Coralie Pearl Dover

The most important event for our family this year was the arrival of our daughter Coralie.  

Early, Early Labor

I woke up at 4:00am on October 27th with contractions, they were not hard and so I decided not to wake Casey. During the next few hours I packed my children's bags, went on Facebook, ate some food, and took a bath. After about 2 hours I started to get a headache and I lay down on the couch to try to sleep. Lying down made the contractions stop and I was happy about this, I did not want to go into hard labor with a headache. For the rest of the day I tried to rest and only experienced a handful of contractions. Javen was an angel and let me rest and relax. That night Casey and I took my parents out to dinner at Cruisers and had a great time, and then I went home, did some cleaning (including vacuuming my stairs to my dad's amazement) and went to bed.

1^st Stage Labor

 I woke up at 4:30 am on October 28th (My due date) and I heard a "POP". Now I had read that some people hear their water breaking, but did not know what to expect, so I sat up a little and felt some water. I then grabbed a towel next to my bed and got up, and to my surprise instead of a little bit of water leaking, it was like a gush and did not stop. I called to Casey and told him that my water had broken and that he needed to get up. He got up and got me a few more towels and helped me downstairs and made me a breakfast of toast and eggs. During this time he was watching me progress and knew that we did not have a lot of time. We went upstairs and starting to pack my hospital bag. I know that everyone is thinking, "Why was your bag not packed weeks ago?" Well I was expecting to have a labor half the time of Javen's, about 6 hours, and I thought that I would have time during early labor. Boy was I wrong. Casey got my bag packed and woke up Javen and we were off.

2^nd Stage Labor

             During this time contractions started getting harder and I was experiencing back labor and the pain was not fully going away in-between the contractions. We dropped Javen off with Casey's parents and left to the hospital. We arrived at 7:00 am and slowly made our way inside. At the check in desk they called my midwife and she told them that I wanted a natural labor, so they did not offer me any pain medication. I got settled in and was checked and found to be at an 8 and was starting to feel the urge to push. When we found out that I was nearing to end of my labor Casey called his mom, within minutes she and my sister-in-law, Michelle arrived at the hospital. (My sister Shan’l was already with us, Cameo could not be reached, Sarah was too tired from a long night with Daniel, and my mom could not get out of going to work)  At this time my midwife had not arrived, so I was told to try not to push. I tried very hard not to push, but as the minutes went by it became harder and harder not to. I kept asking where Michelle (my midwife) was and when would she get here! Michelle finally showed up and told me that I could push and 4 contractions later at 8:01am Coralie was born, weighing 8 lbs. 11 oz. and measuring 21 inches long. After Coralie’s head came out, Michelle (my midwife) had to ease each shoulder out one at a time, and from there I was able to reach down and meet my baby girl.

          This labor was much easier than Javen’s; I believe that this is because it was so short, only 3.5 hours. Coralie weighed 2 lbs. 1oz. and was 2 in. longer than Javen was when he was born, and was much easier on my body. There was no tearing, so bigger babies do not mean a harder, more painful labor.  I now believe that no labor is the same, it was so different having my labor start with my water breaking, and having a strong urge to push. My midwife and husband (he is my coach) were wonderful and overall this was a great birthing experience.