a woman as strong as Tonja push as hard as she did. Kathy had worked at Evergreen for 28 years, and when she said this, I was quite impressed.

 

Annecy's head was finally starting to come out. Even at this point, it still took another 45 minutes to push Annecy out totally. Dawn was doing all types of tricks to stretch things out, even though it was very painful for Tonja. Dawn said that she might have to make a cut, but she never ended up doing it. The last 3 or 4 contractions were the hardest and most emotional. Tonja was starting to get mad a Kathy because Kathy wasn't holding Tonja's leg correctly. Tonja was also starting to yell at Dawn to just pull Annecy out.

 

Finally, before we knew it, Annecy was coming out. I didn't want to look. I knew that would scare me for life. I did however see a gush of fluid come out of my wife that looked like old faithful at Yellowstone. Dawn was covered in fluid. It was kind of funny. Once Annecy's head came out, the rest of her also came out very quickly. Even though Annecy was out, my wife still had her eyes closed and was pushing. I was yelling at her that Annecy was out, but my wife didnt' beleive it. She finally opened her eyes and realized that she was done. Then she totally broke down like I've never sene before. So did I.

 

Next, my enjoyment turned to fear. This was the point I most feared and my attention quickly turned from my wife to Annecy. Was Annecy ok, did she survive? Was there damage from being stuck for so long? The next few minutes were very scary. I didn't even get to cut the cord because they wisked Annecy up to a cart very fast to start examining her. She looked fine. She was crying, and even pooping already. She looked good, although a little purple. She had a full head of black hair. It was great.

 

Tonja delivered the placenta next, or I shoiuld say that Dawn yanked it out. Tonja got sewed up and started the long road to recovery. Annecy got the basic treatment and I got to hold her for the first time. It was awesome.