Birth Story (long and slightly graphic)

Ok, here's the much awaited birth story now that I have a few minutes to myself. Not really, but the girls are "napping" (at least they're playing in their room supposed to be napping) and Declan is sleeping in his swing.

I supposed I should start off by saying that the general "rule of thumb" in terms of if you're "really" in labor is that you should make "progress" within 2 hours. This is usually how the nurses/OB/CNM decide whether you're in "active labor" or "false/early labor". (This is important later.)

Here's the "short" version: Thursday night, we got to the hospital around 7:30. I'd made progress since my appt that morning and was at 4cm so they hook me up to monitor me and see if I'm actually in labor or just kinda early labor/irritated. Two hours later, they check me again...still 4cm. Ok, no big deal. With Calli this happened and they kept us another hour "just in case". Within 30 minutes of that, I got going and she was born less than 4 hours later.

Another hour. Still no progress. Another hour. Still no progress. At this point, you could tell the nurses were a bit confused on why my CNM was keeping us at all, but they were all really really sweet. My CNM told them that if I thought I needed to stay, I should stay. If not, let me go home. Just let me decide. (She was great through this whole pregnancy, and all my pregnancies, about listening to me and figuring I know my body best.) It's now 11:30 at night and we're exhausted. I looked at Brent and asked if we should just go home, but he said there was no way he was taking me home in that much pain. From then until 3:19, we tried to sleep (Brent slept, I was in too much pain) and tried all sorts of things to make the contractions either pick up or go away. (We were good with either option.)

All of a sudden at 3:19, my water broke. I page the nurses who run around getting everything organized and getting us admitted. Once your water breaks, you have 24-48 hours (I can't remember which) to deliver the baby because of the risk of infection, so we were definitely having him that night/morning. I had made some progress but not a ton. They were figuring we were in it for the long haul. Despite my determination not to, I asked for the epidural then too. The nurse tells me to tell them if I feel any pressure (more pressure?) or the urge to push. Fine. Good. Lots and lots of pain. I guess I was screaming. Brent was worried I was scaring the other moms, he said. Ooops.

Well, not 20-25 minutes later, I tell them I'm feeling a lot of pressure and this boy is coming. They all kinda look at me like I'm nuts and say they'll check me in a minute. I guess I yelled at the nurse to move faster. She checks me and he is basically crowning. They all start panicking. Thankfully, there were still at least two or three nurses in the room getting everything set up for me, the baby, etc. So they're yelling for the baby nurses, for my CNM, all the while trying to tell me to breathe and not push. Thankfully, my nurse sits down at the end of the bed to try to get me to focus trying to tell me not to push. I told her I didn't think that was an option and to catch the baby...and she did. Literally.

He was officially born at 4:03am. My CNM didn't quite make it in the room, but she was close. The nursery kept asking where the paperwork was on him and my nurse had to tell them I wasn't even in the computer yet. Needless to say, I never did get my epidural either. In fact, I don't even think they'd finished my blood work. Luckily, we didn't go home. We live a good 40-45 minutes from the hospital not counting how long it would have taken to get a sitter in the middle of the night, get us organized, etc. Had we gone home, this little boy would have been born at home or in the car. Either way, I'm just so glad we stayed.