Houston’s birth story, part 1

 

I’ve had this post written since Houston was 12 weeks old.

I’ve wanted to share it, but other posts kept getting in the way and I felt like I was waiting for the right day – not sure what day that was going to be or what exactly I was waiting for.

Now I know.

Today, I feel the strong urge to share this. Today I’m thinking back to the day he was born. Such a momentous occasion, one of the best days of my life – his birthday. Every birthday he has while I’m still on this earth, I will think back to that beautiful day I gave birth to him.

It’s today that I now understand my own mother a little more. What she did for me to enter this world and what she continues to do every day after that one in order for me to have this extremely blessed life I’ve enjoyed.

 

Today is my 28th birthday.

 

It’s no longer about me since my son’s own birth. This morning I woke up to a smiling, happy baby with a poopy diaper :) I joyously changed that diaper and silently thanked God for letting me live to this birthday and for giving me the best present I’ve ever received – poopy diaper and all♥

 

Thank you, mom, for enduring those 9 months of pregnancy, labor and birth, 28 years ago today without pain medication {super woman!}, nursing me many sleepless nights while you also had my 4 year old sister to take care of, and showing me a living example of a completely selfless life along side my father, both doing anything and everything for their children without a moment’s hesitation for what their own needs may be. 

 

♥♥♥ ♥♥♥ ♥♥♥

I’m hoping I haven’t forgotten any precious details of his birth and that I can tell you the story to the best of my ability, five months later. It makes me giddy to think of our sweet boy grown enough to be able to read and to want to read my words about that joyous day he entered our lives. I can’t wait to share this with him! I feel comforted to know that if I should no longer be here when that day rolls around, he will still have my written words and hope that he knows how much we loved him and how he made our lives infinitely happier, better, purer.

 

With all corniness and cliché aside… he lights up our lives.

 

But not only that, he set them afire. We are on fire with an intense love we never knew before and a longing to be there for every breath and every occasion in this dear boy’s life. Our world in which we selfishly lived before, now happily revolves around him.

♥♥♥

 

 WARNING: I have recounted every tedious detail in this story for my own memory’s sake. I am aware that it is lengthy!! It may be overkill and at times, too much information in an over sharing of personal info kind of way… but it’s *my* story and my story goes like this:

 

The morning of August 28th, my mother’s birthday {how’s that for irony, today?!}, a Sunday, and two days past my due date… I woke up feeling no different than any other day and started my business of showering and getting ready for church. As I exited the shower, I was shocked to see I was bleeding as I was toweling off. I knew immediately that we were not going to be making our induction appointment for the following Thursday(!)

I threw on a robe and opened the door of the bathroom to see my husband still in bed. I’m not sure what I said, but I tried to play it cool and let him know that the birth of our son was imminent in a nonchalant manor. When I opened my mouth my voice cracked and my wording came out less cool and more oh.my.gosh.this.is.happening.and.you.better.get.out.of.bed.

He sat up and I talked to him about what I saw and that I wasn’t feeling any contractions yet and it probably just meant he would be coming in the next couple of days.

Then I started “googling” {terrible idea} what I saw in the shower and it scared me that maybe there wasn’t suppose to be that much of what I saw or for it to be that dark. I called the doctor and she reassured me that as long as it didn’t increase, yadda yadda yadda, it was just a good sign that labor was on it’s way.

We called our families and prepared them for the possibilities. It could be today, maybe tomorrow, possibly even later, but be ready.

By that time we were too late to make it to Sunday school, but went to Sunday service. At some point, my contractions did begin. Slowly, with very little pain. The contractions I had been having for a couple weeks had never been accompanied by pain, so I knew these were becoming the real deal.

We came into church a few minutes late and sat in the back. My contractions had picked up and I was timing them with an app on my iPhone. The doctor had told us to come to the hospital when they were consistently 5 minutes apart over an hour’s time. They were sporadic through-out church but stayed within 3-7 minutes apart and my back was now hurting more and more with each contraction. It was one of the most exciting church services I have ever attended though I’m sorry to say I didn’t pay much attention to the sermon! ;) We headed out, all smiles and excited from head to toe, just a minute before church was over, not wanting to get caught-up in conversation or traffic in case things took a quick turn.

 

Home from church

 

40 weeks, 2 days and in labor!

 

We made our game-plan in the car on the way home and got to it as soon as we reached home. Bags were packed and in the car, house was thoroughly cleaned, and families were called and updated. We ate lunch and decided to walk the dog because #1) he needed it and was about to be left alone for who knows how long and #2) I wanted to progress labor the best I could and did not want to be turned away at the hospital for not being far enough along.

We walked in the sweltering, humid heat of Kentucky in August. We enjoyed ourselves talking, pausing for contractions, and taking a few pics on our phones to remember the time.

 

 

We got back home, I blogged this post, and we continued to wait.

 

 

…and wait.

 

 

…and wait.

 

The contractions had been consistently 5 minutes apart for hours now {remember that the doctor only said it needed to be one hour before coming in…} and the pain in my back was definitely increasing with each contraction. But we still didn’t know what to do. My water hadn’t broken and I was comfortable in my own house in my own clothes without being hooked up to any monitors.

 

To go or not to go? That was the question.

 

We decided to go. If I had planned a natural birth, I would have stayed at home much longer, but even then without having went through labor before, it was difficult to tell how far along I felt that I was. I didn’t want to be turned away, but I also didn’t want to be delivering this baby on the side of the road myself.

{I say “myself” because Nick would be passed out beside me if we were in that actual predicament :)}

 

NEXT TIME I WILL KNOW THAT LABOR HURTS MUCH WORSE THAN I HAD EVER EXPECTED IT TO… and if next time it is as manageable as it was feeling at home, we are NOT very far along yet! =)

 

More than anything, more than other things I should have worried about much more than this, I did not want to be sent home by the hospital to labor more before coming back.

I had dreaded that exact possibility for a long, long time. Not sure why – except that I find it extremely embarassing to be turned away. Kind of like, “You silly woman, you’re not in labor…”

 

We had packed our bags, lugged them all the way to labor and delivery room, settled in, answered a million questions from the nurses, and when they checked me… ehh, maybe a 2.

They wanted a 3 before they would keep me.

 

We were told to walk around the hospital for an hour and they would recheck me to see if there was any change before sending me back home.

BOO!

I was tired, I was past my due date, I had already walked plenty in the mid-day heat AND cleaned my entire house. I was disheartened, disappointed and defeated.

 

We made a half-hearted, sad attempt to walk the halls of the hospital for about 20 minutes. But when you can only walk about 30 feet down a hall before having to turn around because of dead ends, you start to feel like the ball in a pin-ball machine, which gets old pretty fast.

 

We went back to the room to watch t.v. where I tried to do squats and lunges, knowing it was probably just wasted energy. At the end of an hour they checked me and my dilation was unchanged. They hooked up a fetal heart-rate monitor and said it was policy to monitor it for at least 30 minutes before I was allowed to leave.

By that time, I was ticked at the whole situation. My contractions were actually slowing down?! but getting much more painful in my back. All of our family were on their way into town, dropping things they were doing to be here, with the farthest driving almost 6 hours to be with us. I was embarrassed to say the least.

 

And now we had to stick around even longer when we could at least be out eating a nice dinner to console my bruised, pregnant ego.

30 minutes passed by and the nurse came in to say I needed to stay longer because the monitor kept slipping and they had to have at least 30 minutes of continuous fetal heart-rate monitoring.

Seriously?!

An hour passed by and they still didn’t have what they wanted. I was being kept longer and longer because of a faulty monitor, knowing this was all going to end with me at home, trying to figure out again when I should go back to the hospital.

I asked the nurse how I was suppose to know when to come in again since I had obviously misjudged it once already. She said to come in when the pain was unbearable. I cried to Nick when she left the room, I was more confused than ever and the pain was quickly becoming unbearable.

At this point, we had been in the hospital almost 3 hours. My pain had progressed even if my contractions weren’t as close together as they wanted them to be. I was squeezing Nick’s hand through each, threatening him if he spoke during one, and breathing the best I could to get through them. I had already decided that if they sent me home, we would just go sit in the car in the parking garage because I knew I was in true labor even if it wasn’t good enough for them!

 

Part 2 and the account of how I almost strangled the nurse that tortured me with two different faulty monitors to come :)

Thought I could stop at just 2 posts… wrong. Don’t miss Part 3!