Clyde Watson

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.