The Bensons: Family of Six

Can you believe we are a family of six?! Neither can I. Little Gracie Virginia made her big debut June 13. It was Peter's and mine anniversary, and I was a little selfish and didn't want to share our anniversary with a child's birthday, but it turned out to be a perfect gift for us and the perfect testament of our love and commitment to each other.

Birth Story

You can skip ahead if you don't want to gritty details. Some people know that we opted to go with a midwife and a birthing center this time around, and some of those people may have thought we were crazy =) and that's okay. We loved it! Our midwife was absolutely wonderful and I never would have made it through this without her and without Peter. Susan has many years experience with midwifery and that was important to me as it was my first time with natural childbirth. I have nothing but positive experiences with my past OB/GYN's, hospital stays, and epidurals (I've had one with all three of my previous births); in fact, our first OB/GYN is still my absolute favorite medical person we have come in contact with, but I really didn't want to do the whole hospital/clinical experience again, and after a lot of talks with Peter and other women in the area, we opted to look into the closest birthing center and we felt great about it!

The entire week following up to her coming, I had contractions. And there were a couple of times where I totally thought, "This is it!" but it wasn't. I was pretty miserable in honesty and super anxious to see and meet her. My due date came and went, which really didn't surprise me, but it was still discouraging. When you have an induction date you know there's an end in sight, but when you're going natural it's anyone's guess.

Friday following my due date (five days overdue) I was really uncomfortable. Just achy and crampy all day and throughout the night before, but I was resigned that it would be a while longer. It was our 6th Anniversary and I wanted to be happy and go out with Peter, which we did for lunch to Outback. Yum!! Finally around 3 PM I told Peter I was going to take a bath to try and alleviate some of the pain I was in. I dozed in and out while in the tub and finally got out to lay on the bed to take a real nap. That was around 4 PM. At about 5 PM my contractions woke me. They were coming every five minutes, but I didn't get too excited about it because I had gone through hours of having them that close together, but about 30 minutes later they were every four minutes and then 20 minutes later every three minutes. I decided I should call my doula (such an amazing woman), who advised me to call Susan. After telling her that my contractions went from every five minutes to every three minutes within an hour, Susan told me to meet her at the center in about an hour to get checked and, hopefully, have a baby. Aaaah!!!

I called Peter into the room and told him to call his work (he's campus safety) and let them know he wouldn't be coming in for his 8-midnight shift. "Serious?" he asked. I sort of gave a laugh/cry and said, "Yes, we're having a baby." Thankfully, my parents were in town for the week so the three girls at home were well taken care of.

The drive to the center brought the contractions to about every two minutes. We got to the center about 8 PM and I was 100% effaced and 5 cm dilated. She told us to go and walk the stairs while she and her assistant got the room ready for us. So, the next hour or so I walked with Peter and it got to the point where I just had to stop and breathe through the contractions. One hour later I was at a six and Susan gave me the option to break my water after I spent some time with a hot shower pounding on my back to help with the back labor. I agreed(in hindsight if we do this route again I won't have my water broken this early). After she broke my water I got into the birthing tub. My contractions immediately came quicker and more intensely. It was like a thunderstorm took over. One thunderclap after another. I got in the tub at about 10:30 PM 6 cm dilated and she was born at 11 PM, to give you a sense of how intense and quick things progressed. As I said before, I would not have broken my water for the reason that I had no way to prepare or build the endurance for my contractions. I got to a point where I was scared. Terrified. And hit that, "I can't do this" wall. Susan looked me right in the face and said, "You can do this. She is almost here." I was leaning back against Peter and when I tried to push I just couldn't -- it hurt so bad! I just felt like I needed to get up in a squat to get her to come. Unfortunately, Peter wouldn't let me go (looking back, I should have been more clear and asked him nicely to let me go so I could get up in order to get our daughter out of me, but, pretty sure I was beyond rational thinking) so I threw him off of me with a very mean, "LET ME GO!" (sorry Love) and grabbed for the edge of the tub but grabbed Susan instead and nearly pulled her headfirst into the water...haha!!! Luckily, her student and assistant had good holds on her and kept her dry. After I gripped the tub I gave one big push and her head came and then (I'm pretty sure they were telling me to take a break but I didn't even hear anyone at this point) one more big push and she was there and pure relief, joy, and exhaustion took over.

Our sweet Gracie Virginia joined our family June 13, 2014 at 11:00 PM. 8 lbs. 1 oz. and 20 1/4 inches long. It just so happens this is a FANTASTIC day of the year -- it is Peter's and mine anniversary, it's one of my best friend's birthdays, and it was on Friday the 13th! Peter and I were married on Friday the 13th as well. So much fun!

Gracie gave us one big scream and then she was calm and alert. We sat there admiring this beautiful baby girl in awe at the goodness and greatness of God's love and trust in us. I couldn't believe that I did it. Peter was a complete rock for me. He never once faltered in his support and never left my side. I found out later it was kind of traumatic for him to see the pain I was in and not be able to do anything about it, but you would never know that with how he did. My love for him has grown all the more because of this experience. He is my best friend and my truest love. I am, oh, so blessed to have him in my life. Seriously.

My favorite part about this whole thing, we were in our own bed in our own home by 2:30 AM. We all woke up at 7:30 and the girls and my parents got to come in and meet little Gracie. It was so wonderful to just be home.

Gracie is now 10 weeks old and we just love her. It has been a tough transition for me (that may be a post later on) but the girls just love their new sister and are always asking to see and hold her. Peter has been a rock star and has helped so much with everything. Here are some pictures and I'll try to get back on here soon.

The morning after her birth.