Austyn's birth story

As most of you all know I was experiencing a lot of false labor contractions at the tail end of this pregnancy. It started about 35 weeks, but only when I was overexerting myself. But as the pregnancy continued it happened more and more frequently to the point where I would wake up at 2 a.m. with contractions for 45 minutes or in the middle of a daytime nap. It was aggravating to say the least. So I was not wanting or expecting to go past my due date. Nelly was a week early. As days ticked by past my due date I couldn't decide whether or not I wanted to take the extra time to relax or try to naturally induce labor. I ended up going on that one last date, and I took a couple extra days doing nothing. And then I had it, I wanted this baby out. I tried all sorts of stuff including walking, raspberry tea, and spicy food. I ended up going walking with my friend, Hattie, on Monday (5 days past due) around Wilson Park. We loaded up our kids, played with them at the park and walked about 4 miles. At the end I was tired but not really feeling any contractions. I was feeling a tightening in my pelvic muscles, but I figure that was more of all the walking and the strain of the baby being so low. We went and had some Mexican food (hopefully spicy enough). And then I went home. By that afternoon I started having contractions every 5 minutes for about 2 hours. But as soon as Russell got ready they stopped. Russell and I were so disappointed. In the middle of the night I woke up a couple of times with contractions but they would stop so Russ and I would go back to sleep. Then about 3: 30 am I woke up to contractions every 3 minutes and they were really hard. I kept going back in forth whether or not I was in labor, having so many false starts. But the nervousness of every 3 minutes made me not wait around to go to the hospital.

I tested positive for a strep bacteria that is normal for any women to have but if the baby catches it can be harmful. To treat this they usually give you two doses of antibiotics while your in labor. Otherwise you have to stay in the hospital for 48 hours with the baby to be monitored. I admit it, it wouldn't be the end of the world if I didn't end up getting the antibiotics but I didn't want to stay that long and I really didn't want to worry for the small percentage of a chance something did go wrong. First they weren't letting any children in the hospital, and so Nelly wouldn't be able to come and visit. And I didn't even stay that long in the hospital when I had Nelly. I really wanted to be in and out with this one. Plus when I had Nelly she ended up getting an infection secondary to a very common hospital procedure. She was the 1% chance that it would happen and I just don't like playing with odds anymore. And I had Nelly in about 6 to 7 hours so they wanted me to get to the hospital quickly. So antibiotics NEEDED to get in before I birthed this child. Needless to say every 3 minutes wasn't exactly giving me a lot of time before this child was going to arrive.

I ended up text messaging Nicky, my sister-in-law, about 4 a.m. "If this isn't labor I think I'm going to lose my mind". She got the point and called me back to see about watching Nelly. Since she lives next door she was able to keep an eye on her the easiest at that ungodly hour. We ended up leaving the house about 4:30 and getting to the hospital about 5 in the morning. They took me into the triage and monitored me where they verified that I in fact was in labor. A nice relief to me, I had been nervous about giving anyone any false alarms. When they checked me in the hospital I was 4-5 cm dilated and 100% effaced and Austyn was at -1. The contractions were still coming every 3 minutes and I was having some light bleeding which is normal from my cervix dilating. It felt like it took a while for them to triage me, I guess I was only in there for about an hour. But with Nelly I didn't get triage at all since my water broke with meconium. My mom came to the hospital rather quickly and everyone on the "I"m going into labor" list was called by the time I settled into my room.

Shortly after I settled into the room I started feeling nauseated but the pain was getting worse and worse so I decided to ask for a epidural and was hoping that the nausea was caused by the pain. I felt better after the epidural but shortly after I settled down the nausea came back. And wasn't able to hold it back. The throwing up lead to my water breaking. When they checked me right after I was a 6-7 cm dilated (a little before 7 a.m.). I ended up feeling a lot better after that but asked when the nausea came slightly back for an anti-emetic medication. Then I started getting the shakes, a normal body reaction to either the labor or the epidural. and then I started itching all over. Right about this time my mother-in-law walked in and Grandmother. They didn't really get to stay too long, sorry. But the shakes subsided after about an hour and then I felt soo good. Man, I love that epidural! It was decided about 8 a.m., since I was doing so well just sitting there, that I would wait till after the last antibiotic at 10 a.m. to push. So I just sat around and chatted with the visitors. LOL. It was great!

We started pushing about 10:45 side-lying for a little bit and then the doctor was called. As soon as I started pushing he was already crowning. I think I was sitting at a 10 for a while. When he came out he had a big cone head but he also had a little pouch (looked like a hematoma) on top of his head where he was crowning for a while. In total I only pushed through about 7 contractions and out he came. I think it was quicker then Penelope but I didn't keep track with her. Austyn Thomas was born face up and the doctor was so good she helped me not tear at all!

He was born at 11:33 a.m. 8 lbs 20 1/2 inches long. His apgar score was 9, 9. I was able to bring him right to my belly after birth, which was a dream. Sitting there with him I almost didn't know what to do. It was so sweet, just as nature intended. We started our first latch with breastfeeding about 10 minutes later. At his two week appointment on the 27th he weighed in at 9 lbs 7 ozs and 23 1/2 inches long!

We ended up not being so good about telling people after he was born. So I hope none of you guys who got left out were upset. I never wrote a list of everyone who needed to be called afterward. And I had lost track of who was called because everyone in the hospital was on the phone right after he was born. I figured it was covered. I tried to send out a mass text message to my friends. We ended up forgetting to tell a set of my grandparents and our homegroup that he was even born. My sister-in-law didn't get the stats after he was born. And one of Russell's close cousins didn't find out anything until a week later. Ugh. Again I'm sorry, please don't take it personal. We just aren't any good at figuring it all out in the end.

In the end it was a wonderful birthing experience and my little boy is thriving just fine!