Evan's Birth Story

I'm setting out to write this in its entirety but a certain little man may not let me - so here goes while he is napping.

June 2nd, 2009

After a day of feeling kind of off physically, as if gravity was just pulling my belly towards the ground, I decided labor may be a possibility in the next few days. So when deciding what to have for dinner I thought we'd test out the theory that spicy food can bring on labor. I thought BW3's hot chicken wings sounded pretty good.

I actually had the medium wings and one of Todd's hot wings. The medium are pretty spicy though. After that we went to Target and walked around for about 5 minutes before I decided I didn't feel very well so we headed home. I went to bed when we got home at about 10:00pm.

June 3, 2009

At about 1:45am my water broke. Some people say it's a trickle - not like in the movies where it gushes. Well I'm here to tell you it gushes.

There was no question I would be having my baby today!

I woke Todd up immediately. I think he said "you're kidding" but I can't be positive. He quickly dressed and ran around the house packing up the few things that we had left to get ready. I was really excited at this point to get the show on the road.

At about 2:00am we were on our way (after I insisted Todd take my last belly shot, albeit hard to tell in my giant t-shirt).

I checked in and was sent to triage. A couple of nurses hooked me up to a fetal heart monitor and asked me about a hundred questions. They checked my dilation and I was still 2cm. Then the great fun of starting an i.v. The size of the needles they were using were like garden hoses. I swear. They tried to get a couple of veins in my arm but one vein rolled and the other was dry. The only alternative was the hand and thank goodness they switched to a somewhat smaller needle. At this point I started to feel minor contractions. They were relatively mild, maybe 6 or 7 minutes apart.

After triage I was sent to my labor and delivery room. They said I could have my epidural as soon as I wanted it so I told them to go ahead and do it. I started to feel the real deal contractions and decided they didn't seem like too much fun.

To my surprise the epidural was not as bad as I expected. I felt a small pinch in my back from the local but other than that I felt nothing.

So once that was in place it was just on to waiting to see if I dilated at a reasonable pace. I called my parents and let them know what was going on. My brother was already in the waiting room since I called him on our way to the hospital.

At around 7:30am they started me on Pitocin to get things moving. I had only dilated to 3cm.

At 9:00am I quickly progressed to 7cm and Evans head was really far down. The nurse told me it was about time to push. No matter how many times I had imagined hearing those words over the last 9-1/2 months, nothing really prepared me for how they would make me feel. Knowing that in a few short minutes I would actually push a little person into the world I was incredibly scared and excited but most of all I wanted it to be over with and I wanted them to hand me my baby.

It actually wasn't until about 10:50am that they said I was 10 cm and I started pushing.

It was the hardest thing I've ever had to do in my life. I was already tired from being up all night and I was feeling a lot of pain from the contractions which made me miserable. Even with the epidural I could feel the contractions and the pressure. They just block out the sharp pains. I really wish I'd known this to prepare me.

After nearly 40 minutes I had made a small amount of progress. At this point the doctor came in and it was go time. No more fooling around I was getting this baby out! The next twenty minutes I channeled something in me that I'm sure could only be summoned in a situation like this. It was an indescribable feeling.

As was the first time I saw him.

He's a beautiful perfect 7 pound 8 ounce boy. It was absolute love at first sight. I took one look at Todd and one look at our little Evan and knew every second of pain was worth it.

I held him for about a minute and then I had to give him up so they could weigh him and do the Apgar test.

They handed him to Todd and seeing him hold him for the first time is something that I'll never forget - what a beautiful moment.

I loved this moment too, so even though I was being tended to by the doctor and about 5 spectators I told Todd to hand over the camera. He's all - "hey you, you're awesome" in this picture.

After I was all taken care of and put back together I invited my family to come meet Evan. Another amazing moment. My poor mom has pneumonia but by God she wasn't missing this!So in about 10 hours we had our little family. I love so much about Evan already. I'll be posting more pics soon!