Hunter Birth Story Part III

If you missed Hunter's birth story part I, or Part II feel free to catch up before this next part.

This is Part III, picking up where we left off in the afternoon of November 15, 2019.

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Hubby had texted me several times to ask for an update and to let me know he had met the baby-sitter at home and the kids were settled in and they were excited to see her.  I texted Hubby with what the midwife had told me, and is soon as he heard 6 cm, he relaxed, stopped rushing, and asked if I wanted anything from home and if I wanted him to bring me any food.  

 

We both knew we could be in for a long evening and night of labor ahead of us.

 

I texted Hubby a few things I asked him to gather from the house, and I knew he would be making his way back to the hospital in the next little while.

After about 20 minutes on the electronic fetal monitor, which is standard practice, the midwife was pleased with how the baby's heart rate was doing with the contractions, and they let me get off the monitor and out of bed and move around during labor. During this time, I was in and out of the restroom, and also found it comfortable to labor with a big balance ball. I would be on my knees on the floor and I leaned my head and my arms over the balance ball and sort of roll back-and-forth during intense contractions.

Eventually, I found myself alone in my labor and delivery room and found myself mentally preparing for a long intense labor.  In between contactions I liiked up at the progress board they had on the wall.  They had a diagram with 10 circles showing the diameter for dilatation from 1cm-10cm.  I looked at how large 6cm was and how far I had to get to 10 cm.  I calculated if I could increase 2 cm every hour, that would have me delivering around midnight.  That seemed like a really long way off.  I started praying, "Lord, just help me hang in here for the long haul."  Then I would have another contraction, and I prayed, "Lord, could I just have this baby maybe by 7:00pm?"

 

As I was hanging in through each contraction, I was really missing Chris and wishing he was with me.  About 5 o’clock I texted him that I really wished he would kind of forget any of the items I had asked for and to just come and be with me as soon as he could. Chris walked into my room about 5:05 PM.  I was so glad to see him and we talked about logistics for our older kiddos.

 

He and I made the decision to call my parents up in Vail and ask them to come drive back to be with the kiddos because the babysitter could not spend the night and we all agreed by that point, I probably wasn’t leaving the hospital anytime soon. 

Chris called my parents and shared what was going on around 5:08pm.  He was pretty coy on the phone and had fun sort of calmly and casually mentioning that the baby was on the way and we were at the hospital.  While he was on the phone, I had a contraction and I specifically asked him to wrap it up and get off the phone and come over and be with me.

There were two nurses in my room around that point, a nurse and then a nursing student. The nurse overheard me say to Chris that I felt like I needed to use the restroom but it was not at all comfortable to sit on the toilet during these contractions and I know it was too early to try to push so I was just sort of uncomfortable. The nurse, specifically tuned in to my saying that to Hubby and she said you it might be the baby getting lower -- not the need to use the restroom but the baby.

With that, I think Chris asked her a question about that and the nurse said something about since I had had babies before, I might find that with the right contraction, my water could break and the baby could be here pretty soon. I definitely wasn’t getting my hopes up.  I had heard more stories about lucky moms having fast labors and thus far, mine had always gone longer than I expected.  I needed to mentally be prepared for a long, hard labor.

 

I was in the restroom standing over the toilet, with Hubby next to me listening to the nurse and about 10 seconds after the nurse outlined the possible scenario (that with the right contraction my water could break and the baby might soon follow), my water broke, and a second later a contraction began where I had to push, and I pushed out the baby's head.

 

I was standing up, over the toilet, with Hubby holding me up, and a wide eyed nurse lunging toward us to catch the head, while directing the nursing student to alert the medical staff that the baby was coming immediately.

I pushed out the babies head, and within moments, the midwife was there, without gloves, apparently removing the cord from around the babies neck (I found out later), and then telling me to go ahead and push again.

A moment later, the baby had been delivered, there in the restroom of my labor and delivery room, with my standing up, over the toilet. Once the baby was born, I said loudly "Nobody tell me the gender," because I didn’t want a nurse or midwife to tell me the news forgetting our birth plan that Chris was the one who gets to tell me. With the chaos of how quickly the baby was born and in the restroom at that, I wanted to make sure that no one forgot that Chris gets to share that news.  

With that, Chris said in a nice loud voice, “It’s a boy!“ 

I then, went ahead and just sat down on the toilet and the midwife handed me our baby boy, and we all just kind of took a minute to breath.

A few moments later, I delivered the placenta into the toilet, and Chris cut the baby's umbilical cord and then I moved back to the bed where we could all sort of recover from the very quick arrival.

 

One nurse commented that I had the cleanest hospital bed following a birth she had ever seen.

I texted Hubby about 5 o’clock asking him to come and be with me as soon as possible, Hubby got to my room at 5:05, and our baby boy was born at 5:15.

 to be continued...