So here is the birth story of Owen William, born on 2/24/18, one day before his due date.
I was getting pretty anxious to meet the little guy as I was the most pregnant I had ever been (I had Carter at 38 weeks and Landry at 39 weeks + 2 days) PLUS I had been working my butt off at work trying to knock out as many tax returns as possible for my coworkers before I went on maternity leave. So I was insanely ready for a break, although I apparently forgot that nothing about laboring and having a newborn at home is a break!
I had been working Saturdays, but I had already decided that being one day before my due date, I should probably stay home and get some things taken care of at home and rest instead that day. It turns out, I definitely wouldn't be working that day regardless of my plans. I woke up around 6 AM to pee and when I got up I felt like I had an accident, which is not something I had dealt with at all during pregnancy, so I was already feeling kind of strange about it. But I just went ahead and changed clothes and laid back down as I knew that if that had been my water breaking, there would have been lots more. In no time, I had another "accident" and that was when I started to realize it probably wasn't an accident! But I laid back down again because I knew Brent's alarm was super close to going off for him to go workout.
When he woke up, I immediately told him that I thought my water was breaking. He proceeded to tell me that it had not, and to "believe me, you would know if your water had broken!" Which was when I asked him exactly how many kids he had birthed!! As it happened a few more times, we knew that it was my water breaking, but since I wasn't having good contractions, I wasn't ready to rush to the hospital. So I sent him on to his workout (it was the first day of the Crossfit open and he was so excited about it, I just couldn't crush him and make him stay home!) and went about doing laundry and packing the last of our bags and the kids bags for when we did go to the hospital. My mom and little sister Raylee came over to help me out with the kids and be there in case things went fast suddenly. I texted my mother-in-law that it was time and asked her to come get the kids.
When Brent got home, he finished getting his things together and we told the big kids goodbye as they headed off with his parents. He packed up the van and we headed to the hospital around 10:30AM. My mom and sister Raylee stayed behind at the house to let our sheets finish drying and to make our bed for us so we would have a fresh clean bed to come home to.
The drive to the hospital was so surreal. We knew we were going to be meeting our baby boy soon, but I was not having contractions (or at least painful ones that would lead to anything anyways!) so we were just talking normally. I scarfed down a granola bar on the way since I figured food would not be in my future. We got there, got checked in and put on the monitors. The nurse checked me and I was still at one centimeter just as I had been at my doctor's appointment the week before. She tested the fluid to be sure that my water had broken and about that time, another gush came and before she even had to read the strip she was already in agreement with me that it definitely was. So I was admitted and she went to call my doctor. My mom and sister came up and met us about that time to wait things out.
We just sat and watched HGTV for a couple of hours until my doctor came in to check me. She had a lot of trouble feeling for his head (AKA she killed me trying to check for it) and never could find it to be certain he was head down and ready to go, so she ordered an ultrasound. It took awhile for the ultrasound machine to power up and be ready to go, and of course all the while I was stressing out that he had turned around on us to breech and that I was going to have to have a Cesarean. Thankfully, when she got it going, she confirmed that he was turned fine, but that there must be some fluid bubbled up there down low keeping him from pushing on down. Then we decided it was time for the pitocin to get the contractions started up. I wasn't excited about it, but I knew there really wasn't any other option because he needed to come on out. I was induced with Carter and my body stalled out with Landry and needed a little kickstart, so I had already been on pitocin twice before and knew what to expect from it.
The pitocin drip started around 2:30. My contractions quickly picked up from there, although they were not intolerable at all at that point. My doctor hung around and checked me again at an hour in, 3:30 PM, and I had already dilated to 3 cm. I was super pumped to have gone up 2 cm in an hour! I got really high hopes that this was going to be my fast, easy labor I had been hoping and praying for. My doctor stepped out then for several hours.
I contracted away and was getting pretty uncomfortable. I started asking about when my doctor would return to re-check me, but I just couldn't wait so I asked for some IV pain meds to help me relax a bit in between contractions. It helped a bit, but I told my mom that I was hoping she would tell me I was at 6 cm when she got back so that I could get my epidural and finish this thing out. Boy was I upset when she returned at 7:30PM and I was only 4cm. All those rough contractions over all of those hours for one centimeter?!?! I lost my cool for a minute and had to have a little cry session over my disappointment. Once I pulled myself back together, I readjusted my expectations and prepared myself for a long night of laboring like the one I had with Landry Kate.
The UK basketball game was on and I tried to focus on it, but the contractions were just getting too rough. I was hurting, and I couldn't keep myself quiet anymore. I had to moan my way through every one by halftime. I had to ask for the epidural then. I went back and forth over it in my head for thirty minutes or so before I let myself ask because the last thing I wanted to do was slow this thing down any more than it already was. But I just couldn't do it any longer. So they had to push IV fluids and then get the anesthesiologist in. It probably wasn't a long wait, but it sure felt like it. Those were the worst contractions I have had in all three labors. Every one felt like my uterus was being twisted tight like you would to dry a wet towel.
The anesthesiologist came in around 9:30 and did a great job considering what he was working with. As he was finishing tweaking things, I managed to get out the words that they really needed to check me because I felt like it was time to push! I couldn't really believe I was saying that because I sure didn't believe myself, but I know that feeling and its unmistakable. So, as soon as the epidural was finished, they did just that and confirmed that I was 9cm. And those terrible contractions suddenly made sense! They wanted me to give the epidural a bit to set in and let that last little bit of dilating happen, so we waited.
I still felt the contractions nearly as hard as they had been before for quite some time. Right around 10PM, it was time to start pushing. I still was able to move myself down into position as the epidural was still not fully kicked in, although it did start to dull the pain from the contractions. On the positive side, I was lucky enough to skip the catheter this time around! And it quickly kicked in from then on out and made pushing bearable. It took me a bit to get the mechanics of pushing down again, but once I did, he started moving down quickly. The doctor commented that he was turned a bit, but as he moved down, he turned on his own.
My middle sister Claire was in the room this time around as she is in nursing school and wanted to see a childbirth. My mom and Brent were there also. They started telling me that they could see his head and that it was bald. And from there, it went pretty quickly. Our little Owen William was born at 10:27 PM on 2/24/18. Brent cut the cord and the doctor placed him on my chest. I cried and laughed as we all commented on how he looked just like Carter!
I nursed him a bit and we passed him around between us a bit as they finished up with the placenta and giving me a few stitches. Thankfully, the epidural had kicked in well at that point so I didn't feel much. We had plenty of time to cuddle and nurse before they took his weight, which was 7 pounds 5 ounces, making him my smallest baby yet (only by 2 ounces to Carter!) and his length was 20 1/4 inches. Everything checked out perfectly and we were back to holding him and having Brent's dad (his mom was watching the big kids for us) in to meet him.
Little man was so, so hungry and nursed literally almost the entire night after everyone left. I finally just had to make him stop so I could get some rest and prepare for him to meet his brother and sister the next day! I will go on with that in the next post with lots of pictures! :)
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