Hello Rocco, Goodbye Being Pregnant!

This is my last post at Being Pregnant due to the fact that….I’m not pregnant anymore.  On September 22 at 4:30pm after just 1.5 hours of active labor, I gave birth to the newest member of our family.
The day started out in preschool carpool and when I went to my 9am midwife appointment, I was 5cm dilated, baby’s head was very low, and my bag of waters was “bulging”….so my midwife did not want us (my husband and I) to leave to the area because she assumed that the labor would only last 1-2 hours after my water broke.
So my husband and I power-walked to get things going, scooped up our son from preschool early, and returned to the birth center for lunch where my dad, mom, and sister met us.  As soon as I was done with lunch (at 3pm), my water broke, contractions started and we called our doula.
The rest of the story and a birth day slideshow after the jump.

I managed to power-walk through the park next to the birth center for a few more contractions before I went into the transition phase when my contractions just started piggybacking each other and I didn’t get a break.  Had I known that my labor really was progressing so quickly, I wouldn’t have been so freaked out but I honestly thought that I was just being a wuss because I had only been in labor for about 20 minutes.
My doula gave me some double hip-squeezes (AMAZING!) and I climbed into the tub where I got a short break from the intense contractions….just in time to PUSH.  Seriously.  I was fully dilated and barely able to wrap my head around what was happening because it was all happening so fast.
I pushed little Rocco out into the arms of my husband with my parents, sister, son, midwives, birth assistant, and doula to witness it.  He weighed 7lbs 7oz and was 20 inches long.
Here a slideshow of some of my favorite memories of the day.

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