Our baby story

Monday, August 5th, was like any other Sunday really. Except that we were extremely anxious about our baby boy joining the world. The whole pregnancy we kept telling ourselves that he was going to come late because that's how the majority of first pregnancies go. So we really weren't expecting or thinking he could possibly come early, until I saw the doctor 6 days earlier.

Wednesday, July 31st, I had a routine pregnancy check-up. I was just thinking I would go in and they would check dilation and it wouldn't be anything to get excited about. Well everything was perfect! I was dilated to a 4 already! My doctor guessed that I would have the baby within the next 48 hours. She also told me that I had already accomplished the part that took the average woman the longest to get to. This was a HUGE shock to me. I was really excited that I had already accomplished so much in this labor, but still in shock.

After I wrapped my head around it, I called Adam at work. I told him the big news and listened while he freaked out just as much as I did. Needless to say, he was useless at work the rest of the day.  Then I called my mom to give her a heads up to start looking at flights! She, of course, was in shock as well. We had my sister Lindsay on the phone too and she was really bummed she couldn't be here with us. I went straight home and started frantically preparing my house, my hospital bags, and myself. Then the waiting game began...

We made it to Sunday with no baby yet. It was pretty frustrating only because my doctor gave me high hopes. And let's face it, how many women go 5 days being dilated to a 4?! I have been told, not many. I went to church because sitting at home I would have made myself miserable. Everyone at church was shocked I was there being dilated to a 4 first off, but also shocked that the baby was that close to coming and didn't look like he had dropped. Let’s face it, my torso is so short, there was really nowhere he could drop.

After church, both Adam and I were pacing the house being very impatient for this little guy to come. That's when I suggested we make cookies to take our minds off of the situation at hand. We baked so many cookies that night!! But it was good to be preoccupied.

Monday morning was just like any other. I got up with Adam at 4 am to make him lunch for work. The moment he left was the beginning of the contractions. They weren't too close together so I didn't think about it being the start of labor. They were about every 45 minutes to an hour at this point. I got really anxious all of a sudden so I decided to clean my house, including the cookie mess from the night before. You know the whole nesting thing? That didn't come for me until the day I went into labor. Oops! Adam was the pro at nesting since we moved to Arizona in April.

A couple of hours later, contractions were getting a little worse and closer together. I finished packing most of the last minute things I needed for the hospital and then attempted to go back to sleep. As I laid in bed, I woke up every 20-30 minutes or so from contractions. Finally I decided to actually get up after attempting to sleep for 4 hours. Let’s be real, I didn't actually get much sleep during those 4 hours.

I called my mom around noon to ask her if what I thought were contractions, were in fact contractions. I was able to hide how many contractions I was having for a few minutes as I was on a three way call with my mom and Lindsay. We talked about my contractions and got really excited that I could have this baby today!

While getting ready, I started having serious contractions. I decided if anyone could take my mind off of things while Adam was at work, it would be my mom.

As I was talking to her I was trying to grit my teeth through the contractions, but that did NOT last for too long before I broke down and started crying. They were hurting so bad at this point that they literally dropped me to my knees every time. My mom told me a couple of times that I should probably get to the hospital pretty soon. You see, I didn't want to be one of those girls who went in to the hospital far too early and had to be turned away. I sent Adam a text around 2:30 pm and told him that I thought it was the day for our babe to come. But then I also told him he didn't need to rush home, I thought we could wait until about 4 pm to go to the hospital. We only live 10 minutes from the hospital so I wasn't too worried.

After Adam got the text that he was most likely going to become a Dad that day, he stopped everything he was doing at work and rushed home. He walked in the door just as a contraction hit and I dropped to the floor. He started freaking out and grabbing bags to take out to the car. I finished getting ready, well as much as I was going to in the state I was in. Then I waddled to the car, too much in pain to realize that was probably the last time we would walk out the door just the two of us.

We were considering making a pit stop at Taco Bell to grab some food really quick before we got to the hospital. But I had a major contraction right after we had the thought and we decided just to get to the hospital.

Finally we arrived at the hospital around 3:30ish. We walked in, checked in, and waited to be called back. We waited and waited and waited some more. It felt like an eternity, especially because my contractions were about 2 to 3 minutes apart at this point and extremely painful.

At last we got called back. They laid me on the bed and decided if they would admit me right then or if I had to go back home and wait some more. One of my worries was that I was going to get to the hospital and they would tell me to go back home because I had a little ways to go. It was actually the opposite. I was dilated to an 8!! The nurses were all pretty impressed that it was my first baby and I made it to an 8 without going in to the hospital.

After they discovered how far along this labor was, they rushed me back to a room, hooked me up to IV's, and brought in the amazing doctor who gave me my epidural. My contractions at this point were about 1-2 minutes apart. I made Adam keep pushing the button for more epidural meds to get in my system. Before the epidural had kicked in, I had the biggest urge to push. Three times! It was the weirdest feeling. The nurse saw me and thought this baby was coming faster than we all thought. Then it was over and I didn't feel like I had to push anymore. I could relax and let the epidural actually kick in.

I turned on 17 Again and could finally get comfortable. I could feel the pressure of some contractions, but definitely not all of them. The nurses came in and thought they were going to have to stop the epidural so I could actually feel what I was doing because my contractions became so close together that they were overlapping each other.

Thank goodness they calmed down enough that they didn't have to do anything with my epidural. My nurse came in the room about 45 minutes after I received the epidural and started prepping me for delivery. My doctor was driving from another hospital so we were just waiting on her to get there. Adam and my nurse coached me through my breathing and what I needed to do during delivery. The doctor came in and was ready to get started! She didn't waste any time.

I only pushed for about 10-15 minutes before we brought this beautiful baby into this world. He is the most perfect little angel we could have ever asked for. He was 20.5 inches long and 7 lbs 2 oz.