I am pretty certain that the next baby I want to keep the gender a surprise. With Gavin, about 30 seconds after I saw PREGNANT on the test, I wanted to know if it was a boy or a girl. Doug was in the same boat. At an ultrasound at just over 15 weeks the technician asked me if we were finding out the gender. I said, "Yes! But it is too early to tell now, right?" Doug wasn't with me since I just assumed that there would be nothing remarkable at this ultrasound. The technician had a big smile and asked if I wanted to know. Now." After about 3.2 seconds of very thorough consideration I said, "Yes! I want to know!" She warned me not to buy everything in blue just yet and if I did, to keep the receipt just in case but she was pretty confident that he was a boy. We were thrilled!

When I was pregnant with Joey I was kind of hoping for a gender surprise but Doug wanted to hear nothing of it. I must admit that he didn't have to do much to persuade me. I posted the whole story about finding out that I was expecting another boy in a post called As Long As She's Healthy. Needless to say, I was less than thrilled initially. Because my pregnancy was night and day compared to Gavin's, I was sure that I was having a girl. It didn't take a really long time to get excited about Joey being a boy, but it makes me feel a little guilty about not being excited about the news. I should have been jumping for joy that I was pregnant with a healthy baby boy. How horrible of me that I was, even for a second, not recognizing how blessed I truly was to be carrying a baby in my stomach that was healthy. I still feel bad about this.

So the next time I become pregnant I want to be surprised. I think that God's design of women is nothing short of miraculous. He designed our bodies to host, grow, deliver and feed another human being. (That is probably a post for another day.) I think that immediately after delivering Joey, that euphoria that I felt when his weight rested on my stomach was instant (something). Honestly, I can't find a word that really represents that feeling. That love wrapped up in excitement, peppered with the knowledge that my world was never going to be the same again. I think that at that exact moment is the best time to find out the gender of my baby. If I am blessed to have a third boy I am sure that there will not be one split second of regret. It is easy to feel let down when your eagerly anticipated baby isn't much more than a black and white fuzzy picture on a screen every few months. Even though the books and websites tell you that there is a human being growing inside of you, and you are reminded of it with jabs and pokes and kicks, it is almost a foreign language until the birth. I can only imagine that when a pink, crying baby with arms flailing about, locks eyes with me I am going to be overjoyed to have whatever gender God felt was right for my family. That moment is when God intends for me to learn the gender. It will be hard to wait but I know it will be worth it in the end.

Okay... now if only I could get a couple of lines on a pregnancy test. I will do a more in-depth review of the Baby Confirm pregnancy tests in a future post but for now I will say that they have given me a very clear negative on both the dipstick and the midstream tests. Not even a hint of an evaporation line. It is still early so I am not ready to give up hope just yet.

A few days before my due date and scheduled induction I had an ultrasound that had estimated Joseph to weigh 9 pounds 11 ounces give or take a pound. My first thought was of course that I was very much hoping for the “take a pound” as opposed to the “give” part of the technicians comment. I was thoroughly planning for a delivery with no epidural or other pain relief but that number scared me. A lot. I first called a dear friend of mine who I knew delivered a 10 pound baby with no epidural AND she was induced so I knew I needed a pep talk. She assured me that I could do it and told me about a phrase that her husband repeated to her that helped. It was, “You can do anything for a minute.” I went home and prayed that I would go into labor on my own. I didn’t.


My labor was really picking up and I was starting to zone out during my contractions. I was watching Judge Judy (4 o’clock or so) or rather staring at the screen between contractions. There was a case between two lesbians and the one woman’s last name was Massengill. That was the last time I recall laughing until after Joseph was born.

The contractions were getting tougher and tougher to breathe through. I had started to really need to focus, squeeze Doug’s hand, and the sweating started. They checked me and I was only at 4 cm. I was still determined to deliver this baby with no pain relief and so Doug started reminding me, with every contraction, “You can do anything for a minute.” That reminder seemed to be coming faster and faster with less time to recover. It was now about 6 o’clock and I was feeling as if I couldn’t go much longer. The tears started coming and the pleading with Doug to remind me that I was going to do this pain free this time but I would certainly get the epidural next time. So, the nurse checked me again and told me I was dilated to 7 cm. That is when the real tears started. Only 7!? I felt as if I had been in labor for days in that atrocious bed. I turned to Doug and said, “I need something. Something IV. Just so I can rest. I am too tired to do this.” He asked me several times if I was SURE that I wanted drugs. I said I was so very sure, so he told the nurse when she came back in the room. She looked at me with a face I will never forget. “Aw, honey. We can’t give you anything IV after you are 5 cm.” I was so devastated thinking that I was just going to lose my mind when the next contraction started. A few contractions later the nurse asked me if I was feeling any pressure. I thought about it for a second and realized that I was feeling some pressure. It was only a few contractions later that I started feeling an uncontrollable urge to push. I was sitting up on my left hip and telling the nurse, “Oh! I am pushing!?”

She quickly tells me not to push and she is going to check me. She checks me and tells me not to push because I have a bit of cervix left and it could damage my cervix if I push. At that moment, my body didn’t give two craps about my cervix because despite every effort to not push, I was pushing. The nurse made a call and this is when the controlled chaos began. I remember her saying to whoever was on the other end of the phone, “I have got a woman here who is really pushy.” My first thought was, “I am trying to be nice. I don’t want to be that pushy lady that doesn‘t listen.” Then I realized what she meant by pushy. The nurse had her hand between my legs and was holding the baby’s head. That was terribly uncomfortable. I was still on my hip looking over my shoulder at the faces coming in the room. They all looked puzzled and nervous. I heard one person ask another, “Where is the doctor?” and the other answered, “She said she would be here in fifteen minutes and that was fifteen minutes ago.” At this point I didn’t care who caught this baby, I was pushing him out. Now. I was still announcing to the room that I was pushing and everyone in the room would answer back, “Don’t push! Don’t push!” to which I would answer with an emphatic, “IIIIIIIII’M PUSHING!” I was looking over my shoulder periodically to look for my doctor and was thrilled when I saw her frantically scrubbing her hands at the sink. They put the stirrups up and I put one leg up, then the other. I saw the doctor slide into position and I went ahead and pushed with everything I had. This time I heard my doctor’s voice chiming in with everyone else, “Don’t push!” Then I swear I hear the doctor exhale in defeat when she said, “Okay just one little push.” Then, the next thing I knew the weight of Joseph’s body was resting on my stomach. I couldn’t believe it. There he was. All 10 pounds 3 ounces of him. The instant pain relief I felt coupled with the reality that I had just delivered my second son was euphoric.

My nurse awarded Doug the “Best Coach Ever” award. He was very proud of that award but I was prouder that he stayed right by my side and helped me through what was so challenging, yet so rewarding.

Our beautiful baby boy, Joseph William was born on July 15th at 7:09 pm.