Noa Moxie born 11/09/06 at 3:03 a.m.

Since it was only the second night after my father’s death, our family was again staying overnight at my parent’s house. The children were asleep in bed, Chris was up at our house trying to get some work done, and I was laying in the recliner, visiting with my mom. I was exactly 38 weeks pregnant, and praying this baby would wait until after Thursday night’s visitation and Friday morning’s funeral to be born. God’s timing is often better than our hopes.

Chris came back down to the house around 10:25 p.m., not having been able to get much work done. I got up out of the recliner, glad to see him back, and as I walked across the living room floor toward him, my water broke. That had not happened with either of my previous two pregnancies, so that was a new sensation.

I immediately called our midwife, who suggested I try and go to bed and get some rest since no contractions had started. My mother came out to say goodnight before we went to bed and Chris said, “Wait one minute.” It took her a minute to believe me, but then she looked thrilled.

By now it was 11 p.m., and I realized I was not going to want to stay at Mom and Dad’s, but needed to be at our house, near the birthing tub. Mom gladly agreed to take care of the kids for the night and Chris and I headed up to our house.

I was having great success staying focused on relaxing, as my weeks of hypnobirthing practice had trained me to. Chris was talking me through surges with lovely images of our hiking in Italy, a trip to the beach, and just being with me. I spent a great deal of time in the tub, relaxing into each surge. Then things got really intense.

Now we’ll switch to a timeline:

2:00	Chris says “Maybe we should call Carey now.” Jennie says: Okay
2:15	Jennie says: Call Carey and see if she’s on her way. Chris calls and gets Don, Carey’s husband, who said Carey was on her way.
2:20	Jennie says: Call and see where she is. Chris says: I just called, she’s on her way. Jennie says: CALL HER!
2:30	Jennie says: Call her and tell her this is going really fast.
2:40	Jennie says: Buddie, you need to call her and find out how to deliver this baby. Chris calls Carey: Carey, Jennie thinks this isn’t going to take much longer. What should I do to get ready? Carey tells Chris: Just two things: First, get out of the water. We don’t want to have this baby in the tub. Second, don’t pull on the head. Chris says: Carey says you’ll need to get out of the tub if you get the urge to push. Jennie thinks: Try and make me get out of the tub.
2:50	Carey calls and tells Chris: I’m in Altoona, and I’m stuck behind a train. Chris tells Jennie: She’s in Altoona.
2:55	Jennie gets out of the tub and moves to the bed. Jennie tells Chris: I’m sorry but you’re going to have to deliver this baby. Chris opens window shade so he can see lights on our driveway the minute they appear.
2:59	Jennie says repeatedly: Tell me if you see lights.
3:00	Chris says: I see lights. She’s coming up the driveway. (We learned from Carey at her first postpartum home visit that she drove part way up the driveway and came to some new reflector lights we had put in. Not recognizing those she almost turned around.)
3:02	Carey walks up the stairs to our bedroom as the baby crowns.
3:03	Carey walks in the bedroom door as the baby’s head emerges. The body quickly follows and Baby Noa has arrived. Her father doesn’t pass out from relief, and her mother is over the moon with excitement, relief, and euphoria. Baby and Mom are doing fantastically well. Noa squawked for a couple seconds, then opened her beautiful blue eyes in the dimly lit room and looked around and started nuzzling to nurse.
3:30	Angie, Carey’s nurse, arrives to help with the baby processes. Jennie and Noa take a bath to relax.
5:30	Carey and Angie are on their way back home, while the newest family member snuggles down to sleep. Noa weighed 7 lbs. She was 19 inches long. She is doing fantastically.