I warn you, the following is a very long recount of Crew's birth. I just wanted to make sure I wrote down every detail here in our family journal before I forgot any of it. So if you don't like long stories, you can just skip to the pictures at the end. Otherwise, here is the story of his birth:
For the past few weeks I had been doing a lot of bouncing on my exercise ball and trying to do a lot more walking. I really wanted to go into labor on my own, without getting my membranes stripped or being induced. On Friday, Halloween, Jon and I went with Sessely and Chance to take Britian and Laykin trick-or-treating. We walked up and down the streets and hills near their neighborhood. It was a lot of walking so I was feeling pretty tired by the end of the night-which was good! The next morning, Saturday, when I woke up I noticed I was spotting. I called the nurse on call who said to just keep an eye on it because it was probably just due to my recent doctors exam a couple days before. I was also feeling a little bit of cramping but it was so small I didn't think anything of it. I kept feeling the cramping occasionally throughout the day, but it just felt like menstrual cramps so I just ignored it. My sister, Jasmine, took me out to lunch at Red Robin for my birthday which was the next day. I met her at the restaurant and Jon, who came with me just in case anything happened (it made me feel better) hung out at the food court doing homework while Jas and I were in the restaurant. After that I went over to my parent's house because I was bored and Jon was busy at home doing homework so I didn't want to distract him. I sat down for an hour or two and watched TV and the cramping seemed to go away. Then my mom came home (she had been at a baptism) and I told her I wanted to run errands with her and do a lot of walking, just in case this turned out to be more that I thought it was. So we got out of the house, fed the neighbor's chickens, and went to Baby's R Us and Burlington Coat Factory to look around for any last minute things we might need for the baby. I snapped this lovely picture of the mountains from the parking lot of Baby's R Us. It was such a beautiful evening!
The cramping started getting a little stronger and hurting more, but at the same time, it was nothing like how contractions had been described to me by tons of women and nurses so I didn't really think I was necessarily in labor, although they were coming in waves. We decided to run one more errand to Walmart. Walking around Walmart they were getting even worse. It started getting to the point where I would have to stop walking whenever I would feel the pain. By the time we were finished I kept having to stop more and more often. My mom made me go sit on a bench in the front of the store while she waited in the check out line. Sitting helped a little but there were still a couple strong ones. One time I was sitting there, probably making a face, trying to breathe through the pain, and a lady passed by and asked if I was okay. Obviously I wasn't hiding it that well. Then another pregnant woman came and sat next to me. She was having really bad Braxton Hicks and needed to sit down and rest. She wasn't due for another 2 months, but it was her second baby. She was very sweet and helped distract me from the pain. When my mom finished at the check out we quickly sped back to my parent's house. I texted Jon to let him know that the cramps were hurting a lot more but I still didn't think they were contractions so just to keep doing homework for now. My dad was a saint and went and got me a great big double cheeseburger meal from Wendy's. I gobbled it up right away! While my dad was getting the food and my mom was putting away the groceries, I sat in the living room with my little brother, Brigham, watching "The Fugitive." Every time I got a contraction I started breathing really deeply and Brigham would stop and stare at me, all terrified, which made me laugh really hard. The pains were getting noticeably closer and closer together and my parents started timing them. They were coming every 2-3 minutes and lasting about 40 seconds each. They both thought I should go to the hospital but I didn't want to go in only to be sent back home so I procrastinated some more. I texted Sessely who came over right away. She was so excited! I have to admit, her excitement was contagious and it finally started to hit me that I was probably in labor! So I decided to finally head to the hospital. Sessely snapped this last pregnant picture of me in between contractions at my parents.
Sessely and Brigham went over to my apartment and picked up Jon (because I had taken the car to go to my parent's house) and the hospital bags. Jon and my Dad gave me a blessing which I am sad to say I don't remember much of because I got a contraction right in the middle of it.
After that, Jon and I left for the hospital. I did have to ask him to drive slowly over any bumps in the road because those extra bounces and jars were not helpful during contractions. When we got there, the security guard sent us right upstairs, and we shared the elevator with a man who was there because his wife had just had their second baby. He was nice enough to let us go the the 5th floor first even though he only had to go to the 4th floor. When we got to the 5th floor, the lady at the desk couldn't find our information in the system even though I had already preregistered a month beforehand, so she had to ask us a bunch of questions but luckily I only had one contraction during all of that and she was patient enough to wait until I was done before leading us to our room. From there, things kind of took off! Our nurse came in and checked me right away. I was at 6 cm. She said, "Oh, it looks like you aren't going anywhere! He's definitely coming!"
I texted Sessely and my parents and Sessely came right down. She was so quick, we didn't even have a code to give her when she came so that she could get past the front desk! Luckily they let her in. There must have been a miscommunication with the nurses after that, because they came in at one point and mentioned that I had mentioned that I felt that my pain was at a 10, which I had never said (Jon, Sessely, and I all exchanged confused looks, but none of us said anything). So the nurses were in a pretty big hurry to give me the epidural. They asked if I wanted it, and I said probably, but I wasn't one hundred percent sure. Well all they must have heard was the "probably" part because 5 minutes later someone came in to give me the epidural. I think that was probably the worst part of the whole experience. Mostly because I was contracting while he was trying to tell me how to position myself and so I was going really slow and he got impatient and practically picked me up and moved me himself which really hurt on top of the contraction. He wasn't the nicest anesthesiologist, either. He sprayed something freezing cold on my back and when I jumped a little because of how cold it was, he got all on my case about how that wasn't even the bad part and acted all annoyed because I jumped. I really didn't like him very much and after he left I started crying because of it. But luckily for me, I only felt one more contraction after the epidural, and the rest of the labor was smooth sailing!
Everyone kept telling me I should hurry and get some sleep while we waited for me to dialate more, but I was too excited and I felt wide awake! So instead we talked and tried to watch Netflix (the hospital has pretty slow internet). I was lucky and got Dr. Dabling as my delivery Doctor. The OBGYN where I went during my pregnancy has a whole team of Doctors that see you, not just one. And when you deliver, whatever Doctor is on call is the one who will deliver your baby. Most of the doctors are male, which is why we were really surprised that we got one of the only female doctors. She came in after a little while and broke my water. I had never met her before but she was great! So nice and answered all my questions and kept me informed on everything that was happening. Finally the nurse came in and said it was time to start pushing! I only pushed a few times and then she went to go get the doctor. When the doctor came. they put me on oxygen because the baby's heartbeat was dropping, and that worked for a while. The doctor told me that the baby had pooped and might have some of it in his mouth and nose so they got a two nurses from the NICU to be there to help get him breathing when he came out, just in case. I pushed for a total of 25 minutes. Towards the end, his heart rate was dropping again and my contractions weren't coming close enough together so the doctor just had me push between contractions too. He was out 2 pushes later. The doctor said that he probably wouldn't cry when he first came out, but that I shouldn't worry because they had the NICU people there, but he came out and started crying a few seconds later, no problem! He is the sweetest and most perfect baby and I feel like he has a little helpful, cooperative, kind personality for us, which makes it so much easier to stay up all night with him! We love our little guy!
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| NICU Nurses. |
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| The White Board from the Delivery Room |
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| The Room we stayed in. |
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| The White Board from the Room We Stayed in. Did I mention he was born on my Birthday? All the hospital staff was super excited about it. Even the room service staff brought us a birthday card. |
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| Family Hospital Tags. |
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| Going Home. |
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