Snippets of Shauntel

Abby sure loves her new musical mobile. Every time I lay her down under her mobile and wind it up, she gets a big smile on her face, gets excited, and starts to coo. She loves to follow the bright blue elephant and you can see her eyes catch a new animal every time they come around - it's very cute. But then every time it stops, she gets very very upset and starts to throw a fit until it is wound up again!



...I only wish I purchased a battery operated one now.

After everyone asking what MY side of the story is, I decided to finally post it. Sorry it's so late, but I'm hoping still interesting. ;o)

Starting at about 12am I had been having pretty consistent contractions about every 5-10 minutes apart. These contractions were getting pretty painful and would wake me up. At about 3am I couldn't go back to sleep and wanted to try and speed things along by walking around and take my mind off clocking each contraction by watching a movie. That didn't work, because by about 5am the movie was over and the only time I would have a contraction is if I would get up from sitting down, so I went back to bed. My contractions started up again after laying is bed and when Jason woke up about 7am to get ready for work, I told him that I think I might be in the EARLY stages of labor since they are starting to get painful enough to wake me up. As he was getting dressed, he pulled out his “World's Greatest Dad” t-shirt and said “Maybe this will help move things along.” (As a side note, and to my defense, I would have bought him a World's Greatest Dad T-shirt, had I known he would have actually wore the stupid thing! I didn't want to waste the money on something I thought for sure he would have thought was tacky and wouldn't wear.)

Jason left for work and I laid in bed and read my scriptures, trying to find some sort of solace in this very frustrating time. The kids and I got up and started our morning routine as usual (still no serious, regular, and/or consistent contractions). I knew I wanted to go to the Snoqualmie garage sales that were starting that morning, but I didn't know if I wanted to take the kids to Nana's house (Jason's mom, Connie) first or go to the garage sales first. Connie called me to see how I was doing and to tell me to bring the kids over so I could get some rest that day. I told her I wanted to go to the Garage Sales and she said she wanted to go too, so she headed up here. When she arrived, we drove around the Ridge from sale to sale for a couple of hours. I was having some pretty strong contractions (ones I would have to breath through and concentrate on) while we were out and about, and again, I thought I might be in the early stages of labor, but the contractions were still not regular or consistent – just increasing on the pain scale! I was pretty tired by about 1:30pm, so we went back to the house to get the kids' overnight bags ready for Nana's.

After Nana and the kids left, I took a hot bath to try and relax. I was then going to lay down and take a nap, hoping my body would relax enough and really go into labor. I decided to call my sister, Leticia (my Doula), and give her an update and a heads up. At this point I was not expecting to have the baby any time soon, but feeling VERY strongly that the baby would come sometime this weekend. Leticia asked me if I wanted her to come over now or wait until things progressed a little further. Me being the unselfish person that I try to be, I didn't want her to come all the way out here for nothing – fearing I wouldn't progress or have this baby today and waste her time just to be with me. She suggested I eat something before I take a nap, so that my contractions would actually do something and not just be annoying. So I prepared a bowl of edemame sprinkled with coarse salt and lime juice, Mmmmm..., sat down and watched last night's episode of Survivor that I had missed.

At about 3:30pm I called Jason and told him that I thought he should head home because these contractions were getting more painful and harder to “deal” with on my own. About 15 minutes later I called him again to make sure he was on his way because they were REALLY hurting by this point and I really needed someone to help me focus and breath. He said he was on his way and hurrying as fast as he could. I then called Leticia to tell her to head on out to the house. I also called my midwife just to give her the heads up.

By the time Jason got home (which was about 4pm) I was not able to concentrate/focus or breath well during each contraction, which were now about 5 minutes apart and VERY strong causing me to shake vigorously. With every contraction I could feel tons of pressure – hoping and praying that my water would 'just break already!' While Jason frantically got things together and finished packing up the car we discussed whether we should head over to the birthing center now or wait a little longer. On a return trip from the bathroom to the couch, I buckled over in pain with another contraction – I was now lying on the floor - contractions now about 1-2 minutes apart causing me to basically convulse during each one. Jason said we were ready to go the van and asked if I wanted to go now or wait till the next contraction. I desperately wanted my water to break, hoping it would relieve some of the blasted pressure, so we waited for the next contraction and FINALLY my water broke!! I was relieved and yet more anxiety flooded my mind, thinking: 'If this is only the “beginning” stages of labor, I don't think I'm going to be able to make it.' (The thought of not being able to handle labor and delivery naturally had definitely crossed my mind many times before and I was now beginning to believe myself.) Jason dragged me up off the floor and we slowly started our long walk to the van. I made it about halfway to the door and had another contraction so we stopped. After a minute, Jason asked me if my contraction was over. It was so he said we needed to keep moving toward the van. I told him there was SO much pressure, that I couldn't move. He tried to convince me to keep moving, but I just stood there and said “I CANNOT move, there is SO much pressure!! I think the baby might be coming out.” Jason check to see if he could feel anything and he could, so he laid me down in the middle of our hallway and took off my pants to see what he was feeling – it was Abby's WHOLE head sticking out. (Her head wasn't just crowning, but completely out – to the neck!) Jason called the midwife and told her the situation and she said she was on her way. With the next contraction I pushed and the rest of the baby came right out. Jason laid her on my chest and got further instructions from the midwife. She told him to find a string or something to tie off the umbilical cord, so that blood wouldn't be transmitted from the placenta to the baby anymore. He quickly grabbed one of Quincy's tennis shoes, ripped out the shoelace and tied it on the cord. I then had to stay lying on my back for the next 20 minutes, still dealing with excruciatingly painful contractions, until the midwife arrived so she could deliver the afterbirth – so that the placenta didn't detach and cause excessive bleeding and complications. (Not fun!) (FYI - Jason got home at about 4, my water broke probably about 4:25 and Abby was born 4:30!)

So after laying in the middle of the hallway, flat on my back, still having contractions about 5 minutes apart for about 20 minutes, the midwife finally gets to the house. She rushes in to make sure everything is still ok and “gets to work.”

That's about it...after somewhat cleaning up, the baby and I move to the recliner and just hung out while the midwife checked us out. Everything is great, Abigail is perfect!

Jason is such a GREAT father! He loves to play with his kids and they LOOVE to play with him. They get SO excited when he gets home and immediately are jumping all over him and trying to get him to play something with them. And most days he is willing to indulge them even when he's tired.

Jason doesn't particularly care for Father's day and he always seems a little bummed on that day. I tried to plan out all of his favorite things to eat (or at least things I know he enjoys) and Quincy made him his very own special father's day card. We went to church and Quincy sang two special Father's Day songs (Daddy's Homecoming & My Dad) with the other primary children. Quincy is so special to me and so is music putting those two together and adding the fact that she was singing to the one person she loves dearly - her dad- brought tears to my eyes.

After church the kids helps Jason grill the Brauts. These are the pictures they wanted to take of them warming up their "buns" by the grill.

One lucky soul will be given a Harvest 72″ (pictured above) on Shelf Reliance’s dime. No cost to you. No strings. No joke.

To enter (up to 5 different ways), click here and check out the Shelf Reliance Blog.

The winner will be chosen at noon (Mountain Time Zone) on Friday, June 26th, so get your comments in before then!