The Birth Story

Don't give me a hard time!  I know Calum is 10 weeks old today, but geesh, between a new baby, 7 kids, school, and Cade ;) I have a lot on my plate!  I usually feel that if I have time to blog, I should probably be doing school work instead! 

Alright, so it starts like 2 weeks prior to January 20th.  I'm having pretty consistent contractions throughout these 2 weeks, and they were totally playing games with me.  Sometimes they would come every 5 minutes apart, then they'd slow down to 15 minutes apart, and then I would go to bed and they wouldn't be anything to make note of. 

36 weeks the doctor does his first exam.  At this point I'm already 4+ centimeters dialated and 70% effaced!  My doctor lets me know that he would be more than happy to induce me at any time (he was ultra worried about my kidneys because of all the problems I had during the pregnancy), but I declined.  I had 4 other babies completely natural, and I wasn't going to do this last one any differently. 

I head home from the OB appointment, with hard contractions, thinking that for sure this would be the day I would have a baby.  That's what happened with Roxie, I had an exam and it helped labor along, by the next morning, Roxie was born.  Well, that didn't happen with Calum!  Of course! Because why would two births EVER be similar?!  I went home with hard contractions coming 5 minutes apart...all night....until midnight.  And then they just stopped.  And I went to sleep. 

The next week goes by with the same ritual, contractions happening regularly, but not enough to warrant a trip to the hospital.  Cade and I were having more "relations" than we have had during the whole pregnancy, trying to get this thing moving along.  We even took a bouncy suburban ride up to the "H", and if you're a local, you know what I'm talking about when I say, "bouncy."  Nothing worked. 

My next doctors visit I'm 37 weeks.  He checks me, and I'm 5+ centimeters dialated and 80% effaced.  How can I possibly have those two numbers (5+ and 80%) and NOT be in labor?!?  UGH - I was getting so frustrated!  Again he suggested induction, and I declined.  At this point he informs we that he was going out of town on Friday, and wouldn't be back until Monday.  It was currently Wednesday.   :(    So basically, I have to have the baby that night or Thursday, or else I would have to wait until Monday.  Talk about stressful!  This OB has delivered all of my babies.  I trust him with my life.  I don't want someone else to do the job!  He tells me that if I want, he will give me just a bit of pitocin to get my contractions more regular, and then maybe I won't need anymore, and I can do the rest without the pit.  I have until Thursday around noon to decide.  In the meantime, he stripped my membranes to see if that would do the trick. 

I went home and mulled my choices over - to be induced, or to not be induced?  Cade and I kind of went to bed thinking that if the baby didn't come by the next day, I would go get induced....but I really didn't want to.  I should also mention here, that earlier in my pregnancy I had got some pretty intense contractions by eating horseradish on my prime rib.   Sooooo, I made Cade make me some steak with horseradish that night!  ;)  I was trying my hardest to eat that stuff like candy.  Even after my steak was gone, I was dipping my fork into the horseradish and licking it off.  Hey, what can I say? Desperate times, call for desperate measures! 

Luckily, that decision never had to be finalized!  :)  I woke up around 3:30am with some pretty intense contractions, and I just knew.  I got up and dinked around the house, cleaning up some last minute things, getting all the kids clothes ready for school for later that morning, finished packing my hospital bag.  At approximately 4:15, I woke Cade up and told him it was time to go.  He made some weird guttaral sound, abruptly sat up in bed with this very odd look on his face like I'd just slapped him or something, and asked if I was serious.  No, I always wake people up at 4 in the morning to tell them I'm going to have a baby...   While I'm waiting for him to get ready, I go fold some laundry that was waiting for me in the dryer.  15 minutes later, I go in the bedroom, and Cade's STILL in bed!!!  sleeping!  At that point I'm like, "Am I going to the hospital by myself, or what?"  He jumps out of bed, and what does he do?  Get's in the shower!  Nerd.  As I'm getting things all set to go, and he's in the shower talking to me about this & that, I finally said to him, "honey, these suckers are coming about 4 minutes apart.  You might want to hurry."  I guess that's what it took for him, because from that point on, he was in psycho mode - he hurried to get dressed, and then, on the way to the hospital, I couldn't get the man to lift his foot off the gas pedal even slightly! 

We finally got to the hospital around 5:30am.  The nurse checked me, and let me know that she could break my water with her finger nail, it was so thin.  She immediately called my OB, and escorted me to the delivery room.  Shortly after that, the doctor showed up.  We joked a minute about how he could go out of town now, and then he broke my water.  (Something about my births that has been the same:  the OB has always had to break my water, but a baby has always come out within 20 minutes of doing so. always.)  The OB puts his water-proof jacket thingy on (see picture, lol), gets his utensils ready, fidgets around for a few more minutes, turns around and tells me to push.  2 pushes, and the loudest screams I've ever screamed (and I'm a birthing screamer) and we had a beautiful baby boy!  He was born at 6:22am on January 20th, 2011.  He weighed 8 pounds and 9 ounces and he was 20 inches long.

So ladies, if you ever want that baby to come out, eat some horseradish!