Welcoming Little: a birth story

I’ve read so many blogged birth stories before that frankly, it feels a little surreal to be writing one myself.  But giving birth is something that has truly changed me forever and not only do I want to share it, but I want to document it in written form and remember it always.  Before that though, I should go ahead with a little disclaimer that as handsome as our boy is, I don’t intend on sharing lots of photos of him solo in my little corner of the internet.  Not because I don’t think you’d love them (you would), but because they’re his photos and he’s too little to decide to have them made public.  I’d like to keep the blog (at least as it relates to mothering) focused on things that I’m learning (and it’s a MAJOR learning curve over here), my own thoughts and experiences, and some encouragement for other moms.

Now that that’s out of the way, our birth story:

Little was due on September 12.  It was a Saturday, and that would have been perfectly ideal – especially for family to come and visit.  But of course, Saturday came and went with no sign of labor.  I didn’t experience many signs of labor until it started.  No real Braxton Hicks, no weird cramping, nothing.

The following Wednesday, though, I woke up and was feeling a little bloated and crampy.  I had a gut feeling that that would be the day.  We had an afternoon appointment at the OB and I was feeling confident that labor would begin soon.  At the doctor’s office, we found out that I was about 90% effaced and about 4 cm dilated.  We decided I would come in on Friday if there was no change.

Later that night, I started having pretty consistent contractions.  I told Hubs that we needed to clean the house and get to bed early because it was happening.  Following the advice of every single person I had talked to, I thought that we should try to get some rest.

Expect we didn’t really sleep.  How can you sleep through all of that anticipation?!  At 12:30 am, I called the doctor  and was advised to try to stay home for about another hour or so based on the timing and duration of my contractions, but that we should plan to come to the hospital when things picked up.  So we waited until 1:30 and headed out.  We were in triage by 1:45.

Labor wasn’t terrible.  I took some medicine by IV that knocked me out and let me get an hour of sleep and then continued labor until about noon.  My contractions were never unbearable, though quite painful.  I could feel them peaking so I knew the end was coming each time which was really helpful for me.  After about 5 hours, the nurse convinced me to get an epidural (convinced is used loosely here, since she just confirmed that it would help speed things up and it wouldn’t be terrible), after which the doctor came in a broke my water and started a slow drip of pitocin.  I was 6 cm at this point.

I didn’t feel any of the contractions after that point, though I could see them on the monitor and two hours later, I was pushing.

And I could feel that.  Not so much in a painful way but in a WOW, THAT IS SO MUCH PRESSURE AND IT DOESN’T STOP way that lasted for just under an hour.  I just kept asking the nurse if she could see him, and she kept confirming she could see more and more of him.  We only had the doctor, nurse, and Hubs in the room and they were the most awesome team to have around me.

And after all that, I delivered our little 9 lb, 2 oz and 22 inch long boy at 2:41 PM.  I immediately burst into happy tears and my life has never been the same.

I love all the things about our baby.  And I love to be his mom.  And I love to watch my husband be his dad.  Now that he’s here I fully understand why they say that time moves more quickly when you have kids.  They’re right.

I want to remember all of it.