I really psyched myself out last week even though I was only 38 weeks. We went to see Ann on Friday (11/5) and she said I’d probably not have the baby for at least another week and a half since it’s my first. Boy was she wrong! But who can predict labor anyway. I called my mom on Tuesday night (11/9) and told her I just needed one more day at work and I’d be okay. I got home and Chris was making Chicken Fajitas for dinner and I started back on my thank you cards which I desperately needed to finish before this baby came. After dinner, we watched a show; it was a typical evening at home for us. About 9:30 I felt a little discharge that seemed a bit watery. I went to the bathroom and saw it was much different than any other discharge I had thus far but there wasn’t much at all. So I went back out to the living room and said, “Well honey, either I lost my plug or my water just broke.” And Chris being Chris…you know Calming Chris...said, oh you’re fine. It was probably just your plug and we’ll have the baby sometime next week. So I sat back down thinking he was probably right and there was no need to overreact. Until a little bit later when I felt a little more discharge. I had my first contraction at 10:20 pm…I remember saying “what time is it; we need to write this down.” We were waiting to follow the 5-1-1 rule but that never really applied to my contractions. They were so sporadic in duration and time lapse in between. I would have one that lasted 45 seconds, then another one 3 minutes after that lasted 3 minutes, then another one 15 minutes later that lasted a minute and a half. The only constant was they were getting stronger. It got to a point they made me feel incredibly nauseous...transition much?!?! Somehow, time went by very fast for me. In the beginning, I was trying to walk them off but it wasn’t working at all. Chris had asked me what I wanted to do and I said, “I want you to finish packing your bag; that would make me feel better.” So he did as I laid on the bed breathing through my contractions. There was no relaxation technique that was helping at this point so I would say we didn't really get to use the things we learned in our Bradley classes. Chris just made sure I wasn't tense and all I wanted him to do was push on my lower back since I was having some intense back labor.
About 12:30/12:45 I had to go to the bathroom but only made it halfway before another one came on. I couldn’t hold myself up so I ended up on my hands and knees on the bathroom floor. It was the most painful one I had so far and it really scared Chris. At the same time, I ended up giving myself the worst leg cramp I have ever experienced in my life. I probably woke up the entire neighborhood with my screams of pain. I don’t know which hurt worse, the contraction or the cramp. I think my tears were the size of gumballs. Once I settled down, Chris said “get in the truck” in a very stern voice. He said “the only job you have is to get out there.” I called off a few last minute items as I walked that way looking for my shoes. I couldn’t find them so I went to the truck barefoot (Chris went to get my shoes from the bedroom). It made me think of my mom…she went to the hospital when she was pregnant with me wearing flip flops in 30 degree weather because of swelling. Granted I didn’t have swelling but it felt the same since I was shoeless. I crawled in the truck, wow that was a climb, and off we went (it was 1:30 by this time). The backseat isn’t very big so I couldn’t lean my seat back at all because the car seat was now in the way so I was stuck at a 90 degree angle the whole way there. I don’t recommend having contractions sitting in that position. I called my mom and told her we were on the way to the hospital but not to get on the road yet since we didn’t know what we were dealing with. It took about 25 minutes to get to OU Med and I had 6 contractions along the way. My mom just kept telling me to breathe through them and stay relaxed and think about the things we learned in our Bradley classes. Even at this point, I don’t think I was convinced this was it. I was in a considerable amount of pain so I think I was thinking more along the lines that something was wrong versus being 3 hours away from delivering a baby. I’m glad I called my mom so she could do some coaching while Chris was driving.
We finally got there and pulled into the valet lane, which was closed, and just parked. There wasn’t a soul in sight and I was worried about not being able to get in or know where to go. I made it about 4 steps out of the truck when another one hit. I looked up and there were two angels holding the doors open for us. I don’t know where they came from but they are certainly my heroes! They said the doors were locked so thank goodness they saw us drive up. They got me a wheel chair and took us straight into triage. The nurse asked if I could go to the restroom for her. I said I could it just might take me 10 minutes to walk in there. I was so proud of myself for being able to pee in a cup during all these contractions! (Um, go me…TMI maybe?) She asked what my pain was on a scale of 1-10 (10 being like someone poured gasoline on me and lit a match...lovely!). I told her I felt like it was an 8. So over to the bed I went for a monitoring strip and to be checked. The baby’s heart rate was great as it had been from the beginning of the pregnancy so that was comforting. Then the nurse said, “How do you feel about having a baby on 11/10/10 because you’re at a NINE!” I said, “Excuse me what?” A nine out of what!! I mean you don’t mess around with a pregnant woman much less one that is apparently in full blown labor so I knew she wasn’t joking but a nine, but how is that even possible! I bet I was a 10 and she didn't want to scare me more! She then told me not to push…huh, don’t push, ok I think I can handle that…until I got the urge to push. The human body is such an amazing thing, that’s all I have to say.
They wheeled me in to Labor and Delivery Suite 2 and said Leanna was the on-call midwife and she was on the way. I guess the computer wasn’t working right and they couldn’t find where it was okay to call Ann in the middle of the night to come in and deliver. Frankly at that point I didn’t care. I still wanted a midwife but even if I had to have the on call OB who was on the floor at the time, there’s no way they would have pushed any drugs on me since I was ready to push anyway. We got to the room and they asked me to switch beds. I wanted to tell them to kiss my, well you know, but sucked it up and moved. That was really hard considering the contractions were causing me quite a bit of pain. It seemed like it was taking forever for Leanna to get to the hospital. I asked how much longer and they said 10 minutes. It must have been 4 hours before she got there!! I was concerned with being Group B positive and not getting the two rounds of ampicillin in. Pauline (another midwife) had told me I needed to have at least a 4 ½ hour labor…I figured that wouldn’t be a problem, until I got an urge to push as we were being admitted at a nine! I had to breathe through the urges to push while we waited for Leanna. Chris was so great during my contractions. He watched for tension and kept reminding me to relax. Though I’ll be honest, I felt better when I had my arm tensed (pushing against him) and relaxing everything else. I would concentrate on the tension in my arm and not my belly. By the time Leanna arrived, my urges to push were becoming overwhelming. There were a few that I couldn’t help pushing with, they were just so strong. Leanna checked me and said I could start pushing.
Once the baby had moved down more, in between contractions she was helping to stretch out my perineum. I think the pressure from that was worse than the pressure from the baby. It took me a while to figure out how to push. I don’t think that is something that can be taught. You just have to see how it feels. I would have a good push and she would say “yes, that’s it, that’s exactly what we need.” Then I knew what I needed to do but couldn’t do it half the time. Pushing is really hard work. My water broke about 15 minutes into pushing and we had gotten one round of antibiotics in which made me feel better. Also, we knew the baby would be out anytime so at least he wasn’t hanging out in there too long. I certainly wasn’t quiet while pushing and apparently I said a few choice words of which I don’t really remember and totally apologize for. There was so much pressure it was incredible. It hurt a lot so it was hard not to scream during pushing which is very counterproductive since you can’t get a good push through your bottom if you aren’t using your breath to push your belly downward. I started to become a little discouraged because I didn’t feel like I had made any progress. Leanna and our sweet L&D nurse Lacey were so great and kept telling me I was doing a good job and the baby was just getting into position. I finally had a few good pushes and could tell the baby was on the move. Then Leanna said I was at the point where she was about to ask me to quit pushing so she could do some more stretching to prevent any tearing. That was really hard to breathe through, even harder than before. Finally she said I could start pushing again and boy did I. I pushed with all my might and felt the baby start to come out. They asked if I wanted to touch his head and I said no, which I totally regret. I was in so much pain from the pressure I just wanted it over. Another 2-3 pushes later the head and shoulders were out and Leanna told Chris to take his baby. I thought she was talking to me so I reached down too. Then she said, I need another push from you to get him out. So one more push and at 4:23 am there he was on my chest. I couldn’t believe it. It was over, the pain was gone and my precious miracle was here. It was the most amazing experience in the world.
We had told Leanna and Lacey that we didn’t know what we were having so they said they wouldn’t look and we could find out for ourselves. Once he was on my chest, all I could do was stare at him and what seemed to be quite a few minutes later, Leanna said, well, what do we have? I said Oh, I guess we should look. So I lifted up that cute little leg and said “it’s a boy”! I just knew he was a boy all along but there was always a small part of me that thought it was a girl. Especially when our L&D nurse’s name was Lacey with an -ey and that would have been our girl name. What an experience. I feel truly blessed that we were chosen to be the loving parents for this precious little boy. I will never forget the way he felt laying on my chest those few minutes after he was born. I was filled with so much more love than I even knew was possible. We laid there with him on my chest while Leanna delivered the placenta, which was very easy considering! She said everything went great and I had no tearing; I’ll forever be grateful for her help with that even though it hurt so badly. But like I said, when he came out, the pain was gone so I guess that’s much better than dealing with the aftermath of tearing. Unfortunately since we left all our bags in the truck, we had the camera but not the memory card. It was very sad. So our first pictures with the baby were taken on Chris’s iPhone. At least he has the 4 so the camera is pretty good (sorry, not posting those).
My Nana had messaged Chris at 4:22 asking for an update as she was on the road with my mom at the wheel and my brother in tow…little did they know we were one minute away from meeting our little boy! They got to the hospital about 30 minutes later. Chris’s parents were about 20 minutes behind them. It was perfect. I held onto my sweet baby skin to skin for about an hour and a half and then decided to pass him on so his new family could take a look! By then it was about 6:30 and I started to send texts letting everyone know about our very spontaneous labor and new addition to our family. We postponed the vitamin K shot and antibiotic for his eyes until right before we went to our new room. It was so nice to have such a laid back environment to enjoy the first few hours of our new son's life.
About 12:30/12:45 I had to go to the bathroom but only made it halfway before another one came on. I couldn’t hold myself up so I ended up on my hands and knees on the bathroom floor. It was the most painful one I had so far and it really scared Chris. At the same time, I ended up giving myself the worst leg cramp I have ever experienced in my life. I probably woke up the entire neighborhood with my screams of pain. I don’t know which hurt worse, the contraction or the cramp. I think my tears were the size of gumballs. Once I settled down, Chris said “get in the truck” in a very stern voice. He said “the only job you have is to get out there.” I called off a few last minute items as I walked that way looking for my shoes. I couldn’t find them so I went to the truck barefoot (Chris went to get my shoes from the bedroom). It made me think of my mom…she went to the hospital when she was pregnant with me wearing flip flops in 30 degree weather because of swelling. Granted I didn’t have swelling but it felt the same since I was shoeless. I crawled in the truck, wow that was a climb, and off we went (it was 1:30 by this time). The backseat isn’t very big so I couldn’t lean my seat back at all because the car seat was now in the way so I was stuck at a 90 degree angle the whole way there. I don’t recommend having contractions sitting in that position. I called my mom and told her we were on the way to the hospital but not to get on the road yet since we didn’t know what we were dealing with. It took about 25 minutes to get to OU Med and I had 6 contractions along the way. My mom just kept telling me to breathe through them and stay relaxed and think about the things we learned in our Bradley classes. Even at this point, I don’t think I was convinced this was it. I was in a considerable amount of pain so I think I was thinking more along the lines that something was wrong versus being 3 hours away from delivering a baby. I’m glad I called my mom so she could do some coaching while Chris was driving.
We finally got there and pulled into the valet lane, which was closed, and just parked. There wasn’t a soul in sight and I was worried about not being able to get in or know where to go. I made it about 4 steps out of the truck when another one hit. I looked up and there were two angels holding the doors open for us. I don’t know where they came from but they are certainly my heroes! They said the doors were locked so thank goodness they saw us drive up. They got me a wheel chair and took us straight into triage. The nurse asked if I could go to the restroom for her. I said I could it just might take me 10 minutes to walk in there. I was so proud of myself for being able to pee in a cup during all these contractions! (Um, go me…TMI maybe?) She asked what my pain was on a scale of 1-10 (10 being like someone poured gasoline on me and lit a match...lovely!). I told her I felt like it was an 8. So over to the bed I went for a monitoring strip and to be checked. The baby’s heart rate was great as it had been from the beginning of the pregnancy so that was comforting. Then the nurse said, “How do you feel about having a baby on 11/10/10 because you’re at a NINE!” I said, “Excuse me what?” A nine out of what!! I mean you don’t mess around with a pregnant woman much less one that is apparently in full blown labor so I knew she wasn’t joking but a nine, but how is that even possible! I bet I was a 10 and she didn't want to scare me more! She then told me not to push…huh, don’t push, ok I think I can handle that…until I got the urge to push. The human body is such an amazing thing, that’s all I have to say.
They wheeled me in to Labor and Delivery Suite 2 and said Leanna was the on-call midwife and she was on the way. I guess the computer wasn’t working right and they couldn’t find where it was okay to call Ann in the middle of the night to come in and deliver. Frankly at that point I didn’t care. I still wanted a midwife but even if I had to have the on call OB who was on the floor at the time, there’s no way they would have pushed any drugs on me since I was ready to push anyway. We got to the room and they asked me to switch beds. I wanted to tell them to kiss my, well you know, but sucked it up and moved. That was really hard considering the contractions were causing me quite a bit of pain. It seemed like it was taking forever for Leanna to get to the hospital. I asked how much longer and they said 10 minutes. It must have been 4 hours before she got there!! I was concerned with being Group B positive and not getting the two rounds of ampicillin in. Pauline (another midwife) had told me I needed to have at least a 4 ½ hour labor…I figured that wouldn’t be a problem, until I got an urge to push as we were being admitted at a nine! I had to breathe through the urges to push while we waited for Leanna. Chris was so great during my contractions. He watched for tension and kept reminding me to relax. Though I’ll be honest, I felt better when I had my arm tensed (pushing against him) and relaxing everything else. I would concentrate on the tension in my arm and not my belly. By the time Leanna arrived, my urges to push were becoming overwhelming. There were a few that I couldn’t help pushing with, they were just so strong. Leanna checked me and said I could start pushing.
Once the baby had moved down more, in between contractions she was helping to stretch out my perineum. I think the pressure from that was worse than the pressure from the baby. It took me a while to figure out how to push. I don’t think that is something that can be taught. You just have to see how it feels. I would have a good push and she would say “yes, that’s it, that’s exactly what we need.” Then I knew what I needed to do but couldn’t do it half the time. Pushing is really hard work. My water broke about 15 minutes into pushing and we had gotten one round of antibiotics in which made me feel better. Also, we knew the baby would be out anytime so at least he wasn’t hanging out in there too long. I certainly wasn’t quiet while pushing and apparently I said a few choice words of which I don’t really remember and totally apologize for. There was so much pressure it was incredible. It hurt a lot so it was hard not to scream during pushing which is very counterproductive since you can’t get a good push through your bottom if you aren’t using your breath to push your belly downward. I started to become a little discouraged because I didn’t feel like I had made any progress. Leanna and our sweet L&D nurse Lacey were so great and kept telling me I was doing a good job and the baby was just getting into position. I finally had a few good pushes and could tell the baby was on the move. Then Leanna said I was at the point where she was about to ask me to quit pushing so she could do some more stretching to prevent any tearing. That was really hard to breathe through, even harder than before. Finally she said I could start pushing again and boy did I. I pushed with all my might and felt the baby start to come out. They asked if I wanted to touch his head and I said no, which I totally regret. I was in so much pain from the pressure I just wanted it over. Another 2-3 pushes later the head and shoulders were out and Leanna told Chris to take his baby. I thought she was talking to me so I reached down too. Then she said, I need another push from you to get him out. So one more push and at 4:23 am there he was on my chest. I couldn’t believe it. It was over, the pain was gone and my precious miracle was here. It was the most amazing experience in the world.
We had told Leanna and Lacey that we didn’t know what we were having so they said they wouldn’t look and we could find out for ourselves. Once he was on my chest, all I could do was stare at him and what seemed to be quite a few minutes later, Leanna said, well, what do we have? I said Oh, I guess we should look. So I lifted up that cute little leg and said “it’s a boy”! I just knew he was a boy all along but there was always a small part of me that thought it was a girl. Especially when our L&D nurse’s name was Lacey with an -ey and that would have been our girl name. What an experience. I feel truly blessed that we were chosen to be the loving parents for this precious little boy. I will never forget the way he felt laying on my chest those few minutes after he was born. I was filled with so much more love than I even knew was possible. We laid there with him on my chest while Leanna delivered the placenta, which was very easy considering! She said everything went great and I had no tearing; I’ll forever be grateful for her help with that even though it hurt so badly. But like I said, when he came out, the pain was gone so I guess that’s much better than dealing with the aftermath of tearing. Unfortunately since we left all our bags in the truck, we had the camera but not the memory card. It was very sad. So our first pictures with the baby were taken on Chris’s iPhone. At least he has the 4 so the camera is pretty good (sorry, not posting those).
My Nana had messaged Chris at 4:22 asking for an update as she was on the road with my mom at the wheel and my brother in tow…little did they know we were one minute away from meeting our little boy! They got to the hospital about 30 minutes later. Chris’s parents were about 20 minutes behind them. It was perfect. I held onto my sweet baby skin to skin for about an hour and a half and then decided to pass him on so his new family could take a look! By then it was about 6:30 and I started to send texts letting everyone know about our very spontaneous labor and new addition to our family. We postponed the vitamin K shot and antibiotic for his eyes until right before we went to our new room. It was so nice to have such a laid back environment to enjoy the first few hours of our new son's life.
Weight 6 lbs 1 oz
Head 13.0 in
Chest 12.6 in
Abdomen 11.6 in
Head to Heel 19.5 in
Apgar Scores 9/10 and 9/10
We moved upstairs to our recovery room around 10. It was still very surreal to me that I had just delivered a baby. I knew it had to happen eventually but I certainly wasn’t expecting it to happen that night nor did I expect it to happen that fast. The day was flying by as well and we still had a lot of visitors coming. My mom, nana and brother left to take care of the dogs and Chris’s parents left to go down to Norman for a little while. Robert and Anna came to see us at lunch time. I had called her at 6:30 and could barely get it out that we had the baby. She was so excited and could stop saying oh my gosh, oh my gosh! It was cute.
Then Ryan, Toni, Dylan Kylie and Aisley drove down from Tulsa to see us. I didn’t expect them to so it was a big surprise to find out they were going to head down the turnpike to see us!
My Aunt Janice, Uncle David, Amber and Avery got there a little while later so we ended up having a ton of people in our room and the baby wasn’t even 12 hours old!
Chris’s grandparents showed up later in the day along with Tonya and the girls.
My dad, grandmother and Aunt Jan came in the evening. This little boy has no idea how much he is loved already!!
Our first day was exciting and exhausting but we loved every minute of it. Thanks to all of those who came from near and far to meet our precious little boy. It means so much to know how loved he is.
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Wow! You didn't have much time to get used to the fact that you were about to have that baby! (I know, stating the obvious.) No drugs, no tearing, plenty of time with your baby after birth--I'm kinda jealous ;)
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