I don’t know where to start it has been so long. I have been very busy…kinda…I will get into that later. We obviously welcomed our son, Noah, into the world on February 11, 2010. That day is special because it is also Grandma Alice’s birthday.
Here is a quick recap of my labour experience. On Sunday (the 7th) night we watched the Hangover with mom. It is so funny and we were all laughing like mad and I started to feel “funny”. Sure enough I had some tell tale labour signs right away and contractions started within a couple of hours. I kept looking at all my books…they all said to keep busy and ignore early labour. Problem was it was so painful already that there was no way to ignore it! The contractions were 10 minutes apart right from the beginning.
The day passed and the contractions got longer and closer together. At around 5 pm the decision was made to go to the hospital. Almost immediately the contractions slowed right down from 3-4 minutes to back around 10. We assumed that it was because I was so scared to the hospital. We got checked at the hospital and I was only 2 cm’s so I asked to go home and they obliged.
Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday – all the same. It was the weirdest actually. The contractions stayed at 10 minutes apart consistently and hurt so much. The only break was for a couple of hours on Tuesday. Tim called Joanna – the doula we had come to know and we started talking about our options. None were that great.
The worst part really was that we had our whole support team there – mom, dad and Karen and we were all just sitting around waiting, waiting, waiting. Oh and listening to me howl, literally.
Thursday early morning I officially reached my pain level. We went to the hospital and I was barely 4 cm’s. Ahhhh!!!!! At that point I had laboured at home for over 70 hours and technically it didn’t even count?!? Too bad – I was counting it anyways.
The baby was sunny side up, presenting with the widest part of his crown. This explained not only the length of labour so far but also the pain factor!!! I was put on pitocin to get things along and was on it for about 20 hours. Among other things, they said he was stuck. I don’t believe he was stuck – but I do think that we had to make the decision we did.
I could go on with a million details about the last few hours before Noah’s birth – but I don’t want to and I am sure you don’t care to hear it all. Suffice it to say it was unpleasant to say the least. It was everything I feared and more, plus some. I thank God every day that Tim and mom were there to help me come to grips with what happened.
After all that – my baby was here! The only thing I saw after the operation was his lips…weird I know but it was all I could see and I clung to image until I could see him again…which took a little over 2 hours.
He was so strong through it all. His heartbeat stayed strong and he was beautiful at birth. He might have had a bit of a misshapen head from hanging low way too long…but he was beautiful just the same.
I waited 9 months to meet my little man. I had so many ideas about him, what he was going to look like and about his little personality, about how I was going to be as his mom and most certainly about how I was going to welcome him into this world. God had different plans than I did and it was a reminder that I can’t plan everything, that something bigger than me already had a plan.
I’ll be back soon.
