The Mommy Tales: Ilish's Birth Story: Surprise at 36 Weeks

Saturday the 1st of September was like any normal day, me being very pregnant, grumpy from not sleeping well, and cursing this baby for having a whole month left! Kabe and I laid in bed for the first part of the morning, around 11am we had to be at my little cousin's baptism. The whole thing was so great and I got to hold my little one month old cousin!! He was a little chunker! After the baptism, we went to the park and ate lots of yummy food! My mom and I were talking and she had mentioned that I looked like I was carrying baby boy really low. I laughed and made a joke about how this weekend would be a good weekend to have a baby because Kabe didn't have school. (It was Labor Day on Monday, which meant no school!) I had told her that the night previous I had been having quite a bit of very close together Braxton hicks. She joked about it being a sign and that I would have the baby really soon. I laughed because I had been told so many times that I would probably go a week overdue. Kabe and I went home early because I was exhausted.

We watched a movie, and took a nap. Three hours later, it was 6pm and I didn't feel very good. So I munched on a few crackers and watched some more TV. Around 9pm is when I told Kabe that my Braxton hicks were getting more frequent. He told me I should time them. So I started writing them down.

Keeping track of my contractions

They weren't painful, just annoying. I had no idea what was happening. Everyone says, "You will know when it's time." I feel like with your first though that is a bunch of bull! I had NO idea what was going on. The contractions started to become more uncomfortable and even sometimes were hurting! Around 11:30pm, after I had had a couple of really painful ones, Kabe told me to call my midwife. So I did. But of course I got the on-call nurse. She sounded a little annoyed with me for calling her...HELLO! I think I might be in labor! I don't need attitude from you! But anyway, I called her, told her my due date (September 30) and told her that I think I might be in labor. She said, "Oh, it's just your body getting ready. Don't even worry about it. Just go take a bath, drink a quart of water, and go to sleep. You will be fine. It's your body practicing." Okay, first I hate baths. Why would you want to see yourself fat, naked, and preggo? And also why would you want to sit in your own filth? Second, I had already been drinking tons of water. It was like an addiction! Third, there was NO way I was going to be able to sleep when my life could be changing within the next day! I went and laid down while Kabe started to pack a hospital bag. We had no idea what we were doing.

My midwife only delivered at one hospital up near SLC and we lived in Provo. It was an hour drive to get there. So Kabe and I decided that we should just go to the hospital in Provo and see if anything was happening. If not, then we would drive the five minute drive home, instead of having to drive an hour to Salt Lake and an hour back. We were so excited and also nervous. We hadn't really talked about baby names seriously, or about what we would do if something went wrong. We hadn't thought much about anything at that point. We got to the hospital around 1am and were in a room by about 1:30am, at which point they checked me and I was dilated to a three and 90% effaced. We waited for an hour and I had dilated to a four, and the nurse said she could feel his head. We then decided to stay in Provo, not wanting to get in the car and drive for an hour, possibly having a baby in the car. No thank you! So we stayed.

Around 3:30am, they broke my water. And the nurses changed. Our first nurse was wonderful! She was so supportive and kind. But our second nurse was so very rude. She was freaking out as to why they would break my water and why I would even be in labor. Hello! I am laying in the bed right next to you! I can hear you! I am having a baby--I'm not deaf! But then again, Kabe and I had no idea what we were doing. It was all a blur and I wish I had known what was going on and that I had understood half the stuff they were asking me. I wish I would have wanted to wait, but I didn't. I was so very impatient. I should have had them stop the labor, but I also didn't want my poor little boy to be stuck in the birth canal for four more weeks! Also, I was throwing up. I threw up about 8 times. I think my body was in shock and unaware of what to do. I had no food to throw up, but somehow stuff was still coming. Since I was only 36 weeks along, I had to be put on a penicillin drip (I never had the strep B test done so they thought it would be better to be safe than sorry).

Around 4:30am, I got an epidural. It was one of the scariest things ever. He told me not to move, then sprayed this really really cold spray on my back. I remember being so scared, but Kabe was right there holding my hand and telling me how good I was doing! I remember being numb on just one side so they rolled me over and tried to even it out. I could feel most stuff on my right side but I was numb on my left all the way down to my toes. After getting the epidural, we decided we should call our parents and tell them that we were going to have the baby that day. It was so exciting and they all made the hour drive down at four in the morning! They came in and visited for a bit, then they all left and sat in the waiting room.

When Kabe's family came in, I was so numb. WARNING! This is the most embarrassing moment of my life. I couldn't feel anything. That means I couldn't hold anything in and apparently I was farting up a freaking storm! And the most embarrassing part was I didn't know it was me!!! I totally thought it was someone else! I even asked who was making that sound! AWKWARD. So beware and don't let your in-laws see you when you have an epidural!

At around 7:30am (the penicillin takes about four hours to get to the baby so they won't get strep B coming out of the birth canal) the nurse came in and said we were going to try a few practice pushes. She told me how to breathe and then push. We did it once, then she said, "We probably should wait until the doctor comes in to push again." I was really proud of myself. So the doctor came in around 7:45am and the first thing he said was, "Let's get this baby out, I'm ready to go home." (Um, rude! I am sitting here trying to have a baby, never mind that this is my first one!) So anyway, then he told me to do a practice push while he was getting everything ready. So I did. Then he said, "Uh, maybe you should wait to push again until I am ready to catch that little guy." I pushed three more times and the doctor told me that I needed an episiotomy. He said I could be pushing for a long time if I didn't get one, and I would probably tear anyway. So I said okay. (I totally regret this by the way!) After, with one more push, out popped my sweet tiny baby boy.

Our little newborn

He weighed 5lbs, 1oz. and was 18 inches long. He was born at 7:56am on September 2nd. They asked me if I wanted him clean before they gave him to me and I said yes (another regret) so they cleaned him off and handed him to me. I got to hold him for five seconds then the respiratory therapist came in and everyone went up to the NICU, including my sweet husband because they were worried about our baby's lungs not being developed. The doctor finished sewing me up and left. The nurse said she needed to do something and left, too. Then I was alone. No one was in there with me for five minutes. I had just had a baby and I was alone! So I cried. It was weird going from having somebody with me constantly, to completely alone. That was hard.

Kabe watching over Archer in the NICU

The doctors did some tests on our little boy then they fed him some formula to get his blood sugar levels up (low levels can cause brain damage) before I got to see him again. When they gave him to me, I finally got to give him some loves. His hat fell off and I saw his poor little head. It was bruised--almost a black bruise--and he had a severe cone head from being in the birth canal for so long. He also had a massive ridge on his head but it went down after a week or so. Kabe and I decided that we should hurry and name him so we could call him something other than "baby boy." The name we chose was Archer Ray. He was a horrible nurser, but a very sweet spirit. People say that the labor resembles the baby, and in my case it was true.

Our sweet boy with his daddy

Archer is very stubborn, persistent, and has done everything very early. He is now over a year old and, though we have had some rough patches, we would not trade him for the world!