Our Birth Story

All day Wednesday (at 38 weeks exactly) I'd been having more uncomfortable contractions from 5 a.m. on. I went for my weekly appointment and she checked me and I was a little over 2 cm. She offered to massage my cervix a little to see if that would help move things along, but I could only allow her to do it for a few seconds because it hurt too bad. Got me red-faced and sweaty within seconds! Ouch.

I left the office with instructions for the induction for 11/20. I couldn't believe we only had 6 days left and I had so much to do! Little did I know...

I went to the mall afterwards and walked around for a while, having contractions still fairly regularly, but not regularly enough. After that, I was tired so I went home and really just laid around all the rest of the day.

Around dinnertime, the contractions were still pretty bad so I started bouncing and sitting on the yoga ball hoping that would help. It did for a while and then I decided around 9:00 that I wanted to try to sleep a little since I'd been up for so long. I fell asleep right away and was surprised when I woke up that I was able to actually sleep through the contractions. I started to get up to pee and felt "something" coming out of me. The best way I can explain it is that it felt like a big clot that sometimes comes out the first day of your period. I knew that probably wasn't a good thing so I got up really fast and realized it wasn't stopping! I ran to the bathroom and sat on the toilet and realized I wasn't bleeding (thank god!) but my water had broken. I couldn't believe it. I'd been playing in my head with how it might go down for a few weeks and then it actually happened. I was shocked. I yelled for Chris and told him my water broke and to get me a phone so I can call the doctor. The doctor called back right away and I told him we were headed to the hospital. Chris started gathering some last minute items, helped me get some clothes on (while still having spurts of water coming out), and got me down to the car and we were on our way!

Then...the REAL contractions started. Oh man. I breathed through one or two, texted some peeps and our blog, and we were at the hospital pretty fast. Thank goodness we don't live too far away. I had a contraction or two while in the ER and had to moan and hum through them. They were pretty freaking bad. They got me upstairs to L&D and hooked up and the contractions were coming about 4 to 5 minutes apart. They were HORRIBLE. They checked me and I was still at 2cm and was scared I wouldn't be able to get an epidural because I thought there was a "magic number" I had to be at first. Thankfully, there wasn't. The only issue was that I had to go through an entire saline IV before they'd give it to me. That bag never looked so big. Thankfully it only took about a half hour (the loooongest half hour of my life) and my angel anesthesiologist walked in. The needle stung and weird shocks went down my right butt cheek, but it wasn't bad at all. Not at all what I had envisioned. I had about two more contractions after it was inserted that I felt, and then I sometimes felt a little tightening but absolutely no pain.

Dr. Montilla came in to check me and I'd progressed to 4 cm. Woot! We hung out for a little while and then Nurse Sandy came in to check me again. She felt my cervix and I heard her say softly, "Oh my god." I was like, "What?! What's going on?" and she said I was almost complete. I was at 9 cm. An hour and a half had passed since I got my epidural. Pretty darn quick! The baby was still at -3 station so he had a ways to go so she told me to chill for a while and they'd come back and check me in a bit and see if he'd descended.

About 20 minutes later (I think), we'd been resting (me, Chris and my mom) and I turned to my mother and said, "Mom, can you go get a nurse? I think I feel the baby." It felt like he was trying to come out. Karen, my midwife came in, checked and said, "Yep, that's what you feel! Get ready to push in a few minutes." He'd come down to +2 station already.

Pushing wasn't at all what I expected. I pushed when I felt a contraction, although what I was feeling was actually Carter moving down the birth canal, not any actual contractions. And in between contractions, for about a minute or so we just chatted with each other. It was very calm and easy and a little bit fun. I pushed for about 40 or 45 minutes and our handsome little Turkey was born. I almost didn't have any tearing but that little hand covering his face in all of his ultrasounds? Yeah, he was born that way also. He came out with fist pumping like a little rock star.

I had second degree tears so it took an extra half hour or so for Karen to stitch me up. Once I was settled and Carter was taken care of (Apgars of 9 and 9, thank you very much), Chris went out to get my parents and his mom. Little did we know that they already knew he'd been born. Chris' cell phone phantom-dialed his parents' house and his stepdad answered and heard the entire delivery! Once it was over, he called my MIL and told her. So funny! We couldn't believe he heard the whole thing. So crazy.

Some pics of Carter's arrival: