All throughout my pregnancy I KNEW
our little boy was going to be early. My motherly intuition told me so, and
motherly intuition doesn’t lie! I informed my mom that I thought she should come
as early as she could- I had some projects for her to help me with before the
baby came. She flew to Boise on September 30 and we (as in she… I just sat and
watched…) got busy in those first few days painting, sewing, and hanging
pictures. It was so nice to have someone help me with those last few things I
wanted to get done, because I just didn’t have the energy or motivation to do
it myself.
So, I KNEW my baby was coming
early. I decided to take castor oil on Friday, October 3. I mixed up my orange
juice and oil, Instagrammed it, drank it down at about 10 pm, had a shower and
went to bed.
Sleeping was horrible the last
couple weeks of pregnancy. When I would lie down, Clyde would settle in nicely
on what felt like my lungs and make it real hard to breathe. I would lie there
counting to ten and trying to slow my breathing. Needless to say, I did not get
much sleep that night. Since my “instincts” were telling me he was going to be
early, and since castor oil worked with Ruby, I figured I was having a baby the
next day! It took for-ev-er to fall asleep, and once I did I was wakened by the
need to do what castor oil makes you have to do. (I’ll leave that to the
imagination.)
Saturday morning I woke up and was
having mild contractions. (YAY!) I did the usual and went about my day. A
friend mentioned on Instagram that castor oil gave her contractions, but only
because she was dehydrated. I took
note and decided it was better to not go to the hospital than to go and be sent
home, so I made sure to drink a lot of water.
My contractions were coming every
2-3 minutes, so I finished packing the hospital bag and we decided that we’d
head to the hospital. We were just informing everyone of our plans when the
contractions just stopped. THEY JUST STOPPED! I couldn’t believe it. We waited
and waited for them to come back but it just wasn’t happening. Today was not
the day. (And drinking that castor oil and staying up all night was such a
WASTE!)
The next several days were
terrible. I was a grouchy, hormonal mess. All I wanted to do was go into labor,
and every day that I was still pregnant was another day that I was a miserable
cow. My due date came and went. Blake’s birthday came and went. I was STRESSED to
the point of tears about having the baby on his birthday. He made it clear that
that would be the best gift ever, and how badly he wanted to share a birthday
with his son. Everyone and their dog said how cool it would be for them to
share a birthday, and several people said “He’s coming today I just know it!”
Every time someone said anything about having a baby that day I wanted to tell
them to mind their own %($%*^@ business and leave me the %*$%^ alone! It was
definitely my darkest hour and I’m sure my melt down on the way to dinner and
how completely self-absorbed I was throughout the day made for not the best
birthday for Blake. Ya… I’m a good wife? Hopefully the dirt and worms cake made
up for it.
I stayed dilated at 3.5cm for 3
weeks despite my efforts. Walks, essential oils, ankle massage, and yes, even sex
had no effect on my stubborn cervix. On Tuesday October 14 I went to the
midwife and was STILL 3.5. At this point, my mom had been here for two weeks
and had to leave on Saturday. I wasn’t going to let her leave without even
meeting the baby! Oh and I thought I would have had my baby forever ago soooooo
we scheduled an induction for the next morning at 7:00 am!
That night, I slept HORRIBLY. I
knew I had to be up early so I got in bed at 9:30. Naturally, Clyde settled in
comfortably on my lungs and I hyperventilated until about 1am when I finally
fell asleep. Of course, the nerves didn’t help- I was SO excited that I would
finally be freed from the prison that is pregnancy! (That sounds terrible but
don’t judge until YOU are overdue and miserable.)
October 15, 2014! We got settled
into our hospital room and they gave me Cytotec at about 8:30. I had to stay in
bed until 10:30 so they could monitor me and make sure I was all good, but
after that, I began to WALK WALK WALK! I was ready! Let’s have a baby! Little
did I know that being induced didn’t mean you would just suddenly start having
intense contractions... what the heck? Things were picking up- as in I was
having contractions- but I wanted harder, more frequent contractions! I wanted
this baby OUT! Bring on the pain! I walked and walked, bounced on the exercise
ball, walked, ate lunch, walked while holding the iPad and watching Nashville…
I was doing a LOT of walking, it was kind of tiring me out.
The nurse came in and checked me
around 1 and I was a 5. I walked, squatted, lunged some more. My midwife came
in at 3 and checked me, and I had made it to a 6. HOLY SLOW PROGRESS. At the
rate I was going it would be hours before this baby was born, so we decided to
go ahead with breaking my water. After she did that I got out of bed and could
instantly feel the baby’s head pressing on my cervix, and the contractions
instantly sped up and got more intense. SWEET, I thought to myself, it’s go
time! With each contraction I had to concentrate more and more and really focus
to get through the pain.
With Ruby, I was dead set on not
getting an epidural. I had done a lot of reading and preparing and knew that I
was going to have her naturally. This time around, my thought process was all
about “we’ll figure that out when we get there.” Knowing how painful (yet
awesome) delivering Ruby naturally was, I didn’t want to make any final
decisions because each birth can be so different! Maybe this time the pain
would be too much and I WOULD want an epidural? I was very open this time to
whatever my needs would be.
With each contraction, I focused on
counting, breathing, and visualizing. I used some methods found in the
Hypnobirthing technique- my favorite was closing my eyes and picturing the
alphabet floating by, and reciting each letter 3 times in my head: A, a, a, b,
b, b, c, c, c….” It was seriously AMAZING how much this helped! I found that
leaning on Blake with my arms around his neck was the most comfortable
position, and when I wasn’t in this position it was TERRIBLE. I tried sitting
and leaning on the ball once… it was not good. As the contractions got more
intense I had Blake squeeze my hips together as hard as he could. I really
tried to visualize my cervix opening and the baby’s head moving further down
with each contraction, and maybe this is weird but I really felt like I could
feel it opening, like a distinct OPENING feeling. (Is that a normal thing? I
don’t know.) Between contractions I tried to rest and sit on the bed because
all that walking had really worn me out! My legs felt like Jello and I was
exhausted.
The nurses told me to let them know
when I felt “that pushing feeling” so I tried to power through each contraction
until it came. I talked with my mom about MAYBE I needed some drugs- what do
narcotics do? Should I get some? Of course I am terrible at making decisions so
I just let it be… If someone wasn’t going to force me to have them I guess I
just wouldn’t have any. Ha!
FINALLY I felt the need to push.
This is where it got oh-so intense. They sat me up on the bed and checked me- I
wasn’t quite a 10 yet so the midwife had me roll onto my side to get me passed
that last little bit. OH THE PAIN. There was no relief from those few
contractions I was on my side. I tried to visualize, I TRIED to breathe, but it
was just SO SO painful, all I could do was squeeze Blake’s fingers as hard as I
could. I laid on my back and a couple contractions later I finally had the
go-ahead to push. Yippee! What a wonderful feeling!
At this point I was being PRETTY
loud. Do labor and delivery rooms have soundproof walls? I hope so. As I
pushed, I remembered a conversation with my mom about the process of pushing
(she is my birth coach in a way haha). Once I was done with each push I would
relax to the point of feeling Clyde’s head being sucked back in! I don’t know
if head’s can actually be sucked back in but that’s what it felt like, so I
deliberately tried to not relax and to keep him pushed out as far out as I
could. (Man, giving birth is such a strange, wonderful thing.) I was told to
hold the back of my legs and ‘bear down,’ but what I really wanted was for
someone to hold my legs for me- I was pooped! But of course, I didn’t say
anything because my brain didn’t have the capacity to form the words. I tried
to just keep plugging away and deep breath, PUSH, breathe- deep breath, PUSH,
breathe. I remember yelling multiple times “I WANT HIM OOOOOOOUT!!!!” and the
nurses and midwives and everyone telling me that he is coming, I can see his
head, you’re doing great, etc etc. I was very sweaty and physically tired and
wanted to ask for someone to take my gown off me but couldn’t for the life of
me form the words.
Delivering a baby is such a funny thing- like an out of body experience. Your body just takes over and does what it was designed to do. It really is the coolest feeling in the world. I glanced at Blake and saw tears on his face, and instantly I knew that I was SO close to having my baby. I lifted my legs, folded over my belly, took one last big deep breath, pushed with all I had, and our darling boy was born. The midwife laid him on my chest and the first thing I said was “He’s so big!” 7lb 15oz and 20 inches of pure sweet heaven sent glory.
We are so glad you are here, Clyde
Watson. Love you.
