Adeline's story

In case you didn't know, the latest member of the Ronin bunch is here. Well, she's actually been here for a while now.

Three months ago today, I gave birth to my second precious baby girl. I've been meaning to update this thing with all of the gory birth details but I've been super busy taking care of two little monsters. My apologies.

In my last post, I said that we had about 13 days until Addie's arrival. Ha! Little did I know, that my water was going to break that very night.

It was 12:30 am and I was sleeping in bed when suddenly I felt this small gush of liquid. It wasn't pouring out like it did when my water broke with Lilly, so I just assumed I peed the bed. (Pretty gross, right?) Anyway, I waddled to the bathroom and attempted to clean up the mess. I got back in bed and woke Aaron to update him on the happenings.

"I think my water broke," I calmly whispered.

And believe it or not, this is what he said: "So, do you want me to go down there and take a look around?"

I'm used to him saying awesome things like this when he's sleepy, so I told him I'd wake him up after the baby was born. Just as I attempted to lay back down, I sprung another leak. I switched the light on and woke Aaron up for the second time.

"Ok, this is it. I'm sure my water just broke. We should probably go to the hospital."

Aaron immediately jumped into action. I hopped in the shower, finished packing our hospital bag and called my dad. We were expecting Aaron's mom to be in town when I went into labor (13 days later) so we really didn't have any sort of plan as to who would watch Lilly in case this party got started early. Lucky for us, my dad was in town and agreed to come to the hospital to watch the soon-to-be big sister.

We got to the hospital around 2 am. They sent me to triage while Aaron and Lilly sat in the lobby waiting for my dad to arrive. I told the nurse about my water breaking and she said that if it didn't gush out, it probably wasn't my water.

"So, what was it? My bladder exploding?" I thought. I changed into a hospital gown and she proceeded to check my cervix. When she lifted the gown, a huge gush of amniotic fluid greeted her. (Wow. This is pretty gross.) She then told me I was 5cm dilated. I couldn't believe I was already halfway there and I had only felt some minor cramping. They hooked me up to an IV and I was sent to my labor room.

Aaron and Lilly came to greet me. My dad showed up a little while later. He brought pop-tarts for Lilly. She was pretty stoked about it all.


I waddled around the room a few times, let Aaron massage my feet and kept telling myself I could do this thing without any medication. By this time, I was 7cm and I felt great.

My nurse was awesome and very encouraging about my plan to do this without any drugs. I tried to get a little rest before things got really scary, when suddenly someone turned every light on, threw open the curtain and started screaming at me. She informed me that it was time for a shift change and that she was my new nurse. Yaaay. Then she did it. She started pushing the drugs on me.

I turned her down a million times. (I'd like to thank the D.A.R.E. program for equipping me with the skill to do so.) She kept right on pushing.

"Oh, they always say they don't want any drugs. We'll see how you feel in a little while... I'll get them ready just in case... Are you sure? Let me call the anesthesiologist. Here, sign this waiver... Just a little in your IV?... You're sure? Are you really, really sure? Just a little bit? Come on. All the cool moms are doing it."

This nurse not only kept pushing the drugs, but she also refused to let me get out of bed and she made me pee in a bedpan. A bedpan! Ugh. I'm getting angry just thinking about her. Anyway, my contractions ended up stalling and I was stuck at 7cm. I ended up needing a little boost of pitocin to get things going again. I was so very close. I knew I could tough out the evil that is pitocin-fueled contractions.

Thirty minutes later, I started feeling crazy pressure. Like, insane pressure. I mean, like, a bowling ball was inside my uterus and it suddenly grew arms and decided it was going to push itself out of me. I started screaming for someone to rescue me. I remember my dad telling me not to push. I gave him the most evil glare I could muster. Aaron ran out of the room and I heard him screaming for all of the doctors to get in my room. Haha.

He ran back in and a huge crowd followed. Some dude in a tie (he could have been the President of these United States for all I know) threw my blanket back to check my progress. "Yeah, we'll have a baby... in about an hour. " Then he walked out. Meanwhile, my midwife was putting her gloves on for the main event. My dad grabbed Lilly and ran out of the room. All the while, I was screaming things like, "Help me! Save me, Jesus! Make it stop!" It was great.

I pushed for about three minutes. It was the craziest three minutes of my life. I screamed and pushed like I was about to die any minute. I felt this crazy burst of energy and then suddenly there was this tiny little baby on top of me, covered in blood and goo. She was beautiful.


Adeline Rose Ronin was born on July 12, 2011 at 10:21 am. She was 6 lbs, 14 0z and 20 inches long. We actually didn't settle on her middle name until she was a few hours old. She was bright red. We kept calling her our little crab... our rosy red crab.

The rest of the hospital stay ruled. I ate a delicious turkey sandwich, Addie took to breastfeeding extremely well, Aaron's mom was able to fly in that afternoon and we had lots of awesome visitors.


I'm so glad I was able to do it without the drugs. Yeah... it really, really hurt but I'm so glad I actually felt everything. I felt like a superhero afterward and I'm already looking forward to doing it again someday.