Myra Blossom Waite arrived at 9:41 Wednesday December 18th. She weighed 7 pounds, 4 ounces and was 21 inches long. These pictures were all taken on her first day of life. We sure love her!
I went to bed early the night before after an evening of putting Christmas plates together and delivering them to neighbors and friends with the rest of the family.
At about 12:30am I was awakened by the feeling of my water possibly breaking. It was just a tiny bit of liquid, so I wasn't completely sure at that point. I went back to bed and a half hour later I started having some contractions that felt a little different. An hour after my water broke, I had three contractions that were six minutes apart and decided to wake up Joseph (a job that too several tries.) He got up, inflated the birthing pool and began filling it. I called Janet Alanko (my midwife) and got up and washed dishes and did some other last minute cleaning. We paused in our preparations so Joseph could give me a blessing. The part of the blessing I remember was where it said that this birth would be a good experience, one that I would enjoy thinking back on throughout my life.
Janet got here around 2:30 or 3:00am. She arrived at the same time that Joseph was heading out the door with the kids to drop them off with Grandma and Grandpa Waite. When I kissed the kids goodbye, they were a little groggy but quite excited. Kilynn saw the birthing pool in the kitchen and wanted to know if she could play in it when I was done with it.
After Janet arrived, she got her stuff set up and I continued to clean for about another half hour. Before she arrived, my contractions had consistently been six minutes apart. After she arrived, they began to be farther apart, so we decided to all go to bed for a while. I was able to sleep a bit between contractions which seemed pretty far apart, but more and more intense when I had them. Around 6:00 I started to wonder if I should get up. I had a feeling things would start happening when I got up and I was right. I finally woke Joseph up at about 6:30 and he went out to the kitchen to finish filling the pool. I got out of bed around 7 and sat in the pool. It felt great at first, but I felt too hot after a while and got out to sit in a chair at the kitchen table (about 8am?) Soon contractions were intense enough that I didn't want to talk during them, but apparently I want so far along that I could ignore my nesting instinct that was still raging. In between contractions which were quite close together, I kept being annoyed to see milk splattered on the dining room window. Finally, I got up and washed the window. After that, things ramped up even more. I got back into the pool which was now the perfect temperature (about 9:00). Contractions were super painful now, and just sat there listening to Joseph and Janet discuss about chickens. It was actually kind of comforting to listen to. The other comforting thing to listen to was the music playlist that I created for this event. I had mostly Tabernacle Choir music with songs such as Abide With Me, Nearer My God to Thee, Peace like a River, and various Christmas music softly playing. The music and the water birth made this my most peaceful And calm delivery yet.
I delivered Myra in three pushes. She was blue and not breathing for what seemed like ages, but it was probably not even a minute. That was a little scary for me, but she shortly began pinking up and we have lived happily ever after. She never cried and birth and I didn't even hear anything from her until Janet took her out of my arms an hour or two later to weigh her and then she let our a little squeak of protest. She is such a calm baby.
Janet Alanko delivered both Myra and Ethan as well as about eight or nine of my nieces and nephews.
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