Boden's birth story

Where do I even start in documenting this amazing day. Like with Rowan's birth story, I wrote out the entire thing with detail for my own records, but wanted to post an abridged version with pictures for looking back on and sharing with others. 

This labor was much different than my first, but equally perfect. I honestly wouldn't have wanted either of them to really go any differently than they did. For the circumstances, each was perfect and special in its own way. I am still shocked that this one turned out how it did. I have been "planning" my perfect labor and delivery for over a month now. I had chosen the date (May 18-a Monday which optimized Grant's time off, had a full staff of providers, etc. My preferred midwife and OB were both on the floor that day. It was still 4 days away from Rowan's birthday, and I would be a good 39 weeks). Barb (my friend/nurse that oriented me was on call) and Rhonda (friend/nurse I oriented) was scheduled to work. It was the perfect setup and I knew it was too good to be true because you can't "plan" things like labor. 

Well, Sunday night rolled around and I started contracting more painfully than ever before. They were still at least 10 minutes apart most of the time so I didn't know if it was really anything. I had plans to go into triage and have my midwife strip my membranes and check me the next morning anyways, so I headed to bed around 10:30 and hoped I would make it through the night and we'd see what was happening the next morning. I woke up around 3am with contractions painful enough that I really had to concentrate and breathe through them, but again they weren't really regular. I texted a friend and work that there was a good chance this was getting real and to save me an ocean view room if they had any ;) 

I texted Alexa around 6:30 and asked if she could come a little earlier than planned because I was getting more and more uncomfortable. Fortunately, in between contractions I felt great so was still able to get things together before we headed in.

I got to the hospital around 8, checked in at triage, monitored the baby for 20 minutes and then the midwife came in to check me. I thought I was probably about 5 cm, and when she checked me I was even better, 6/90/-1. The original plan was to get checked and head to Barb's house to labor there for awhile until it was time to come in, but with things getting more intense I decided to just walk around the hospital for about an hour, and then as things got even more uncomfortable, I headed back up to the MICC to be admitted around 10am. I got room 1 which was perfect, awesome view and farthest away from the nursing station (which is good unless you have a misbehaving baby-but it really sucks more for the nurses than the patient so that's ok :) I had read a couple books to try to prepare for an unmedicated birth, but I wasn't entirely committed to it. When anesthesia consented me she said I could have any anesthesia provider in the hospital and they'd be up whenever I wanted. That was pretty tempting, but there was that part of me that wanted to experience it without one, so I just kept laboring on.

This was my preferred laboring position. I sat with one leg on the bed and the other on the stool off the bed for a few good hours. For some reason in was the most comfortable.

 Last belly shot! 39 weeks exactly

 It was a beautiful day to have a baby :)

 Even though Rhonda had 5 postpartum couplets that day, she hurried and got everything done so she could come help with my delivery. She did all my admission assessment stuff while Barb worked on dropping her kids off with her husband to be able to come in and take care of me. (I have awesome friends!)

 Talk about an awesome way to labor if you're going to be in the hospital. Good friends, my awesome husband, and this view. It was almost fun despite the fact that my contractions were getting crazy intense!

 Barb got to use her intermittent auscultation skills on me through most of my labor. They ended up having to put continuous monitors back on while I pushed because he was having variables, but the freedom of not being hooked up to anything was awesome! My IV was heplocked and she just listened with the Doppler through a contraction every 30 mins or so. It was nice because I could also hear and be reassured instead of having to try to look at my paper strip. I was surprisingly calm about the whole thing though. I couldn't completely step out of the nurse role, but I trusted those taking care of me entirely so I wasn't worried about anything.

Around noon (just over 3 hours from my original check in triage), the midwife came back in to check me. She asked if I wanted to do anything else, so I thought we may as well AROM (break water) while we were at it. This scared me a little because I always tell patients that it gets way more intense after this happens, but it can also speed up the process. So, she checked me, at which point I was 9.5 cm, she broke my water, and my cervix was gone. I was hurting pretty bad, but I still couldn't believe I was complete! We were almost there :) I was expecting to have that crazy urge to push at this point, but for some reason it really wasn't there and if anything, my contractions became less intense for awhile at this point. I started pushing not long after this, but my contractions weren't as strong as they needed to be.

During contractions

 In between contractions (clearly I was still pretty comfortable ;)

 Through a few position changes, I was finally able to get them intense enough to help me push this kid out! And once we started making progress it wasn't long until he was here! There were a few times at the end that I thought I couldn't do it. It was definitely a pain that I could not be prepared for, but also a cool feeling knowing that my baby was about there. The most amazing part was the immediate relief I felt the second he came out. It was a huge adrenaline rush with virtually no lingering pain. He also delivered OP (sunny side up) which didn't help, but was perfect because as he came out the midwife had me reach down to pull him straight out and up to my belly. It was so perfect! And he was a super cheesy little guy, just like Rowan ;) I love this picture. Shows my love for this little guy I'd been carrying and also the joy of a labor nurse who is caring for a patient they care about.

 Grant cutting the cord.

 His cord was crazy long, which made it nice because I couldn't immediately pull him all the way up to my chest. However, he had a true knot in the cord! I got lucky that this didn't cause us more problems. From a nursing perspective (and because he was fine) I thought it was pretty cool :) Think of the flips he was doing in there to make this happen :)

Love

 We made guesses with how big he was going to be, and because i had a preconceived notion that he was going to be so much bigger than Rowan, I was way off on my guess (I'm usually pretty decent at guessing). I thought 7 lb 4 oz and everyone kind of agreed. When we weighed him we all thought he was 6lb 14 oz, but soon realized it was actually 6 lb 1.4 oz. He was actually half a pound smaller than Rowan! I love my tiny babies :)

Boden Kai Layton

 And my fabulous delivery team...wouldn't have wanted it any other way!
 Thank you to these amazing friends and providers.

We hung out the rest of the afternoon and enjoyed this gorgeous sunset

And I have to equally thank my amazing friends Alexa and Brea for taking care of and loving Rowan while we were busy at the hospital. They took over entirely to make sure that I had no stress regarding his care. They are amazing! I was so excited for Rowan to come visit that night. He didn't care too much about us or the baby because he was busy playing and running around the room, but it was still nice for us to all be together for a little bit. He held Boden for a few seconds and then got to give us goodnight kisses before bed. I had no stress about him which was amazing.

 The next day they did his newborn screen and bili testing. Everything came back great and we were discharged around 3pm. Not only did I deliver the day I wanted to, it was also at a great time!

Check out the adorable outfit that Grant's mom made for him. I saw one on Etsy that I liked but it was like $60 and I didn't want to pay that crazy amount for an infant outfit, so ordered some fabric and she totally delivered on an awesome little going home outfit.

I am beyond grateful for how well everything went. This pregnancy had it's ups and downs with my heart issues, threatening to make me deliver off island, etc., but in the end it couldn't have gone smoother. So grateful for this amazing experience and this special little boy who fits in perfectly to our family! I'm definitely feeling outnumbered now :)

And...believe it or not, this really is the abridged version ;)