It's always better when we're together

Looking back on the last two weeks of my pregnancy, I laugh at how impatient I was to meet Charlie. If I had only know how perfectly everything was going to work out, I definitely wouldn’t have complained as much as I did about why he hadn’t come out to meet us yet! He was just getting us ready for the most unexpected, amazing, mind blowing day of our lives.

(warning- if you can’t handle details about child birth, you may want to stop reading now)

----excuse the spelling/grammar errors- sleep deprivation is in full force!

I couldn’t understand why I had not been feeling any signs of oncoming labor. I had no clue what a contraction felt like and as far as I was concerned, I would be pregnant forever. Dennis and I spent all day on Friday cleaning and getting the house ready for his parents arrival on Monday. We went to bed Friday night with plans to finish everything we needed to do on Saturday.

Saturday Morning July 31st-40 weeks and 6 days pregnant

I woke up at 7:30 am and went to the bathroom. I crawled back in bed and felt what I thought was a cramp. When it went away about a minute later I forced myself not to get excited that something could potentially be happening. I felt another one 6 minutes later and started timing them to see if there was a pattern. After feeling 6 in a row, I woke up Dennis and told him that I thought I was having contractions so we got up and started moving around to see if they continued. Within about an hour I started feeling them anywhere from 2-4 minutes apart. They were uncomfortable but not painful so I figured we had a long day and night ahead of us even though I thought it was strange that they became so close together so quickly. Around 12:30 pm they started slightly more intense so I paged the midwife at the hospital to let her know what was going on and to see when she thought we should come in. I told her I wasn’t in too much pain so she told me that it didn’t sound like I was anywhere near ready to come to the hospital and to just lay down, count fetal movements and page her if I didn’t feel any movement or if anything changed.

Dennis and I went upstairs and tried to take a nap and after about an hour of laying down, contractions were still consistently about 2-3 minutes apart and lasting about a minute and a half. When I got up I felt one that floored me and knew that things were starting to happen. I had been saying all day that we wouldn’t go to the hospital until he got so bad I cried (not thinking that would actually happen) but when I got hit with a contraction that had me doubled over in tears I told Dennis that maybe we should go in just to get checked. It had only been 7 hours since feeling the first twinge of a contraction so I expected to go in and have the midwife tell me that I was still only dilated to maybe a 2 and that we needed to go back home. Subconsciously, I think my body knew that we needed to get the hospital soon.

Dennis and I drove to the hospital and I had 3 more pretty intense contractions just in the short time it took us to walk from the parking lot to the L&D ward. They took me back to triage to start monitoring my contractions and Charlie’s heart rate. The midwife came in and checked me and said “WOW…you’re already dilated to a 5-6.” It was 3:30 pm and they told me they were going to admit me and put us in one of the labor and delivery rooms. We were introduced to our nurse, Yvette, who we found out had a lot of experience with natural /drug free child birth and I knew that I’d be in good hands. Little did we know, just how amazing she would be during this whole experience.

Never once were drugs mentioned to me and the anesthesiologist didn’t even come close to our room. In my birth plan I said that I only wanted to be intermittently monitored unless absolutely necessary and when we got to the room, I was told that Charlie’s heart rate had been having some decelerations with each contraction so I would need to be consistently monitored for awhile. They just wanted to keep an eye on things in case the cord was wrapped around him somewhere and if things evened out, I would be allowed to move around as I wanted to. I quickly realized that every little detail of my birth plan meant absolutely nothing to me when it came to the health and safety of our baby and I was ok with staying strapped to the bed as long as possible, but Yvette went ahead filled up the jetted tub so I could use it when and if I was allowed off of the monitor.

I already knew that the midwife on duty would be leaving at 6pm and that I would end up being delivered by an OB which at this point I had absolutely no problem with. The doctor came in the room and introduced himself and apologized that he was not a midwife and I told him that it didn’t matter, as long as someone was there to catch the baby. (Little did I know just how true that statement would become.) It turns out, he was sitting at the admissions desk when we walked in where I had made the horrible hospital mistake of saying “It’s quiet in here!” I knew better than to ever say that in a hospital because it never fails, things start to get crazy afterwards. He informed me that shortly after we went back to Triage they started getting slammed and that it was my fault for using the Q word. He seemed to have a great personality so I had a feeling once again, that we would still be in good hands.

At around 5:30, I asked Dennis if he would go get the bags out of the car so we could have our camera. Yvette told him he needed to hurry because my contractions were getting more and more intense and that we’d probably be having a baby soon. We had joked earlier about having him before she finished her shift at 7 but I was convinced that we were going to be there for the long haul and that we’d have to meet another nurse. She was absolutely amazing at keeping me focused while Dennis ran out to the car. Contractions go t so bad that I physically could not catch my breath, and having her there to take over for Dennis was exactly what I needed. When Dennis came back to the room, she checked me and I was already dilated to an 8-9 and 100% effaced. Things were happening way faster than I expected them too. She said to call her if I needed anything and that she’d check on me in a little while. Within seconds after her leaving the room, I was hit with a contraction that made me feel like I had to push. I panicked and told Dennis to get Yvette back NOW because something was happening. I knew that when it felt like you had to poop that it was time to start pushing and that is exactly what my body was trying to do. Yvette came back in and told me to just breathe and that it wasn’t time to start pushing because she had JUST checked me but I felt it in every inch of my body that I needed to do otherwise. She checked me quickly and sure enough my water bag was right there. The pain was so bad during one contraction that I couldn’t help but reach down and could literally feel what felt like a water balloon between my legs. Within seconds an entire team of doctors and nurses filled our room and I was told that they were going to go ahead and break my waterbag- (otherwise I probably would have pushed Charlie out still intact in the bag.) The doctor broke my water and I was told that Charlie had made a bowel movement in the water and that I probably wouldn’t hear him cry when it came out because they didn’t want him to take a breath until they cleared the meconium out of his airways. Yvette told me to make absolutely no noise and to push HARD and instantly I felt every inch of his body fly out. He literally exploded out like a cannon ball with ONE PUSH. The doctor that I had joked with earlier about being there to catch our baby ended up having to do just that! He came out so fast that he still had the water bag wrapped around his head and the doctor had to peel it off. Charlie had different ideas about not crying because he let out a big cry before the doctors could even get him over to the newborn station to check him out. Fortunately, he didn’t inhale any meconium (although he was covered in it) and was absolutely perfect. Unfortunately we hadn’t been able to let the umbilical cord pulsate like we originally wanted to and Dennis couldn’t even cut it initially because they had to take him away so fast but he was able to assist with cutting the rest of it after they’d cleaned him off.

While Dennis was watching them check Charlie out, Yvette came over to my side, grabbed my hand and said “Congratulations mama!” I was still so incredibly in shock that I just stared at her like a deer caught in the headlights. Everything happened so fast that I really couldn’t comprehend it. The child that I had been (im)patiently waiting for so long had just sky rocketed into this world quicker than I ever imagined possible and I was having a hard time taking it all in! Yvette took our camera and started taking so many pictures and I am so thankful she did! It’s so awesome to be able to look at them and see what was going on around me and I’m so glad that she was able to capture those moments for us! Her compassion and support for us played such a huge part in making our child birth experience so incredible that I will always be thankful that we were blessed with such an amazing L&D nurse. I can’t even imagine bringing Charlie into this world without her! (and only minutes before her shift ended for the night!) It took awhile for the placenta to be expelled and then they had to repair a tear (that I had actually felt happen when Charlie came out) so I wasn’t able to hold him and at the moment, here was no way I physically could have. Dennis brought the camera over and showed me his picture and he was absolutely beautiful. Once they wrapped him up and handed him to Dennis, I was finally able to see him!

I still couldn’t believe that our amazingly incredible little boy was actually here! Once the doctors were finished with me I was able to hold him and nurse him for a few minutes before Dennis helped give him his first bath. What an incredible bonding experience that was for all of of us!

We eventually got settled into our room for the night and at that point I realized that I still had the most intense natural high that I could have imagined. I couldn’t stop thinking about the fact that I had planned for so long to have a drug free birth and that I actually accomplished it! I kicked childbirth’s butt!! I also couldn’t stop staring at our perfect, beautiful little boy. Charlie is so alert and I have never seen so many funny facial expressions on a baby! He looks JUST like Dennis and is already proving to have Dennis’ laid back personality. I think that his entrance into the world proves that he has a little of my fiery, impatient personality too and because of that, I can’t wait to see what kind of crazy rollercoaster ride he is going to put us on for the rest of our lives!