A Baby Story

I always love reading and hearing other people's labor and delivery stories...but if you are not one of those people then feel free to skip this post! Or, if you'd prefer, I can give you a Readers' Digest Version (this is the version I told Braden):

[A few weeks ago] I went to the hospital because the doctor was ready to take the baby out of my tummy. His name is Grant.

But the rest of the story goes like this:

My due date was Tuesday, May 10. I had a doctor appointment that afternoon with The Crazy Doctor. I like all of the doctors at my OB practice except for one (thus the name I have given her). I'm not discriminating when I say this, but she is foreign and, for whatever reason, we just don't understand each other even though we both speak English. Anyway, the past three doctors I saw in the weeks prior to this appointment all said I was a good candidate to be induced whenever I wanted to after I reached 39 weeks. So at my 39 week appointment I got scheduled to be induced 2 days after my due date, but was seriously hoping this baby would come on his own before then.

So on my due date, The Crazy Doctor basically tells me to come back in a week. I looked at her like she was crazy (which wasn't hard because she is). I mentioned that I was scheduled to be induced in 36 hours...and she says, "Induced on THIS Thursday? Oh no, you are not induceable. You have much further to go." So she asked who had agreed to induce me and then said that if I wanted to, I could, but that it would probably take a long time and she didn't recommend it.

I looked at her again like she was crazy (because I got induced with Keri for being 9 days overdue and it took 3 hours start to finish).

So I asked if I could talk it over with the doctor inducing me and she got her on the phone. I was already nervous about getting induced because I generally prefer to just let my children come when they are ready to. But I also wanted to be able to take advantage of my family being here to help and I also didn't really want to be 9 days overdue again. The Normal Doctor reassured me that she never would have agreed to induce me if she didn't think it was a good idea and I left the doctor's office, totally perplexed.

I went to pick my dad up from the airport. I told him about my afternoon and he said, "Well, I'm here now so you can go into labor anytime you want." I told him that would be great but I wasn't getting my hopes up since both of my other kids were at least a week late. Later that night we went out to do some errands and I was getting tons of Braxton Hicks contractions (which had been going on for weeks). When we got home Tom and I decided to go for a walk because I figured why not give going into labor on my own my best shot? So we walked lots of hills and it was keeping my contractions going, but none of them were the super painful type yet. I went to bed around midnight and at 2 am I woke up and it felt like there was an electric shock in my abdomen for a few seconds. Then I started having contractions 6 minutes apart. They were painful enough that I got up and was timing them but since I seriously doubted they were going to continue I laid back in bed after an hour and fell back asleep until 5 am. This time I woke up to the kind of contractions you have to breathe through. I timed them and they were anywhere from 3-9 minutes apart. But they were definitely hurting more and more so I decided to hop in the shower and get ready just in case.

Tom woke up and by then I was really hurting but since they were so irregular I hated to make him stay home from school if this wasn't the real thing. With Braden I had 2 days of painful, irregular contractions before finally being admitted to the hospital...so I was dreading that possibility. But finally I told him to not go to school and apologized in advance if he missed it for nothing.

We kept timing them and they were 3-7 minutes apart...so I didn't even know if I should call the doctor to check when and if they wanted me to come in. But Tom told me to call. She finally called back after being paged twice and told me to come on in. I asked if she was sure since they were irregular and she said yes. I said goodbye to the kids and my dad and told them I'd probably get sent home and see them in an hour. The whole way to the hospital I continued to have contractions that were quite painful every 4 minutes or so. When we got there, I was so convinced they would send me back home that I left some of my stuff in the car.

We got to the hospital at 9 am. The triage nurse checked me in and seemed skeptical at first since I was pretty calm but after she saw one of my contractions and me breathing through it she seemed to take me seriously. She determined that I was definitely in labor and things were moving pretty quickly. I was shocked! I was so happy that A) they weren't sending me home, B) I was about to meet my little boy, and C) this meant that I am not doomed to always have extremely overdue babies! They moved me to a room after getting my IV started (after multiple tries...I seriously wanted to offer to start my own but was trying to conceal my nurse identity).

I got my epidural at about 10:15 or so and that was a welcome relief. The doctor came and broke my water after that and I quickly got to 9 cm. My contractions had still never gotten closer than 4 minutes apart so they gave me a small dose of pitocin to bring my contractions closer together. A few minutes later I was ready to push and after 7 or 8 minutes, our little baby had arrived. He cried right away and I was still in shock that he was here and it was over!

My hospital stay was a dream...I always love that part. I missed the other kids but it was so nice to just be able to sit and snuggle my new little baby and to rest. I even got to see Tom quite a bit since my dad was watching our kids and Tom didn't have much going on at school.

And now, we have been home for over two weeks! It was wonderful to have my dad here and also wonderful to have my mom come and help shortly after. It definitely helped ease the transition to three kids! But now we are on our own again and life with three little ones is busy to say the least. But I'm totally loving it.

Right now, the two older kids are at church with Tom and I am hanging out with a very cute little baby boy. I am trying to take every chance I get to snuggle him and take it all in before he grows up on me!