The last month of my pregnancy was pretty miserable, as is every one else’s. Once I started going to to the dr. weekly, I hoped to for them to tell me every time, “alright, let’s go on to the hospital.”My 39 week check up was no different. I went in on a Monday morning to be told, “You are only at 1cm almost 2…we will see you next Monday for an ultra sound and fluid check to make sure everything is all ok.” My due date was Friday, March 30..Good Friday. I went through almost the exact same thing with Covington. Wasn’t progressing and then my water broke 2 days before my due date, the day after going to the dr. and them telling me that I wouldn’t be having her for a little while… I was hopeful this would happen again.

Tuesday passed. I kept telling my husband on Wednesday maybe my water would break and he kept telling me that he felt like Thursday would be the day. Wednesday afternoon I started to not feel right. I started having contractions but nothing consistent. Around 10:00 pm they started to happen more and more regularly. So, I got up, went to the couch, and started timing them. By about 5 am they were every 8-10 minutes. I woke Jordan up, told him I was going to start getting ready, and he needed to call his mom to come and watch Covington.

By 7:30 we were at the hospital and I was contracting every 5 minutes. We were admitted to a small room at labor and delivery to be checked out. Of course after being hooked up to the machine, I almost stopped contracting all together. They checked me and I was 2! Only 2! I wouldn’t believe it. They monitored me for probably 15 more minutes and I had a huge contraction that lasted over 3 minutes. I was checked 15 minutes later and was almost 5…so, they put me in a room and started my iv.

My midwife came in and broke my water and there was no going back. I labored all night with Covington without an epidural (not by choice) and I did NOT want to go through that again. So, I asked for one right away. The nurse told me that I had to have a bag and a half of fluid before they’d let me have an epidural. So after 3 bags of fluid and a very small drip of pitocin, I still didn’t have an epidural. The nurse had been calling for it for almost 3 hours and the anethesiologist was stuck in an emergency surgery. I swear I had the sweetest nurse in the entire world and she did everything she could to comfort me. So did Jordan, he was religiously feeding me ice chips. I would’ve hated to be around me. I was contracting every 2 minutes, so every time I got over one another would start. My nurse had me doing that breathing technique that you see on all the movies and finally here came the miracle medicine behind my midwife.

My midwife came in and checked me and i was at 7. I had almost missed my window to get and epidural. The anesthesiologist got the epidural going and I was finally able to relax for a little while. Covington came in to visit us and she got to check everything out. Joann(midwife) told me she had to run next door to the office to check on a patient, and she was sure when she got there she would get a call that I was ready.. and guess what, she was right. Jordan looked out the window and said, “She’s running across the grass now.”

There were two nursing students that had never seen a birth before and they asked if I cared if they stayed in the room with us. So, in the room we had 2 students, midwife, baby nurse , my nurse and my husband. I probably pushed for about 30 minutes and finally we got to meet our almost 10lb baby girl. The first thing that Joann said was, “That is a one big baby.” haha. They laid her on my chest and we were instantly in love.

Like her sister, Charleston was born the day before her due date.

On Thursday, March 29,2018 at 2:48pm we welcomed our daughter, Charleston EmmaBelle Varnadore weighing 9 pounds 10 ounces and measuring  21.5 inches long.