A call from the press

Kind of half way freaking out. 

Phone rang. Hubby looked at it. It was the local paper. Ummmm? Ok. He answered it and talked for a few seconds, then says "Yes, she's here." and hand the phone to me. Cue question marks from both of us. 

It was the local paper wanting me to write up a piece for their Christmas edition about home birth. She's emailing me some questions. Things like how many home births vs hospital. Home many kids. What I would suggest to women who are looking to birth at home. 

Wow! 

I know I sounded super paranoid. I am when it comes to stuff like this in public.  There have been a few recent bad home birth articles lately in the national news.  Still, I get to write it up and decide what direction it goes, for the most part.  It can be a happy and good home birth piece.  

13 Years Ago - Happy Birthday Hannah

This night, 13 years ago, I was preparing for the birth of my second child. Although I had my dates for the doctor, they kept giving me different dates for her due date.  As the day got closer, the doctors asked about induction. We talked about it and decided to go ahead and induce. I was a couple weeks early according to my dates, but I figured we could go ahead and induce.  Brent's parents came down to Oklahoma to be with us and see the birth and their new grandbaby. They set the induction date for the 10th of December at 8am. I didn't realize until that night how hard it was to sleep when you knew the time labour would start. 

Brent was going to school at Spartan School of Aeronautics. He had school that day, but didn't want me to labour without him. I told him to go to school, and if things progressed faster than we thought they would, I'd call him. He hesitantly decided to go. It all worked out great, though. Labour went slow. He had plenty of time. I spent a lot of the day with Bill, Sandy and Sadie. They had a little play area that they would take Sadie to go play in to pass the time. They even got her a little toy car, that she just loved.

The doctor was good and the nurse during labor was great. I tried to go without an epidural, but being stuck in bed made it hard. I had some pain medication put into an IV, but it didn't help much. Brent said it was ok and that I didn't need to go through all the pain.  The nurse told me it would help me to relax and might speed things up.  I decided to ask for the epidural. Shortly after that, I was ready to push. 

We still hadn't decided on a name for our little girl. We had been going between Sophia and Hannah.  As I was getting ready to push, Brent said that it was up to me what we would name her. I took a quick moment to think, then decided I liked Hannah best.

Hannah Marie Hartman was born at 5:01pm, on December 10, 2001. She was 7lb 9oz and 19 inches long.  Our smallest baby. 

She was a sweet little bug.  I kept her in my room almost all the time.  I would occasionally fall asleep with her in my bed, but I never slept much while there because I was afraid of the nurses getting upset seeing me asleep with her.  She was our thumb sucker from day 1.  Always had her thumb to comfort her.  Such a smart little girl, who is now a smart young woman.  How the time flies by.  

Happy Birthday to my little Hannah.