Name: Gabriel Allen
DOB: December 6th, 2007
Time: 9:20pm
Weight: 7lbs 6oz
Length: 20in

The story:
Active labor with Gabriel started on the 4th of December, though I’d been having contractions for a full week before that. I went to the hospital that night having contractions every 4 minutes, 45 seconds long. The nurses and my midwife checked me but I was stuck at 3 cm, 80% effaced. After a lot of walking and still no change, they sent me home to rest. The next day, I walked around some more but my contractions weren’t feeling stronger so I didn’t go back to the hospital. The 6th, I had an appointment with my midwife and she said I was still at 3cm, but my cervix had thinned out enough where she could break my bag of waters if needed. She sent me out to walk around for an hour and see if the contractions got stronger. Ian and I headed off to Wal-mart and walked around for about an hour and a half. I started noticing the contractions more throughout my back and was feeling a lot more pressure with each one, so we went back to the clinic to check for any progress. My midwife said the contractions were definitely doing their work and stripped my membranes for me. She sent us home to grab our hospital bag and eat dinner and told us to check in the hospital that night.

We arrived at the hospital around 6:00pm. The nurses checked us into the delivery room right away. By this time I had dilated to 4cm and my cervix was ready. The contractions were getting a lot more painful, so I opted to take a shower while waiting for my midwife to show up. At 7:00pm, my midwife arrived and promptly broke my water for me. I then took another shower, during which I could feel the contractions really starting to come on. They were about three minutes apart and by the time I got out of the shower, I had dilated to 5cm. I was doing a water birth, so my nurses put me in the tub to help with the pain. The contractions started getting really intense and the water wasn’t really helping, but my body was ready to start pushing so my midwife checked me again. She said I was at 7cm and told me it was time. Pushing Gabriel out was a lot worse than Mariah. Even with the hot water of the tub, the pain was unbelievable. I started to think he was never coming out, but finally, at 9:20pm that night Gabriel Allen was born.

And here’s a fun fact: Gabriel now shares a birthday with my sister-in-law.

Nowadays
August 2008 - My boy is now 8 months old. He’s eating table food, anything and everything. He’s a pro crawler and has progressed to pulling himself into a standing position and taking a couple steps by himself. It won’t be long now!

May 2008 - These days, Gabriel is a happy-go-lucky 5 1/2 month old. He’s recently mastered the art of speaking, sitting up, rolling over, growing teeth and annoying his sister. He’s getting closer and closer to crawling and I can only pray he takes a little more time. I feel like my baby boy is getting too big too fast!

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Gabriel
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Ian
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Last edited August 13th, 2008.