[warning: a very long and detailed story is about to be told, I am leaving it long for my own documentation purposes, feel free to skip ahead to the photos]
one month ago our little guy-guy made his grand entrance. In that time we have been so very busy adjusting, preparing for Christmas, traveling for Christmas and attempting to settle backin post-holiday. I have been meaning to get his birth story documented though, so even though it's quite late, here you have it; Clifford's birth story.
Tuesday, November 29th, was my "due date". The day started off completely normal and I had come to the conclusion that I was gonna be two weeks late. For weeks leading up to this day I had been experiencing every "sign of labor" you can imagine, which was completely different than the end of my pregnancy with Ella. So, by this point I was pretty much expecting the little trickster to stay inside forever. Ella and I did our usual thing, Devon got home from work and then had to leave again to work at the restaurant. He joked that he'd be expecting my call and I just laughed. Then, at around 7 o'clock, out of nowhere my water started leaking. I was hesitant to believe it but after about half an hour of it continuing I decided it was probably time to have Devon come home. He was so excited, he was ready to rush right out the door and head to thehospital. I told him I had called ahead and they said there was no need to rush, so I just took my time making sure we had everything and doing some last little clean-up. It was close to nine when we dropped Ella off at my dad's and I still wasn't feeling any contractions or indications that I was in labor. It was really nice being able to take our time dropping her off and saying goodbye without being distracted by contractions. We kept telling her that baby brother was on his way, and she kept telling us he wasn't, which made me a little weary of how she was gonna react to seeing him [turns out I had nothing to worry about].
We got to the hospital and I explained that I was pretty sure my water had broken, but I wasn't having any contractions. I kinda had this fear that they would tell me it wasn't my water that was leaking and send me home and I really didn't want to be one of those silly women who can't tell the difference. It took a while to get all checked in and for them to run the tests indicating whether or not my water had actually broken. Luckily, when all was said and done they assured me my water had broken, which meant this was actually gonna happen. Still having absolutely no labor, Devon and I headed to the halls to try to get things started with some walking. When pacing the halls got boring we hit the stairs and walked up and down a few times until I was out of breath (doesn't take much to exert a pregnant lady). We were walking down the hall again when we spotted out doctor so we headed back to our room to chat with him. He laughed when we told him we had just been walking the stairs, he said he'd never heard that before and he was impressed. By this time it was just about 11 and I still wasn't having any sort of contractions. Naturally, he discussed induction with us and reminded us that once the waterwas broken it can start to get dangerous to keep the baby inside. He said he would give me another hour of walking and see where things were headed and then we could talk about starting the pitocin. I started praying pretty hard that my contractions would just start and I could avoid all the medical interventions.
We headed back to the halls and walked for another half hour and I began to feel a little pressure. It threw me a little because it would happen about every thirty seconds but only last a few seconds each time. It wasn't painful but sort of just took the wind out of me so I'd have to stop and let it pass then I could keep walking as normal. We decided to head back to the room for a bit and see if anything progressed. Within a few minutes the pressure was getting moreintense but I still wasn't convinced it was contractions because they felt nothing like they did with Ella, and they weren't following a normal pattern. All of the sudden I got really hot, that kind of hotness that hits your when your about to be sick. I had Devon go ask the nurse to get me some ice chips (best thing ever), though I was hesitant for her to come back in because I didn't want her to strap me back up to the monitors and I really didn't want them to insist I start the pitocin. By the time she came in my body was shaking and she asked, with a very concerned tone, if I was feeling the need to push. It kinda just clicked in that moment that I was, even though up until then I still wasn't sure I was in labor. She called in a doctor to check me, and I was complete. They immediately rushed me into the delivery room where our doctor met us. At this point I was kind ofdelirious, I felt like I was having some weird out of body experience. It felt like I was oblivious to everything and then I'd have these moments of clarity and I'd become aware of my surroundings and realize that I was in a room of people. All at once I was pushing. It took about 5 contractions and at 12:46 out he came. It was such an overwhelming moment, so unexplainable. I was still sort of in that "in and out/blurry" phase, I could hear him crying, I looked up and saw tears running down Devon's face and then they laid him on me and slowly everything sort of went back to normal. He cried and cried and cried, which was so unlike Ella. Soon he was content and he just laid there making the grumpiest old man faces I'd ever seen. We just laughed at how silly he looked, and started calling him Benjamin Button.
I couldn't believe how instantly I felt normal. With ella I had the epidural, which lead to pitocin and my body didn't feel right for days! Having this guy all natural was by far the best thing. I honestly never even had a chance to want pain meds, so I know I got lucky. Seriously, everytime I tell the story it sounds too good to be true, and it really was the best experience I could have hoped for. Everything just worked out beyond perfectly.
grumpy little old dude.
the proudest daddy on the block.
big sister falling madly in love.
*one month later,
our little fat man.
What a handsome little man! Congrats Jill and Devon! You are so lucky to have such a great labor and delivery with him.
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