it all started with josh (his birth story)...

as you may have read, two of my kiddos celebrated their birthdays five days apart this month. i didn't want to combine their parties, so we did a birthday celebration for josh with a homemade ice cream cake and some presents with our family. and then we did a bit bigger birthday party for jaelyn. (i have a strategic way to do birthday celebrations with our kids, we just can't do four huge parties every year - but i will save that for another post.)

since we didn't do a huge party for josh, i thought i would share his birth story instead. i guess i have never done that before. wow! this is a story to read!!!


i just love talking about pregnancy and birth stories. i also love hearing about other momma's stories too (if you have a birth story post on your blog - let me know! and if you don't have one yet - post one and let me know that too!!!) i just love sharing these precious moments.

God totally has put this passion for pregnancy and babies in my heart and it all started with joshua almost ten years ago!! i will start with a summary of my pregnancy with josh and then go into the big birth day!

jamil and i got married on december 18, 1999. on february 1, 2000 we found out we were pregnant. so we had ourselves a honeymoon baby, we had been married for about six weeks and we were about six weeks pregnant. what a surprise. we had "planned" on waiting for two - three years. but God had other plans. it was funny because after the wedding and we were settling into life together, i had this instinct that i just needed to take care of something. so i told jamil, i wanted to have a kitten, a puppy or a baby - it was up to him. he told me i could get a kitten. but before we did, we found out we were being blessed with a baby. and no, needless to say, he didn't let me get the kitten! we would find out through an early ultrasound that my due date was october 4, 2000!

i had a fairly easy pregnancy. i was just a little sick and nauseous during the first trimester, but not too bad. i had no complications and both the baby and i were healthy! we had one little scare around thirteen weeks when at my prenatal appointment, my doctor couldn't find the baby's heartbeat. we had heard it at the previous appointment, so i was terrified something was wrong. we were able to have an ultrasound immediately. praise God, He is so good, we saw the baby's heartbeat and it was moving and waving it's little arm. everything was good. (this pattern repeats itself in each of my subsequent pregnancies, we have a hard time picking up a heartbeat because, i was later to find out that i have a tilted uterus).

because of this little scare, i had to see the baby again, so we had an elective ultrasound to see our little peanut at around 18 weeks. we did not find out the sex of the baby, we wanted to be surprised!! although, we both had a feeling it would be a baby boy! so the rest of the pregnancy went great. i did have heartburn throughout the pregnancy and some strong cravings. it took a long time for my belly to show. i would get so frustrated about that. i wanted to look pregnant and wear maternity clothes so bad. little did i know by my fourth baby, i would be wearing those much desired clothes on the day i got the positive pregnancy test!

fast forward to right before the big day...

on september 28, 2000 ~ i went to carolina's medical center, eighth floor, labor and delivery, little did i know it would become one of my most favorite places in the world. although i was not there that day in labor. i was visiting my dear friend, stephanie. she was in labor with her son, elijah. and i was outside of the door when he was born. at that point in my life, the thought wasn't even in my mind to be in the room with her, i was way too scared at the thought, because i had no idea what to expect.

stephanie and i were pregnant together. and our due dates were like ten days apart. it was the first pregnancy for both of us. it was such a blessing to share this special time with a best friend. our babies would end up being only three days apart!

i had gone across the street to the hospital to visit stephanie, after my 39th week prenatal appointment. at this appointment, i found out i was 4 (yes, four!) cm. dilated and 80% effaced. at the time that didn't mean too much to me, except shouldn't i be in the hospital in labor and not walking around visiting someone else? but the doctor told me i could be like that for a few more days and as long as my water didn't break or having strong contractions i was good to go! i remember him describing what a strong contraction should feel like, i tucked that away in my head. and little did i know i would not have a text book description of a normal labor and delivery. i had no idea what was about to come!!

on the evening of september 30, 200 at around 5:00 pm, i was having some tightening across my belly kind of regularly. so i called my friend stephanie and asked her to describe her contractions and mine didn't really feel like the ones she was describing. they continued throughout the night. they were not regular and not strong. but i decided to call my doctor's office anyway. my doctor was in an emergency delivery, so i talked to one of the midwives in the practice, hallie (who would later end up delivering baby #3 & #4!). she told me that she could tell they were not painful. she suggested i take some tylenol and get some rest and see what happens. around 11:30 pm, the contractions completely stopped. i was so frustrated, i wanted to have my baby so bad!! i was ready!

i slept well that night. and the next morning (sunday october 1, 2000) i woke up early to say good bye to my dad. he had come the day before to drop off my mom (they were living in pa at the time) so she could be here to help us out. since it clearly didn't look like i was having a baby, he headed home. boy, he had no idea what he was about to miss!!! neither did we!

after he left, i think we all went back to sleep, he is a total early morning travel kind of guy! after waking up the second time around 10:00 am, i was laying in bed and felt this complete shift/movement/erratic behavior in my uterus, seriously like something (ha! the baby) just fell out of place. little did i know that was the baby dropping! now, remember, i haven't had contractions since late the night before. so i am not even thinking i would be haivng the baby anytime soon. i was thinking i would be prego forever!!!

so i decide to get up and go make something for breakfast, this is about 10:30 on a sunday morning. (we were not going to elevation church at this point, in fact it wasn't even a church at this time, gosh, pastor and holly were probably still in high school ;) or college to give them the benefit!! ) so, we had decided to skip church!! while i am mixing up the pancake batter, i felt this odd sensation and ran to the bathroom to realize that my water had broken! wow!! within a few minutes the contractions started again. but they were nothing like the night before. these were so much stronger. and they were about 3 minutes apart, regularly! i called my doctor and he said come on in to the hospital to have your baby! wow!!! this was nothing like we learned in our childbirth class. that i would have had contractions the night before and then they stopped until my water broke. so i asked him if i had time to get a shower before heading up to the hospital. he asked how far away we were, i said about 45 minutes. he said, yes, just don't take your time.
poor doctor makemson, he had been in an emergeny delivery the night before and here i am taking my good ol' time to look pretty!!

ok, hang on here, this is where the story gets really good, i promise.... grab a diet coke and come along for the wild ride we (no, i) was about to take!!!

getting to the hospital took forever. i remember, waiting in the living room in pain, hanging over the chair, waiting on my mom and husband to get ready to go. seriously, i was not happy. i am feeling the pain big time now!!! we finally get into our car at about 11:50 am and head up to the hospital. i am in a ton of pain. jamil is driving while chewing on his toothbrush of all things (btw, we have no idea what ever happened to it, he swears i through it out of the car window b/c i was mad about the pain i was in! ha!) my mom is on the cell phone calling our friends and family while timing my contractions. and they feel like they are on top of each other. she is telling me they are about a minute. little did i know that they were about 30 seconds apart and she was about to call for an ambulance to meet us on the way! i begin to tense up because of the pain and intensity and forget to do my breathing and almost pass out in the car. in between contractions with what little time i have, i am nearly cussing out and flipping off the slow moving, "out for a sunday drive" traffic and telling jamil he better run the red lights. (btw, i think i really did flip off someone i wasn't a"very good christian" at this time ;) haha! but i don't think i cussed)

we finally get to the hospital. it is about 12:30 pm or so at this time. we are met at the door with a wheel chair and taken directly to labor and delivery. it was a busy day for having babies, so i am put into a small observation room, where i have a small bathroom, and the room is barely big enough for a bed. i change my clothes and am panicking because i am bleeding, which is normal when at the end of labor! i didn't realize this. i finally get into the bed, when the nurse comes in, i am feeling like i have to push, she said, "oh sweetie, this is your first baby, it isn't time to push yet." she proceeds to check me and i am almost 10 cm. dilated. she almost panics as she tells my mom and i. jamil is not there yet, he is still parking the car!

so she puts me back into a wheelchair, and rushes and i mean rushes me to a labor and delivery suite. while she is pushing the wheelchair down the hall, my hair is flying, my mom is running to catch up and jamil finally joins in the race. i remember to ask for an epidural - um, yeah, right she says honey it is too late for that, we can give you something in your iv. yeah, right, i didn't even get an iv.

so we get into the l&d suite and it is literally time for me to start pushing. this part i can barely recall, i do remember that no one (family & friends) can get any kind of updates from the hospital, they don't even have me registered as a patient, because i have had no time to do any paperwork/check in stuff! that is how fast all of this is going down. jamil and my mom were both in the room with me. we hadn't planned on having anyone in the room but at this point i do not care and really want my mom to stay!

i remember it took me awhile to get good at pushing. i was using every muscle in my body except the right ones. it was when i saw my doctor hold up a huge long needle and a pair of scissors that i got serious and pushed the best i knew how. i remember telling them to move the full length mirror away, that i didn't want to see anything, i could feel enough!

finally, after about 30 minutes of pushing....
our baby was born!

jamil cut the cord and told me we have a joshua and i asked "it's a boy?" yup!

joshua brendan massey was born at 1:39 pm on sunday october 1, 2000.

i was so excited to meet my baby boy!!! i knew it was a boy.

joshua weighed 8 pounds 7 oz and was 20 3/4 inches long.

he was a big baby - the biggest of all four of mine. he did have the cord wrapped around his neck twice but he was completely healthy.

needless to say he came so fast and was so big that i had a lot of recovering to do and felt a great deal of pain. i had a third degree tear (internally too) - ouch!!!

but holding my sweet baby boy, was like a band-aid to my pain, really it was! i was totally smitten and in love with this baby. i was in shock that this baby who was once inside of me, i was now holding. wow! this is a true miracle! i was amazed by this whole process!

imagine the shock of our friends and family when we called them about an hour or so after my mom's call to them telling them we were on the way to the hospital, and we are telling them our baby boy is here!!

so that is where it all began. this is the start of my passion for pregnancy, birth and loving on babies!!


*you can go here to see some pictures of the day josh was born, for some reason i can not find them on my laptop :(