*Caution: This post will contain details about giving birth and therefore if it is not your cup of tea then don't read it! Also I wont be putting pictures in this post since they are all on facebook and I don't feel like being redundant right now.
So I guess I will just start off with the weekend. I felt so ready to have this baby and I thought for sure he'd come on Saturday or Sunday...but he didn't. I was disappointed because my body was basically showing all the signs of being ready for labor except for the consistent contractions. Saturday I had a really painful contraction but of course it didn't turn into anything more except scattered painful contractions throughout the day. So I thought for sure Sunday would be the day. My contractions were getting a lot more painful but there was no consistency to them so we decided to go for a walk. I think we walked a mile or two. We came home and I was of course exhausted and so I laid down and the contractions increased but when I stood up they basically went away. Flashes of Audree's awful labor were coming back to my mind and I just knew what to expect. I know my body pretty well and I know that when my water is broken my labor is super quick and when I go into labor on my own it takes a while. So when we went to bed that night I apologized to Mark saying that I will probably be up a lot from contractions because it happened with my past two pregnancies.
Skip forward to about 4 in the morning that is when I first remember waking up from a lot of discomfort. At 6 I couldn't lay down anymore so I got up and I showered and decided to get ready meanwhile as I am standing I'm feeling incredibly crampy with contractions coming every like 2 minutes. I found that if I sat down and back the contractions came about every 5 minutes. I couldn't decide which I preferred. Should I sit down and take it easier or should I stand up and hopefully the frequency of the contractions would speed up labor?
I was starting to get fed up because the contractions hurt pretty bad but they just weren't getting closer together or lasting longer than 45 seconds to a minute. I knew I couldn't do this all day long so I decided to go for a walk. We only ended up walking around the block because when I was walking the contractions were coming about every minute and lasting like 30 seconds and were a lot more painful. So we came home, I sat on the couch and tried to relax and that took the contractions back to every 5 minutes. Some of them were weak and some of them were really painful. I wanted to go to the hospital because I knew I couldn't do this all day and night til my induction the next morning and if it was anything like Audree's labor then I knew it probably would go on that long. I didn't want to be sent home though like I was with Audree. I didn't know if they'd have sympathy on me because my induction was set for the next morning.
At around lunch time my friend Brooke stopped by for a little bit and convinced me that it was a good idea to go to the hospital and to at least call the midwives and see what they say. So she took the girls back to her place and I tried to call the midwives but kept getting no response so we decided to just go in. I was afraid my brain was going to play some psychological warfare on me and I would stop having contractions just because we were going in but luckily they kept going strong.
We get there and find out that the hospital thought my induction was that day(Monday) instead of Tuesday and so they had a room already prepared for me and all my info all ready. Must have been meant to be right? I get in and they don't even hook me up to monitors. They just check me and I'm dilated to a 6. They get me set up in my room and start going through my information and getting my IV in and such. The IV took a couple tries and hurt pretty bad but the contractions were a lot more painful and sort of masked the pain of being poked and fidgeted with until the needle went in far enough.
By this point I definitely wanted the epidural. I had been doing that since 6 in the morning and I was just ready for it to stop hurting so bad. Plus I just had other concerns about the delivery and was feeling certain that I just didn't want to feel it this time. The midwife came in to let me know that she'd let me get my epidural and get comfortable and then she'd break my water. When she came back after my epidural I was dilated to an 8. So she broke my water and we knew this was going to go quickly so she said she'd be back after a few really good contractions. She came back and saw some good head compressions and said we'd be pushing soon but she'd just let the head descend a little more on it's own. There were some dips in the baby's heart rate so the nurse put me on oxygen until it was time to start pushing.
Because I got the epidural so close to pushing I actually couldn't feel very much. This was the first time I couldn't feel the pressure of every contraction I was having and I could only feel slight pressure of his head coming down. Luckily I still remembered how to push well though :)
My experience with the midwife was so much different. The midwife who delivered me uses baby shampoo to stretch things out while the baby is coming. Kind of weird we thought but if it is effective then great. I was really set on not tearing this time around but as I was pushing it became apparent to the midwife that I was going to tear and so she just want to give me a little cut. That was fine with me as this baby was proving to be a lot harder to push out then Arya was. The midwife kept mentioning that this little boy was gonna be a little bigger which is why cutting me would be better but little did any of us know just how big he would be and how thankful I would be that she made the cut instead of letting me tear. After he came out she said if she hadn't cut me I would have torn so much worse. Luckily, and surprisingly, I didn't tear past the cut at all.
So out comes baby boy! They set him on my lap, which my previous doctor didn't do, and I was overcome with emotion. I was SOOO happy to have him out and I felt so incredibly relieved to have all that pressure gone and he was right there on my belly instead of being taken away quickly. Mark got to cut the umbilical cord for the first time and then Bracken was whisked away to the respiratory therapist who exclaimed that this was a BIG boy, probably 10 lbs he guessed. I laughed thinking yeah right but he came in just short of 10 lbs at 9lbs 11oz. Did I really just push something that size out of me?!?!?! Apparently I did! And boy was I sooooo thankful that I decided to get that epidural!! Definitely the right decision!
I knew this boy would be big, I could feel it inside of me, but even I didn't guess he'd be more than 9 lbs especially with him coming 8 days early and all. Because he had such a large birth weight being more than a week early they needed to check his blood sugar. It was barely at the ok level but in order for it to be ok for us to come home last night we agreed to supplement with a little formula. No bottles though! And no binkies! I want to give me and Bracken the best chance at success with breastfeeding so I am trying to do it right. We even had a lactation specialist come in and it looks like we'll be doing it football style until he becomes more practiced. I'm praying for this to go a lot easier then it did with Arya!
The rest of the hospital stay was pretty uneventful. I had some visitors that night and the next day a photographer came in and took Bracken's pictures. He got his circumcision :( slept a whole ton, didn't even wake up for his blood tests and then we got all packed up and headed home! It feels very nice to be home! I missed the girlies and I always feel like it's easier to heal at home. Me and Bracken are both doing well. I am incredibly tired and am sore but I am happy. Our first night home was typical. Bracken didn't want to sleep at all the first part of the night unless he was being held or eating. Finally when I just couldn't stay awake anymore we plopped him on his boppy on our bed and he stayed asleep the rest of the night. I didn't get very good sleep because he kept making noises or gagging up mucus and stuff but we made it through our first night.
Sorry about this lengthy post...I tend to be very long winded but I want to say a few more things about Bracken so far. It seems apparent that he doesn't like to be moved. He especially does not like to be undressed. He has hardly opened his eyes at all so we haven't been able to get a good look at the color so we have no guesses as to what his eye color might be. He is too big for newborn diapers and we barely managed to squeeze him into some newborn pajamas last night. Today we also managed to just squeeze him into a newborn size onesie.
Audree really loves having him here and has already spent a lot of time holding him(it has been fun trying to explain to her that there is now nothing in my belly and that baby brother is not going back in and that he did indeed come out of my belly). She reminds me a lot of me. She just wanted to keep holding him all morning. Whenever he makes a noise she is right there to "help out." Arya has seemed to hardly notice that he is here and she isn't letting him throw off her groove. She's really not interested in being gentle so her indifference is probably a good thing. We haven't even been home for 24 hours and he already fits in so well with our family. We all love him so much and are feeling so blessed to have him here with us. I've got more pictures to put up but that will have to wait since I've already spent enough time writing this post. Thank you every one for your kind comments and your congratulations. We really are so very happy!
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