It's Baby Time!

We had a baby! What?!

Ready for the birth story? Here it is. The condensed version. The long version was 20 pages long in my journal. I don't think I want to type that much.

Tuesday, July 15, 2014 I went to work like every other day. That night I went to dinner with my two friends Ashley and Cassie. We wanted to have a girls night before the wee one arrived.
We hung out at the restaurant until 10:30 pm. I got home around 11:00 pm ,went to bed. Adam came home from work around 12:00 am. Then we both went to sleep.

Wednesday, July 16, 2014 at 1:00 am I started having contractions. I tried to sleep through them but it wasn't happening. So I grabbed my phone and started timing my contractions. There was no regular pattern to them. 10 minutes here, nine minutes there, seven minutes another time. I didn't want to bother Adam since he had just gotten home from work, so I began packing our hospital bag. In a half sleep state Adam questioned what I was doing. I informed him I was in labor and was packing the hospital bag. At around 3:00 am, he too was awake helping me pack for the hospital.

We both returned to bed, I continued having irregular contractions, but still couldn't sleep. I kept thinking about everything I was leaving unfinished at work. I decided to start sending out emails to my cowokers and managers to let them know I was officially starting my leave and informing them of what I had left undone and what patients needed follow up. With work finally complete, around 7:00 am I informed Adam I was no longer able to handle contractions on my own and needed his assistance. I was having really bad back labor although baby was not posterior. So I labored on and on and on.

My contractions still didn't settle into a good rhythm. Adam informed me I needed to walk around to get my contractions more regular, so I started walking laps around the house. Did I mention it was raining outside? It was, which is why I made a million circles around my dining table.

Labor. Labor. Labor.

6:30 pm my contractions had become more regular. For the past 2 hours they were any where from 3 to 5 minutes apart. So I called my midwife. She asked me a few questions regarding my labor and then let me decide if I wanted to go to the hospital. I decided yes, go to the hospital.

We made our way to the hospital. My midwife Cindy came to check my progress. I was almost 6 cm dilated. Remember resident from my previous post? He had shown up while I was in triage. He remembered Adam and I and I remembered him all too well. He didn't really have too much of a purpose when he stopped in to see me. However, he did step into my little basin of vomit that was sitting on the floor. I chuckled to myself and thought, "that's for being an idiot with the ultrasound machine!"

Around 8:00 pm I was finally admitted and wheeled off to the Alternative Birthing Center. It's connected to the hospital but is not a traditional labor and delivery room. It has a large queen sized bed and a nice jetted tub. Although, it does have all of the labor and delivery amenities that one would need in the event of an emergency.

More labor. On the bed. In the tub. With a birthing ball. Walking down the hallway.

My midwife Cindy checked my progress. My bag of waters was "bulging". She suggested we get things going by rupturing it. I eventually agreed to this. I was tired and wanted things to be over.

More labor. By 11:00 pm my midwife checked my progress. I was at 10 cm with a slight cervical lip. She suggested more tub time to help things along. I agreed to this.

I spent close to an hour in the tub having intense contractions and involuntarily bearing down. I finally felt like I was ready to push.

Thursday, July 17, 2014 at 12:00 am, I got out of the tub and onto the bed. Cindy, my ABC nurse Michelle and Adam all took their positions around me.

I pushed and pushed and pushed for almost two hours until I felt like I had nothing left in me.

Finally, at 1:57 am, out emerged my beautiful Maxwell Santiago Taylor! They placed him on my chest and he I and began bonding! He was beautiful with a full head of hair!

We spent some time skin-to-skin bonding our little hearts out with Adam right next to us.

3:30 am I finally got cleaned up and ate a turkey sandwich.

Then came the stats for our little man. He weighed in at a whopping 9 lbs. 1 oz. and 21 inches long.

7:30 am when we were transferred to our recovery room where we hung out until Saturday, July 19, 2014.

First photo of Maxwell

His first bath, which he hated

"Imagine you're weightless, in the middle of the ocean, surrounded by tiny little sea horses"

Going home. Tiny baby in a large car seat 

I guess we never got a "family photo" at the hospital. Slackers! Also, I did say this was the short version, which it doesn't seem like, but it is. I left out most of the details.

Hope you enjoyed the story of the arrival of our little guy! 

Playing Catch Up

So, let's get up to speed. Where did I even leave off?? Last I remember I was 34 weeks pregnant and had just had my first baby shower.

Since then we hit up Gaspee Days for the third year in a row. We had to ditch out early on the events due to my new rocker being delivered.

A week later my work team hosted my second baby shower. They were crazy generous! My team had all gone in on my dream stroller, Baby Jogger City Mini GT. She's a real beauty! Not only did they get me a beautiful stroller, they still all bought individual gifts as well. It was an awesome night with my fabulous coworkers. 

A few weeks later it was discovered that I had a breech baby. Lame. I was given a week to try "natural remedies" to have him turn head down. I tired chiropractic adjustments, acupuncture, reflexology, moxabustion, various exercises (most of which had me on my hands and knees with my butt in the air). I even went as far as lying upside down on my ironing board which was resting on the couch. My favorite method was swimming. Not just swimming, but hand stands in the pool. At my work party. I was a pretty hilarious sight. I made a spectacle of myself swimming alone. I was desperate to turn my baby. 

Sadly, my "natural remedies" failed me and I ended up at the hospital needing an external cephalic version. It sucked. But it worked. 

I showed up at the hospital, they monitored baby for 30 minutes. I waited for the doctor to arrive. Doctor showed up along with a resident. Doctor explained how he would be turning baby from head up to head down. I held Adam's hand and the doctor went to work manually pushing baby from head up to head down. It was uncomfortable to say the least. There was one point were doctor was trying to get a good look at baby midway through the turn to make sure all was well. Resident, who was operating the ultrasound machine was struggling to get the contrast on the ultrasound where doctor could see baby. Doctor was trying to tell resident how to adjust the contrast while holding baby in a very awkward, uncomfortable position. Doctor was getting frustrated. I was starting to panic (due to the pain) and resident continued to be an idiot. Doctor finally gave up on resident and continued without the ultrasound. When it was all finished, I was shaking like crazy (partially from the injection they had previously given me to relax my uterus and partially from my emotions). I started crying. Doctor was trying to reassure me that all was well, but I couldn't focus on what he was saying. 

After another 30 minutes of monitoring baby to ensure he had handled the procedure well and was not in distress, it was time to leave the hospital with a baby in the correct position. Yeah!

Which then leads me to my 38 week belly shot. Taken on July 7, 2014. Little did I know, baby boy would be born in 10 days. More of that to come.