Birth Story

Okay, so here is Liam's birth story for all of you inquiring minds. Sunday morning around 2:30 a.m. I was having contractions that were very hard to breathe through. About 4:30 I woke Will up and told him to call someone to come over and watch the girls, it was time to go to the hospital. Amanda and Christer came over and we left for the hospital around 5:00 a.m. Upon arrival and check in they told me that I was 3 cm dilated and 90% effaced. You can imagine my surprise since I was 3 cm on Friday and had been having non stop contractions since leaving the doctor's office on Friday. They said they would check me again in 2 hours. Well, two hours later still no change so they told me that they were just Braxton Hicks and to go home. Through tears I tried to explain that this was my 3rd baby and that I knew what real labor felt like and that I go very fast in the end. Still, they said go home and take a sleeping pill and come back for your induction in the morning. I got dressed, sobbing my eyes out because I knew I was in labor and did not want to go home.

Once we returned home I took an Ambien and went to bed. I woke up an hour later with contractions that were coming so close together I couldn't even time them. This was about 12:30 p.m. The girls were napping and Will was working on the computer. Two hours passed and the girls woke up. Will came in and told me that he was going to take them for a walk to keep them out of my hair. While they were gone I got up to get into a hot bath to help with the pain. Will had thus returned and was giving the girls a bath in their bathroom. I was screaming his name to come help me out of the bath tub but he couldn't hear me from the other end of the house. I had enough time between contractions at this point to yell his name twice before another one hit and they were hard! Finally, Page heard me yelling and Will came running in the bathroom. I told him that I needed him to get me out of the tub and get me dressed, I was about to have the baby. God has perfect timing because Will's parents drove up right as we were getting ready to get in the van. We left the girls with them and went to the hospital. I kept feeling like I needed to push the entire ride and all I could do was say hurry between contractions. For anyone who has gone through transition with no pain meds, you know how hard that ride to the hospital was! We got there and there at 5:15 p.m. They checked me and said that I was 6 cm, then with the next contraction they said no 8 cm. With the next contraction I started pushing and the nurse said to stop. The doctor was not there yet and I needed to wait. I rolled over to my back and continued to push with the next contraction despite her words. So she took it upon herself to push his head back in with her hand as I continued to try to push him out. I was so angry at that point and in so much pain I have no idea how I did not say some very ugly words to her. My water broke as he was crowning and the doctor walked in. The nurse moved her hand and out he came, face up. Then his shoulders got stuck and it took a minute to get the rest of him out at 5:40 p.m. weighing in at 8 lbs. 1 oz. and 20" long. All in all I had an amazing experience. I had no epesiotomy, no tearing and no medications, exactly how I had wanted it to play out; although it was quite a bit faster than I had thought it would be.

The next morning he was being checked out by his pediatrician and they found that he was having rapid respiration, between 80-100. It is supposed to be less than 60. So they took him to the special care nursery. He had a chest X-ray, blood work and a feeding tube put down his nose. I was crying so badly and really scared. The neonatologist came in and did a consult and he determined that he swallowed some amniotic fluid and just needed to be observed while it dried up which would take about 12 hours. The nurse told me that they had gotten 5 cc's of fluid from his stomach when they were putting in the feeding tube. I was so relieved, but very sad that he would be in the nursery all day. I had to pump every two hours until they decided it was safe to take him off of the feeding tube at which point I could nurse him in the nursery. Around 11:00 p.m. they brought him back to my room. That is when the shallow nursing started. Then on Tuesday he had to do his PKU test, hearing test and get circumcised! Poor guy had a very busy and somewhat painful first few days. But praise God he is doing great!!!!!He is such a blessing to our family.