Noah's birth story

Noah is finally napping after a rough night of refusing to eat, so I'm taking a few moments to document his birth. It's already becoming a blur, and I would like to remember to THINK TWICE before I ever consider doing this again!

The weekend before, I had literally put the finishing touches on the baby's room, walked into the bathroom, and discovered I had lost my mucus plug (if you don't know what that is... you don't want to know).

Tuesday rolls around and my doctor insists I go in for a last minute check up for some spotting. Everything looks normal and she sends me home. Wednesday rolls around, I have some more spotting, and they again insist on me going in. This time though, the doctor reports I've progressed to 3 cm, but vaguely tells me I could be like this for another week.

I go home happy that I'm already 3 cm without having to feel any pain, we decide to skip small group to get some rest... and ended up going to BJ's for dinner. I half joke to Terah that this could be my last supper. I had been feeling mildly painful contractions all afternoon, and we gleefully sit at the bar while I eat my cobb salad and Terah times my contractions at 8-10 minutes apart with his ipod. We go home, and this was my state of mind:



Can't you tell I'm so mentally prepared? Midnight hits, and the contractions start hurting a LOT. By 3am, it finally hits me that we're going to the hospital TONIGHT. Terah starts frantically packing the rest of our things, and by the time we leave home at 4am, my contractions were 4 min apart and I was crying out in pain.

Nothing prepares you for the kind of long, hard pain you feel that radiates from your abdomen, down your legs and back, and lasts for what seems like eternity. Walking from the car to the hospital in between contractions was sheer torture, and by the time I was led to a hospital bed, I was leaning on all fours on the bed, 5 cm dilated, and totally losing it.

Thank you modern medicine, I am now officially the number one fan of an epidural. They tell you to wait on getting an epidural with your first baby until you're 5-6 cm because it may slow down labor, but as I was screaming in pain, it occurred to me, why do I care if labor lasts longer, as long as I don't have to feel any more pain?? Brilliant logic. Before Terah could even return from parking the car, I had already told the nurse to get that epidural sucker stuck in my back ASAP.

I doze in bed from 5-7am, and then the nurse reports the shocking news that I had reached 10 cm. Guess the epidural didn't slow down nothing. I had dilated so quickly they had me wait to push until all my antibiotics were administered. At 8:15, I'm ordered to start pushing. In the movies pushing always lasts minutes, but I seemed to have missed the memo that it can actually last HOURS.

At 9:50am Noah arrives! The doctor calmly mentions, "oh he has two necklaces on!" I thought that was a strange comment, until she later tells us he came out with the umbilical cord wrapped twice around his neck. It was probably like that for awhile, but didn't seem to bother him in the belly. Hot dang! Way to make a dramatic entrance into the world Noah...