Welcome, Phinehas Luther!

Phinehas Luther Cook made his grand entrance Saturday March 26 at 8:25am. He was 19 1/2 inches and weighed 7lbs 4oz.

This labor was much different than what I experienced with Weslee. Contractions started Friday afternoon, and I knew it was labor right away. They were pretty bearable, but I did call Ken to come home from work, and called my doula Stephanie to come over because we didn't know when Ken would be home or how fast the labor would progress. People had been telling me the entire pregnancy that second labors usually go faster than the first, and that had only been 9 hours. Later I would want to smack everybody who had said that.

The early stage of labor started to drag on a little, and by 8pm I decided it might be a good idea to take a nap and send my doula home for a break since I was getting the feeling that it was going to take longer than it had the first time. I woke up around 10pm in quite a bit of pain and called my doula back to the house. I think it was about half an hour until we decided active labor had hit, and it was time to go to the hospital.

I was fully expecting to be very close to delivery when we got to the hospital, but no such luck. I was only at 4cm! When my water broke with Weslee, I was already at 5cm at the beginning of labor. When my midwife arrived and suggested I sit in the tub and try to sleep between contractions, I knew I was in for a longer labor than I had anticipated. My doula was so amazing the whole time, helping to keep me focused on my goal and deal with the pain of contractions. I was determined to go through labor and delivery with no pain medication.

After 16 hours of labor and a LOT of pain, they finally checked and found out Phinehas was in a posterior position, and he was stuck in the pelvis. We worked for an hour to rotate him, trying different positions for contractions. Our friend and nurse Carrie suggested side-lunges, and that finally did the trick. Unfortunately, he still wasn't descending like he should, and they discovered that the fluid sac had formed a little balloon above his head and was preventing him from moving down. We determined that breaking my water would help.

They broke my water about 8am and things picked up right away. I could tell when Phin got past the position he was stuck in on the bone, and contractions got very intense. All of a sudden, I told everybody that I thought he was coming out. They checked and sure enough, he was ready. My midwife had enough time to run in, get prepared, and help Phin out. The pushing phase didn't last long, since he came out in three pushes, and I hardly helped him. My body just knew what to do this time.

Having the natural delivery I had always wanted was very empowering for me. I am so thankful that I had such a great support system for my 18-hour labor. Ken was able to sleep through a good portion of it since Stephanie was there to help me, and that allowed him to support me at the end when I really needed it. I wouldn't change a thing that I did this time, and I now have another beautiful baby boy to enjoy. God is good!