This post has been in the making for about 10 weeks. Yeah my little guy is 3 months old. Crazy. The story you've been waiting for (or maybe not?). What had happened was...
The morning of the 15th I got makenzie on the bus in our usual fashion, slower than pond water. My neighbor suggested wawa coffee, I obliged and went with her. I ran (waddled) to the house for some money and I had to blow my nose. I blew my nose and wouldn't you know I "peed" my pants (clueless at this point). Changed clothes and headed to wawa. Around 2 that afternoon I blew my nose again and there I went again, I had survived the entire 9 months without losing bladder control and twice in one day?!? What? So, I then start to think back on my day and realized baby D had not moved in about 2 hours.. He usually moved constantly. I started to go into panic mode thinking maybe my water broke and I didn't realize and now there no fluid that's why he stopped moving. I call the doc and she says to head over to the hospital to get the baby's heart beat and fetal movement checked out. I assuming I would be back after a quick check from the doc, head out the door... Yep drove myself.
Doors unlocked: check
Can of tomato sauce open: check
Tv still on: check
All lights on: check
Overnight bag left at the door: double check
Forget to call Husband:check and check.
I really thought I was coming back that night, the hospital had other plans. As I drove to the hospital I felt the baby move then 3 times, figures. I get there and I get put in the triage room, I tell them that I felt him move and if they could just check the heartbeat and send me home that would be great. After 2 hours of monitoring and them checking to see if my water broke the nurses came in to let me know I would be staying. Wait?!? What?? My water had broken and I guess I was having contractions about every 6-7 min? I was really clueless, I didn't even know I was having contractions.
The nurses said I should call my husband and let him know. Oh jeez! I forgot to call him. So I call drew and the conversation goes something like this..
Drew- "is it time?!? Should I come get you??"
Me- "now Drew don't be upset, but..uhhh I drove myself to the hospital"
Drew- pause for silence "well, I guess it wouldn't be our story if you didn't drive yourself. I'll be right over"
Me- "umm there's more, I left everything on at the house and the overnight bag... So we need all that stuff"
Drew- "awesome ok"
About an hour later Drew makes it to the hospital and I'm just getting into the room. Makenzie went to my neighbors house after school and her mom was returning the next day, the 16th. Talk about Gods perfect timing. Makenzie was given a chance to see her baby cousin and have her mom come home on the same day.
Since my water had broken almost 12 hrs (possibly more) earlier the midwife decided that since I had been having contractions and had not progressed they were going to use pitocin to induce. For the record that stuff is not fun. Instead of contractions lasting a minute or two I had about a 2 hour contraction from about 1am-3am. I finally asked the nurses if this was normal, apparently not! So they lowered the dose and I went back to having regular contractions. Thank the Lord! Around 5am I decided it was time for some pain meds, I had been in labor for 14 hours (that I knew about) and it was time. As I asked the nurses for the Epidural, a woman walks through the hospital doors screaming. From the time she arrived until delivery was 7 minutes, she had priority over me.
Around 8:30am I finally got the epidural, it wasn't the relief I had been expecting. I still had a lot of pain in my back. After talking with the nurses they determined I was probably having "back labor" hence the back pain.
So the next 2 hours everything was numb... Minus my back.
Now during all of this, drew was a champion coach. He really treated the whole thing like a really long endurance race. He at one point (to keep me occupied) was telling me how he felt he had been training for this for 9 months and he was on the starting line of a championship race and so excited to compete. We're runners, can you tell? He also drove to the local CVS an hour before Dathan was born to get me some jelly beans. Why I needed jelly beans I will never know? But he didn't ask questions, he just went.
Drew arrived back at the hospital just as the midwives were telling me that I could begin pushing and that our little boy could be here as soon as 30 min or as long as 3 hours.
And panic took over me. Full fledged hyperventilating panic. I wasn't ready. I thought I had a few more hours. I had stuff to do. I was not prepared. After drew calmed me down and assured me it was too late to do anything else. The nurses and midwife came back in and we began to push.
More panic... Drew and I were birthing class drop outs. Ha! I didn't know how I was supposed to breath? Drew had watched some videos but he was so excited he was having trouble explaining it to me. Lucky for us those nurses have done it thousands of times. They explained and I was back in the race, err I mean back to labor.
We started pushing at 11:10am and little Dathan was born at 11:36am on February 16th.
He was immediately put on my chest and I could see his little eyes wide open and feel his wrinkly little body moving. Drew could not see that he was alive and was waiting for Dathan to cry, like in all the movies. Drew told me later that he thought they were not telling him that something was wrong, turns out little Dathan needed some time to let us know his lungs were good to go. And did/does he ever!
It took me a few minutes to grasp that I was a mom and that little Dathan was our little boy. It honestly took about 5 minutes to get through the shock of what had just happened, but once I did my heart melted and I've been madly in love ever since. What an honor to be Dathan's mom.
And an honor to be Drew's wife.
