The Montague Family: And then there were six....

EDIT: This was a draft that was just sitting on my account without ever being published.... so I'm publishing it now, 2 years after the fact. And maybe I'll work on an update while I'm at it.

I must've written it sometime September 2013.

Sam arrived back in El Paso at the end of July and we've LOVED having him home. The boys adore him like a super hero. And he kind of is, to all of us. My Dad and Madre came in for a visit during the first week of August. We expected our little girl to come earlier than she did and they ALMOST missed her entrance. In fact, their plane departed almost exactly 12 hours after her birth. Which leads to her awesome birth story.

In the past, my babies have all been born between 2-4 days early. So that's what I was anticipating with this one....until my midwife told me that she would be out of town for a wedding during that window. EEEEKKK!!!!

In the army, when you go into labor, you don't get to choose who delivers your baby. You just get whoever is on duty. I wasn't okay with this and I'd always wanted to try a water birth at home. Although we'd looked into it with Keith, it just wasn't financially possible for us at that point. In the past two years, we've made some HUGE progress with our finances and knew that we could pay for a home birth this time around. So after some recommendations, we found a fantastic midwife and planned for a home birth. When I found out she was going to be out of town for most of the week prior to my "due date", I was more than a little nervous. I really hoped that I'd have her before she left so there would be nothing to worry about.

Well, my parents arrived, my midwife went out of town, and my parents were gearing up to go back home.....still no baby. I'd finally given up on having my Madre there for the birth when at 7pm the night before they were supposed to leave, I get 3 really good contractions while lounging on the couch. So I'm thinking, hey, these could be real. I wasn't even moving! So Madre and I get up and go for a nice brisk walk around the neighborhood. We come back, and I decide to put the kids in bed before resting again. The contractions are continuing and seeming to get stronger. Boys are down, I relax on the couch and have 4 more good contractions in an hour. So at 930ish I text my midwife and let her know. At this point, I thought she was back in town.....nope, she was 2 hours away. An hour later, I'm barely able to talk through my contractions, and my midwife shows up.

They set up the birthing pool and around 11pm I get into it. It. Is. AMAZING. My contractions slowed from about 3-4 min apart and then I had one 9 minutes later. I was a little concerned but Mary, my midwife, said it was completely normal and not to worry because my body was still progressing in the labor. She was RIGHT! The contractions started up again and I just relaxed in the pool between them. She came in every half an hour to listen to the baby but there was no other monitoring or exams. At this point, I didn't even know if I was dilated at all. She had never done an internal exam on me.

Right before Mary had arrived, Sam had said that he was hungry. I told him it was going to be a long night and he should pop a pizza in the oven. Laughing, he did it anyway. So while Sam and I were in our bedroom talking in between contractions, Mary and my parents were eating pizza in my dining room. Haha! My dad commented at one point, "Well, this is different from being in the hospital."

Around 12:45 I started into transition so I started making some noise and Mary came in to assist for the delivery. Sam, Madre, Mary, and her assistant, Ambar were all in the room with me. Looking back on the experience, I would've had my dad come in too. It was torture for him to hear me, and not be able to see that I was okay. Around 1:07am Sam delivered her head with the sac intact. She was looking at him through the amniotic fluid. He got teary eyed when he saw how much dark hair she had. Daisy Lynne Montague was born at 1:09am on Sunday morning. She was 7lbs 1 oz and 20.5 inches long. It was so great to be at home and I don't think I could ever convince Sam to go back to the hospital for a low risk delivery.

She was up all night that first night....with me. Yeah, Sam konked out. He'd worked really hard....hahaha. As soon as 7am hit and the boys woke up I passed her off to him and she fell fast asleep to the noise from her brothers.

A continuation in present day 2015: She was a really good baby and continues to be extremely good natured for the most part. Especially compared to other two year olds. Here's a picture progression for you.