2 years old

I was starting to think that I would never go in to labor with Shiloh. With each of the boys, they were born several days before their due dates, but here I was, the day before her due date and nothing! Then, my water broke! Tyrone was very calm about the whole thing, and we got the boys to the person's house who had agreed to watch them and made our way to the hospital at about 1pm.

Contractions had not started on their own, so we started the horrible pitocin after walking the halls for several hours. About that time (7pm or so), the people watching the boys for us decided that this was taking too long and they couldn't watch them anymore. Tyrone had to leave and get them, hoping one of our friends would agree to some last minute over night babysitting. I was so upset to be in labor alone that my blood pressure spiked to the point that it sent nurses running in to my room.

My nurse was THE BEST. She told me that they would do whatever it was I needed, that we would make the boys a pallet behind the nurses station and let them watch cartoons if we needed to! She listened to me sob incoherently, rubbed my back through some contractions, and convinced me to go ahead and take some pain medicine and get a nap. Luckily, one of Tyrone's buddies and his wife were perfectly willing to take the boys and they ended up having a fun movie night over there.

Once Tyrone was back and things were settled (9pm or so), my midwife turned up the pitocin and really got the show on the road. This was, by far, my most painful labor. I literally could not stay still, and was out of bed, rocking back and forth, and falling asleep for 30 seconds between contractions leaning against anything available. When my midwife checked me at about 12:30 am, I was almost ready, but not quite. She had such a soothing, grandmotherly presence. She sat down in the rocking chair and rocked and was quietly reassuring.

Well, suddenly I had to push! It was time! This part didn't take long, and 7 or so pushes later, at 1:08am, Shiloh Isabelle Martin was born on her due date, 9/9/07! She was beautiful, much bigger then predicted at 8lbs, 7oz, and 19 1/2 inches long, my heaviest, although not my longest, baby. Tyrone cut her cord (a first for him!), took tons of pictures, and made the important phone calls.

We were moved to a recovery room, where everyone did really well. Things went along as they were supposed to, the boys got to meet their new sister, she nursed well. She was diagnosed with a small heart murmur that scared me to death but ended up healing on it's own and was never a problem. We did so well that we were sent home the very next day with our brand new daughter, who has never stopped making us smile.

'07

'08

'09