Warning: I am writing this story to remember the details of Carter's birth. Although I have tried to leave out all of the grosser details of giving birth, do not proceed with reading this if you do not want to hear about where babies come from.
May 16th. 10 days before my expected due date. Just another day. Everything felt normal. I was officially done work, but was on holidays before my maternity leave kicked in. I was determined to get my house in order before the arrival of our baby, and on this day I had finally felt that I had made some progress. The freezer was pretty well stocked. My cursed rag rug was finally finished. Bathroom was clean. Floors were mopped. House was vacuumed and dusted. Fridge was stocked with groceries. I was looking forward to the next 10ish days of relaxation. Everyone had told me to spend these days getting some sleep, and I was looking forward to sleeping in for the next few mornings. I didn't feel overly pregnant, and even thought that I may carry past my due date. My last doctor's appointment indicated a fundal length of 32" so surely baby wasn't coming anytime soon.
That evening, Ryan and I went to my parents house for supper. I felt a little bit off that evening. The lights seemed to bother me. I couldn't carry on a conversation as the words just wouldn't come out right. There was even one point where I said "Maybe I am pregnant!" when I really meant to say "Maybe I am in labour" (which I really didn't think that I was). I had a headache, and wondered if my blood pressure may be high, even though it hadn't been throughout the duration of my pregnancy.
Ryan and I returned home at around 8:30 that evening. I talked on the phone until about 9:30, watched a bit of TV, and then decided that I was going to go to bed. It was 10:00 pm.
I went to the bathroom, and when I stood up off of the toilet, it felt like I was still peeing. I sat back down. I then stood up and again, felt like I was peeing. I thought that it could be my water breaking, but still felt nothing different so wasn't sure. I called Ryan to the bathroom, and between giggles, tried to explain that I wasn't sure if I peed my pants or if my water just broke. We decided that it had to be the water, so we did what anybody else would do-we googled "what to do when your water breaks."
From pre-natal classes, I recalled that labour may take hours or even days to progress after the water breaks, so decided to pack a bag for the hospital and then go to bed to get some rest. Rest didn't happen, however, because during the time that it took me to pack a bag, my contractions came on hard and strong. I had a contraction counter on my iPhone, and Ryan timed them for me. By the time the bag was packed, contractions were about 30 seconds long and consistently 2.5 minutes apart.
I had Ryan call the hospital to let them know what was going on and to get direction on whether or not we should go in (we live 30 minutes from the hospital). The nurse asked to talk to me, and when she asked if the contractions were painful, one hit and I screamed out "YES!" She said we should come to the hospital to be checked out.
We left right then, and by the time that we got to the hospital, the contractions were 40 seconds long and 2 minutes apart. I swear that the nurses thought that I was being a melodramatic first timer, and they took their time checking me over. By the time they got around to checking how dilated I was, I was at 5 cm. The nurse said she would admit me and call the doctor on call. She did the paperwork, and then left. It was just Ryan and I in the delivery room.
I am not sure how long she was gone for. Everything is a blur from here. I remember sitting at the edge of the bed, holding Ryan's hand for contraction after contraction. I remember throwing up. I remember wondering where the heck everyone was. I remember feeling like I needed to push, and thinking "this must be transition".
The nurse finally returned, and when she checked me, she announced that I was at 9 cm. The doctor, along with a resident doctor, then rushed in and before I knew it I was pushing. I knew I had to push, but when it finally came down to it, I didn't feel ready (retrospectively, I think that I was just plain exhausted from the contractions as Ryan says I was pretty much falling asleep between each one). I am not sure how long I was pushing for. I would guess maybe 30 minutes tops. I felt defeated that I could not get the baby out. I felt like I was doing it all wrong. That I wasn't pushing right.
Because the labour progressed so quickly, the baby came down too fast and had what the doctor called "head compression". The heart rate kept dropping to around 70 bpm with each contraction, and then was not returning to normal between contractions. The doctor decided that they may have to use the vacuum, and told me that she was calling another doctor (one known to do c-sections) to come up just in case. I took that as I was going to get a c-section because I wasn't pushing good enough. This scared me. It also made me want to prove to them that I didn't need any interventions. They had me roll on to my side (possibly to help with the heart rate issues?) and two good pushes and the baby was out. It was 1:47 am on March 17th.
A boy. A beautiful baby boy. Screaming right from when he came into this world. His first interaction with his daddy being peeing all over him! From here on out, everything couldn't have been more perfect if I had written it myself. My baby was put on my chest right away. He wasn't taken away to be measured, prodded and poked. I was able to breast feed him pretty much right off the bat. Ryan was allowed to cut the cord, and he waited until it had stopped pulsing to do so. I had a couple first degree tears, and needed 4 stitches, but other than that, sustained no injury. There were no drugs involved.
My parents arrived at the hospital 5 minutes after Carter was born. Ryan's parents arrived shortly thereafter. We welcomed our new little guy into the world, weighed him, measured him and bathed him that night. He was (and still is) absolutely perfect, weighing 6 lbs, 14 oz. We finally settled into bed at 5:00 that morning, feeling exhausted, exhilarated and completely in love.
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| First Picture |
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| Finally settled in. |
