Birth Story

Friday 7/20: Woke up at 2:30am to a contraction. Went to the bathroom, came back to bed, was able to fall back asleep. Woke up at 3:30am, same thing. Woke up at 4:10am, couldn't fall back asleep. I was having a few until Roger got up at 4:40am to call work (to see where he's working). I told him I was having contractions. He asked if he should stay home. I told him to go to work. I didn't know if this was the real deal or false labor. (now looking back, I was silly, but how do you know what's going on?)
I went back to sleep but woke up shortly. At 7am I started timing them. I was able to fall asleep in between the contractions. Finally I text Roger saying that they really hurt. Later on I seen that he responded saying to time them. It's now 7:45am, I responded with "seems to be 4 minutes apart for 45 minutes". He rushed home from work, an hour away.

He called the hospital and they said to come in. He grabbed my already packed bag and off we went to the hospital. We checked in at 10:15am. I was put in the Labor and Delivery room immediately, instead of the Triage. Within the hour they asked if I wanted an epidural and I said "yes". We had to wait for me to dilate to a 10. I was at a 3. Eventually they gave me Pitocin (I think), to induce me to dilate. I had to keep rotating how I layed. On my right side for awhile, then left side, back and forth. At one point they said they guess around 11pm I'd start pushing, then they said 3am. I'm not really sure why. I was dilating but the baby's head wasn't dropping closer.

Finally at 7:15am Saturday 7/21, I was a 10 and they told me it's time to start pushing. After a little while I asked for a boost on the epidural. They asked to rate the pain out of 10, I rated it a 12.5. I had to keep pushing until the guy came in to boost me. That was really hard. I wanted to give up. Finally about a half hour later the guy came in and boosted me. Man, what a miracle! The pain was gone, yet I could still barely feel the contraction. The nurse would tell me when to push, but I was able to ask "is one starting". My Dr came in at 8:15 (before my boost) and said he'd give me 2 more hours of pushing. He said the baby is face up (facing my belly button), he should be face down. This makes it harder to deliver, but if he drops enough, the dr can help him out by turning him. But he wasn't coming any closer. Two more hours seemed impossible but after the boost, the time flew by. Then it was 10:15am and still no baby. I tried so hard. The Dr came in and still the head wasn't any closer and that I will need to go downstairs, which means c-section.

They informed me that they give me some sort of drug to go with the epidural, I will be awake. Roger will be in the room with me. If something happens and I need to be put under, Roger will have to leave the room. I just hoped and hoped that I didn't have to be put under so Roger could stay. I needed him. So I layed there, they put a sheet straight up from my chest so I couldn't see what's going on, it sure felt like it was just inches from my face. I asked Roger to put his hand on my shoulder. During the procedure I started feeling pain or so I think. I know I felt the movement. I was not enjoying this at all. Roger pointed out "can you hear him crying?" I could and I had tears of joy!

The Dr held Bruce over the sheet so I could see him. I had to ask Roger to wipe my tears since I couldn't move my arms to do so.

Then Roger got to hold him after he was cleaned and brought him to me to see.

Then boosted me more. Actually to the point where I fell asleep, which is crazy to think that could happen. I know that it was almost over cause I was told they were removing the placenta.

They weighed him at 8lb 3.7oz

Roger went to our room with the baby while I was still in the OR. When they were done, my bed got wheeled up to my room where Roger and Bruce were. I couldn't believe that we have this baby! It's truly a miracle. Although L&D wasn't all that fun, I have this precious new guy!