Our baby Jane!

Well I have been wanting to post about jane's birth and how things are going just having a hard time finding a chance to do it (hmm, I wonder why???)...
so i first want to say that we all just love our little jane. It seems like I have been pregnant with her for forever. I think that we have felt it has been so long because of life's circumstances surrounding this time frame. We got pregnant with Jane the weekend before my mother showed up unexpectedly at our home to stay. I spent my first trimester trying to discover what was 'wrong' with my mom, my second waiting around for a home to open up for my mother and trying to be patient and my third trimester, packing, looking for a home, moving to a new area, and jacob starting work. So needless to say it seems as if jane has been with us for along time already we just did not get to see her till now.
Once jacob and I realized the timing of when she would be born we felt very strongly that we needed her, our family, needed her to be born during this crazy time. We felt jane and her presence would help us as alittle family stay united during a crazy adjusting time. Jacob and I still very much depend on one another, even with our very limited time, to help each other out and having Jane just intensifies that need for one another.

Now I have shared some or part of Jane's birth story with a few people and I think most people I have spoken to have been surprised how horrendous I describe it. I have to frist start off by saying I have never, EVER, experienced that kind of pain for that duration of time and frankly I hope I never have to have that same experience again.
I am so thankful labor is over, so thankful Jane and I made it out alive and well(trying not to be dramatic here), so thankful I was able to push her out without intervention(s), so thankful my body is healing rapidly, so thankful that jane and I have become great nursing partners and she is able to get her needs met with my milk.........we just are so thankful for her!

I went monday morning to get my membranes stripped (I had never had that done before) and that was way more painful than I thought it would be. I spent the rest of the day pretty miserable but not in labor, just contracting enough to be non-functional but not enough to be in full blown labor. Then I went back in Tuesday morning (this time, jacob took the day off) and was checked (4cm) and re-stripped. Jacob and I decided to 'walk' the baby out, so we went out to breakfast, then off to walk. We went to a park near the hospital first (i was very optimisitc that we could just walk around there for abit then be right near the hospital to go have the baby). We spent that walk narrowing down our favorite names. We decided on the names, Jane, Anne, or Kathryn as a first name and various combos of that as a middle name. So then we went off to Bangor City Forest and walked a few trails and the Orono Bog. The wind was great so no bugs bothered us the whole walk. Then we went off to a trail near our home in Old Town. After that it was time to pick up the girls and off we went to the Farmers market. We hung out there for an hour and by the end of that hour the pressure from standing and contractions was such that I needed to go sit in the van. We went home, made dinner, put the girls to bed and then as I was getting myself ready for bed I had that first, 'oh, my goodness, this is the real thing' contraction. I was actually trying to ignore what was happening because I had walked all day and now wanted to sleep, not have labor. So around 9pm i menioned to jacob that he should just get regular clothes on and not his jammies as those contractions were 5 min apart and painful. We made our various calls and were out the door by 9:30pm and at the hospital by 10pm.
I advise anyone to pre-registar with whereever you will be having the baby as it killed me to have to go through painful contractions while filling out paperwork and answering questions.
When we arrived up in the room the nurse wanted to check me (I was a 5)...I was expecting to have Jane as quickly as Mattie or just under a few hours. It seems like things were heading that way but then I looked at the clock and realized an hour had already gone by and I knew this time would be different. I then had jacob take the clock off the hospital wall, as it was depressing me and causing me to 'wonder' what was 'wrong', why this was taking longer.
You see, normally ones level of pain and type and closeness of contractions indicates how close one is too seeing their baby. but this time it did not work like that for me. My pain was at 7cm was the same it was at birth for mattie and I still had a few hours to go. One interesting thing about this birth, if anyone but jacob was in the room, my contractions would stop or be lighter for the duration of the time they were in the room and the minute they left they would return back to normal speed and duration. I felt so 'watched', so like everyone was waiting for me to push the baby out and my mind was racing. I kept thinking about how things could go downhill if the baby just never kept coming. Even after breaking my water I just stopped having contractions for like 30 minutes. it was so odd to me to be in full blown transitional labor and just have it stop but all it took was everyone leaving the room and they came back full force again.
Towards the end I started feeling that 'urge' to push, which I honestly had never felt before, both of the girls just slid out when I was dialated enough, so once again I realized, "oh, I need to push and this baby wont move an inch till I start pushing". So i started (on my hands and knees, knealing in my bed), that part took about 20 minutes and was sooooooooo very painful. I knew pushing like that was going to cause me to tear but at that point I was willing to deal with that if it meant having her out.
She came out and the midwife asked if I wanted to grab her or catch her. I said no. I was still trying to catch my breathe honestly and couldnt even turn over at that point.
I was so happy to finally see her, she looked so beautiful and perfect and was alert and happy. She showed signs of wanting to eat around 15 mins after birth or so and only after a minute she figured out how to nurse and has been a stellar nursemate since.

I am taking things one day at a time right now. I think that is best. I am thankful jacob had a few days off (he goes back tomorrow) and that my sister-in-law could come for 2 weeks. It is nice having 3 adults for 3 kids...

I know I am leaving out alot from her birth story. My love for Jane is so great that I would go through that again for her, even though at the end of it I literally wanted someone to shoot me to stop the pain. But I am so grateful I made it to the otherside of that pain. I would have never thought that I could have done that.
We love our Jane and our love for Mattie and Liliana has just grown because our family has been added to.