Birth Part 1

This not so little man came into the world on June 12^th, 2016.  He put his momma through a lot of torturous false labor before he joined us.  I wont hide the fact that I was pretty miserable at the end of this pregnancy.  My sciatic nerve was constantly flaring up, I was stretched as far as I could go, and I feel like everything gave me heartburn.  I was so ready to have this little guy and I’m pretty certain Josh and E were as well.  I was grumpy and didn’t hide it very well.  Thank goodness I was still getting some great rest or it could have been much worse!  I had way more Braxton hicks contractions with this guy then with E.  I would have hours of contractions and would be getting ready to go to the hospital when all of a sudden they would stop.  Finally they started on Saturday the 11^th at 1:30 in the morning and stayed all day until he was born Sunday at 8:31 AM.  All day Josh and I debated about when to go to the hospital.  My contractions would jump from 4-10 minutes apart but never really became the magical 5 minutes apart.  We went to antique stores, a boat show, cleaned house a little and just waited for the contractions to get closer together.  The hospital wanted me to hold off on coming, which is really hard to do with a 3 year old you need to drop off at a friends house.  Finally at 8pm I had had it.  My contractions weren’t going anywhere, but they weren’t getting closer I knew I was in labor I just needed to convince Mayo that I was.  Josh jokingly said that getting emitted to Mayo is like a club its hard to get in, but when you do its awesome.  We took E to Tara and Ryans house.  She was beyond thrilled to have a sleep over with Liam, Hazel, and Finn.  We had so many pep talks about sleeping at their house that when she got there she knew exactly what to do.  Tara was so amazed that she went to bed when she asked her too.  I was so proud of my soon to be big sister girl.  After we dropped her off we headed in.  The nurses put us in a triage room to see how I was progressing.  I was only at a 4.  I will admit that I was devastated to only be at a 4.  I tend to labor really long with my pregnancies and was hoping that all the hard work of the day would have at least landed me above a 5.  So they told us they would come back in 2 hours to see how I was progressing.  If I wasn’t progressing they were going to send me home.  I couldn’t bare the thought of going home just to turn around and come back so we started the jumping jacks and walking and before I knew it the really painful contractions started coming about every 2 minutes.  I was in so much pain.  Poor Josh kept asking me what he could do.  All I could say was nothing and that they better not send me home.  Well they came in checked on me and I had progressed to a 5.  They said I was good to go and asked me if I wanted the epidural.  Josh quickly chimed in for me and said yes, and that with E I would have had the epidural awhile ago.  I love my husband who knows me so well.  Soon I was officially emitted and given my epidural…thank goodness.  Mayo has the most amazing set of teams for each aspect of labor.  The lady who gave me my IV had been doing it for 40 years and got mine situated with the first try, which for me is really rare.  The epidural team came in and totally rocked what they were doing.  There are some perks with delivering in a teaching hospital everyone seems to know exactly what they are doing and that they better get it right because their boss is looking right over their shoulder the whole time.  I couldn’t have asked for a better nurse or midwife who made me feel as comfortable as possible.  After that they turned off the lights and told us to sleep.  While sleeping wasn’t going to be in the cards for me since the blood pressure cuff went off every 15 minutes and my blood pressure kept dropping which resulted in the nurse coming in, Im glad Josh was able to sleep some.  I passed the time by watching country music videos and infomercials for vacuums.  Soon it was time I was at a 10 and so happy.  The nurse and midwife told me that they were going to let me sit for another 45 minutes before pushing, which was torture.  All I wanted to do was push and all they wanted me to do was hold off.  45 minutes later the pushing began and about 20 minutes after that my beautiful 9 pound 3 ounce 22 inch long baby boy was born.  There is something so magical about holding that little one in your arms for the first time.  Heaven seems so close and I just couldn’t help but cry with gratitude for this little life that was entrusted to Josh and I.  He had a beautiful loud and strong cry and was just perfect.  Life couldn’t have been better.  Holding baby #2 with my husband and thinking of our perfect girl back home was blissful.