Our Journey- Childbirth

I realized that the 3 months of my sons life have just FLOWN on by, and I need a better way to document his life- and mine. So, we'll give this a try.

I'll start at the beginning...
My pregnancy was great! A little heartburn... that wasn't so fun. But as long as I reminded myself that my baby was gonna have a lot of hair, it didn't seem so bad. I just had to keep tums on me at all times. (It was worth it, by the way, cause this kid has more hair than most toddlers) I'm also not real thrilled with the stretch marks left behind now. Good battle scars I suppose? Actually, the worst part was the smell! I could not STAND my own stench! Women complain about the smell of such and such bothering them, but mostly things that can be avoided at least to some extent. But there's no escaping yourself!

I was not really concerned about labor. Women have been doing this whole pregnancy, labor, child-rearing this since Eve. It's the most natural thing in the world! I am also an honest believer that it is us, allowing our fears to control us, that cause our own failures. I felt as prepared as possible, and most importantly, I trusted my body to do what it was made to do.

I had it all planned. Baby was due April 9th, but my body and baby were ready to go. I knew I wasn't going to last till my due date, and that was fine. As long as I could wait until the Friday before. That would put me at exactly 39 weeks. I would be out just in time for spring break. Perfect!

So, I went in for what I knew would be my last prenatal appointment on Wednesday, March 31st. When it was time for me to be checked, I politely declined, having the strong impression that that would be the end for me, and I needed to wait 2 more days. Sure enough, contractions began within 5 minutes of my leaving the doctor's office. I guess it's true what they say- man plans, God laughs.

My husband and I went on our last baby-free date shortly after getting home from the doctor's, and I spent the rest of the evening sleeping- still in hopes of the contractions stopping for a couple more days. When I woke up at midnight, I was feeling pretty good. So I decided to hard-boil a TON of eggs for my kids to dye at school the next day. Then I went back to bed and slept until I couldn't stand it any longer. At 6AM I called into work saying that I didn't know if I was actually going to have the baby that day, but I was probably in too much pain to come to work. I wasn't so worried about myself, actually. I just didn't want my kids to be traumatized watching me have contractions. Or heaven forbid my water break in front of them!

Sometime between 6 and 7, my contractions dropped from every 10 minutes (where they'd been since they started) to being every 6 minutes. I decided I should probably finally pack my bag, something I just had not yet found the motivation to do. I called the doctor, woke up my husband, ate some breakfast... took my time. I didn't want to get to the hospital too early. At least at home I could shower and eat, and I was going to take advantage of those privileges for as long as possible!

So they didn't have a room available for me yet. So I was in the triage room for several hours. I was actually afraid they were going to send me home when I first got there. Then my fabulous midwife arrived! She was actually not there for me, funny enough. She was there checking on another patient and one of the nurses nonchalantly asked if I was one of her patients. THANK GOODNESS! I was so afraid I was going to get another doctor that I did not particularly care for since he was the one on call that morning. I felt so much better once I saw her.



Anyway, I really had an ideal labor from there. My water broke after a couple hours of walking around, resting, and repeat. So they finally admitted me. They got me into my room, gave me the epidural, and an hour later I was a mom! It went real fast. Cameron was born at 3:34pm and weighed 7 lbs 1 oz.

They laid him on my belly so I could see and touch him while they cleaned him. My first though was just how small he was- profound, I know. But you're too overwhelmed in that moment to anything very interesting.

After that, I kind of went into a daze caused by extreme overload. I had the nurses at my right taking care of the baby, the midwives at the foot of the bed taking care of me, my mom to my left sending out the news, and my husband kind of everywhere doing everything (making calls, watching the baby, ect.) It took extreme concentration to focus on ANYTHING. I felt like I emotionally needed to be everywhere, and since I couldn't be everywhere, I was nowhere instead. The nurses told me stuff that I guess they expected me to remember. I just nodded and did my best to listen but I probably didn't catch half of what they said.

The rest of the day was spent cuddling and showing off my baby. I probably should have been tired after all that, but I was on a happiness high. I had a perfect, precious little boy!