Emma Grace DeJong

It all started at about 12:00am on February 20th. I was contracting about every 15 minutes, so I woke up Jason to tell him what was going on. His exact words were, "ok, go back to sleep". Anyways, as my husband slept soundly through the night, I continued to contract every 15 to 20 minutes. At about 5:00am I decided to go take a shower to see if that would help with the pain. After I was done showering, the contractions had stopped all together. I went back to bed, only to be woken up by more contractions. I tried to just put it out of my mind. I didn't think that I was actually going to go into labour that day. I refused to look at the clock and time the contractions, but I knew they were coming regularly. It had been way too long since we've been swimming, so we decided to go to the Bonnie Doon pool as a family. Of course none of my board shorts fit me, so we went to Wal-mart to buy some. When we got to Wal-mart, the contractions started getting stronger and closer together. It was at the point where I had to stop walking to get through some of the contractions. Jason and I debated whether we should just forget about going swimming and get to the hospital, but I didn't think the contractions were strong enough yet. Anyways, so we went swimming, and I'm glad we did! It took my mind off of the contractions, and the water helped to calm my nerves. While Jason and Tylie went in the hot tub, I decided to swim some lengths. I had to hold onto the edge at times, when I was having a strong contraction. The lifeguard asked me a couple times if I was ok, and I assured him that I wasn't going to give birth in the pool. After about a hour of swimming, we decided it was time to go home and get ready to go to the hospital. On the way home I had a craving for ice cream, so we stopped and got McDonald's ice cream sundae's... yum! Finally, after a mad dash to tidy up and get our hospital bag ready, we called Jason's sister Meggen to come watch Tylie. It was 6:00pm when we got to the hospital. They told us that there were no beds available and to go sit down. At this point, my contractions were pretty strong and coming every 3-5 minutes. I ended up labouring in the hallway for an hour before they finally sent me to overflow to be checked. I was 4cm dilated and in a lot of pain! I told them that I wanted the epidural, and within 15 minutes the anastesioligist was there to give me relief. It took him 3 tries to get the epidural in place. Once he finally got it in the right spot, I was in heaven! Thank goodness for modern medicine! After the epidural, my doctor broke my water to speed things along. She was planning to put me on the drip, but she asked me if I wanted to rest for an hour before she did (and of course I said yes!) I started feeling a lot of pressure and strated shaking uncontrolably. The doctor told me that the shaking was normal, and that it was just my body's way of coping. When I was 10cm dilated, I started pushing... and 10 mintues later we had our beautiful baby girl. She was born February 20th at 10:10 and weighed a healthy 6lbs 6oz. I couldn't of asked for things to go any better that day. Jason was such a great support and the experience brought us so much closer together. Welcome to the world Emma Grace DeJong!

Baby Emma is now almost 7 weeks olds and I'm completely in love with her. Tylie wasn't too sure about her at first, but now she is such a good big sister. She loves to help me take care of her, and she is so concerned whenever Emma cries. Emma has been a really good baby right from the start. She is starting to be awake more during the day and sleeps for a long stretch at night. She is starting to smile and coo... so fun! I feel so blessed to have had 2 healthy and happy daughters, and an amazing husband to help me rasie them!