Our Birth Story and Pictures

Please tell me I'm not the only one who does this: I get started writing a blog post and before I finish it, I get distracted (there's something I want to look up, a certain picture I want to find for my post, or there's Pinterest...) and then I don't manage to get back to my post that day.  The one day turns into a couple and before I know it, a few weeks or even a month has gone by and at that point it's just embarrassing to post that one update that is now so old.

I usually don't end up finishing or posting it at that point.  This one is a different matter.  I had planned on posting Liam's birth story while we were all still in the hospital, but well, I didn't finish writing it...

Who's Liam you ask?  Oh yeah.  I had a baby.  In October.  So I'm finally getting around to finishing that post.  Who knows - maybe I'll go back and finish all of the dusty, half-written posts sitting in my drafts folder.  Probably not, but you never know.  :)

For those of you who came here solely for the pictures, scroll down to the bottom.  And now for the story...

Our Birth Story

Let me start by saying that when I was pregnant, 1) I was probably *a little* crazy, and 2) I figured that I would probably go past my due date, so I planned to stay as busy as I could to either induce labor or forget that I was over due.

Not 24 hrs before Liam was born.  We might be a little crazy...

On Friday (Oct. 12) I managed to keep myself pretty busy, putting the finishing touches on some upholstery and design work I was doing for a client.  Ben and I figured it would be our last real date night for a while, so we got dressed up and went to see a friend (and his art) at a gallery awards reception.  When we got home it was still fairly early so we decided to watch a movie.  I started having contractions during the movie, but they were so irregular (and honestly didn't hurt as bad as I thought contractions were supposed to hurt) that I didn't even tell Ben until a few hrs later when they seemed to pick up a bit.

We hurried and packed all the last minute stuff in my hospital bag, just in case, and went to bed (it was about 1am).  I tried to sleep, but that didn't work for very long, so I woke up Ben (about 3:30am) and we started timing the contractions. They were getting longer and closer together until about 5am, when they sort of stopped so we went back to bed and I was able to sleep, uninterrupted, for 3 hrs. When I woke up the second time, things picked up right where they left off with much stronger contractions (some lasting over a minute).

Just before 10am, I felt like I had to go to the bathroom and I made it to the toilet where my water broke (no mess - yay!). I then took a nice long, hot shower. The contractions were right on top of each other at this point, but they were shorter than they had been earlier. I kept telling myself I had plenty of time.  Pretty soon though, I started feeling a lot of pressure and an urge to push, so we jumped in the car and hurried over to the hospital.   Luckily it's only 2 blocks away - I don't know if I would have waited so long otherwise. We got there at about 12:30pm and I was rushed upstairs in a wheelchair. I was completely effaced and dilated to a 5 (at first they thought it was a 7).

The rest is really a blur to me, but I labored for a little while in the bed (so they could get their 20 min. of fetal monitoring) and on the ball (the ball was amazing!) while the nurse tried to ask me questions between contractions. Ben was a champ though and took care of all of them, and pretty soon I was [really] ready to push. I think I ended up pushing for an hour and it definitely wasn't fun, but I was able to actually sleep between pushing contractions. After what seemed like forever, he crowned and then Ben got to catch him!

They put him on my chest immediately and everything seemed to stand still.  Such a perfect little person.  He started nursing right away and I don't know what to say other than that it was truly amazing.

It really was such an amazing experience for both Ben and I.  I'm so glad we took the Bradley classes and took time to prepare for a natural, drug-free childbirth.  We worked hard and it was everything I could have hoped for - honestly better than I expected even!

Liam Edward arrived at 2:49pm on October 13.  He weighed 8 lbs 7 oz and was 21.5 inches long.  He's such a happy little guy and is just full of smiles.  Currently, he loves reading books with Daddy (A Christmas Carol anyone?) and playing the piano with Mommy.  He's also a great sleeper.  And did I mention that he's positively adorable?  See for yourself...