Samuel’s Birth Story–Part 1

 

DRIVING TO MOM AND DADS

*This post contains graphic content which includes talk of all things birth related. Please feel free to scroll down to look at any pictures and skip out on the details if you are squeamish!

I have to be honest, I LOVED reading birth stories whenever I was pregnant. It fascinated me that every woman’s tale into motherhood could be so different. It’s such an important day in your life. One that changes you from being just a regular girl, to a mother. It was certainly the biggest day of my life to date, the day I met my son and I certainly want to remember that day for the rest of my life.

I have to take you back to Wednesday, April 2, 2014. I had been planning for over a week to head to the city that day to use a pedicure gift certificate and pick up stuff for Easter. I knew that it could be “any day” that I could have the baby but I woke up that Wednesday feeling great!

2 days shy of 39 weeks!

I took the hour long trip to the city and enjoyed a leisurely pedicure! I told the lady doing my nails to hit all the labour inducing pressure points hard! She just laughed and tried her best.

Later I joined my mom for lunch and then we walked around Wal-Mart for an hour picking up Easter essentials! I wanted to make sure I had everything I needed for Easter in case the baby came before!

As with any big event during the last stage of my pregnancy, I was feeling SO tired by the time I got home! After my big lunch, I didn’t even cook supper and just spent the rest of the evening relaxing.

Ryan had been sleeping in the spare bedroom all week because he had an awful cold that was making his snoring SO bad! So, as I went to bed I comfortably sprawled out into my king size bed to watch T.V. Around 10 PM my dog Tucker starting barking like crazy, which is very much out of character of him unless we have visitors. I sprung out of bed to look out the window and no body was there. I couldn’t calm Tucker down and I eventually called for Ryan. I made Ryan check the whole house for intruders as I was convince Tuckers amazing puppy hearing was saving us from a serial killer (too much Criminal Minds).

Of course, there was no one in the house so we all went back to sleep. After all of my activity that day, I slept hard! Throughout my sleep I could remember having a sore tummy but in my deep and drowsy sleep I ignored the pains and thought it was just gas.

I was finally awake enough around 1 AM to realize these pains were kind of regular so I began timing them in the dark with my phone. I did this for a little over an hour. The pains were uncomfortable but very manageable. The pains were coming about every 10 minutes apart and lasting for 45 seconds each. I was convinced this was false labour but I was excited that it also meant things could happen any day!

I crawled out of bed around 2:30 AM to use the bathroom. As I wiped, I realized that this may not be false labour after all because there was my bloody show. I have to admit, I smiled when I saw this tell-tale sign! Things were happening!

I calmly walked (aka waddled) into the spare bedroom to let Ryan know what was going on! As usual, waking up Ryan is a chore, the man sleeps SO deeply! When I was confident that he was coherent I said, “Don’t get excited babe but I think I’m in labour.”

What did Ryan do? He mumbled something and feel back asleep. Geesh!

So, I proceeded to try to wake him again and finally after telling him the news again he said, “Oh..ok! What do we do now?”

I told Ryan to go back to sleep and wake up when his alarm goes off and we’ll decide what to do from there.

I waddled down to the basement to relax, watch T.V and time contractions. 2 hours passed in no time and I could hear Ryan coming down the stairs. Ryan had been tasked to drive a tractor trailer to the city that day. We had a hard time deciding what to do. Contractions were still only 10-8 minutes apart but lasting longer. I was worried if I told Ryan to stay home and it was a false alarm, I would be very embarrassed. We called our manger, Pat for some advice and immediately he told Ryan to stay with me and not go into work.

I sent Ryan back to bed for a few more hours of sleep and I tried sleeping in between contractions. We finally woke up around 6-6:30 to clean up the house and get out of there. Every Thursday someone comes to clean our house and I wanted to proceed with the day as normal. I didn’t want many people knowing what was going on in case it was false labour. So, we packed up all of our stuff (just in case) and headed to my parents house to camp out.

It’s a very short drive to my parents house. We are talking about 1-2 minutes, tops! We pulled out onto the dirt road that lead us to my parents. Within 30 seconds a car was making headway from out of no where and starting tailgating us. Ryan continued to drive up the road and this brave young driver started to try to pass us. Ryan’s face instantly went red and he drove in the centre of the road before proceeding to slam on the breaks. He got out of the car, walked up to the young man’s window and starting saying a lot of curse words. I honestly didn’t know what was happening because I was having a contraction while the other car was trying to pass us. When Ryan finally settled down I couldn’t help but giggle at the thought of me in labour in the front seat while my husband was getting into a confrontation with another vehicle in the middle of no where!

By the time we arrived safely to my parents contractions were coming every 7-8 minutes apart. We relaxed at their place, had some Eggo waffles and waited for 8 AM, the time I had decided to page the doctor.

I had a doctors appointment scheduled for that morning and I wasn’t sure if I should go to it. When the doctor called us back he told me to come ahead to my appointment to get checked out. If it was real labour he would be able to tell.

I kissed my parents good bye and off Ryan and I went to my appointment. I sat in the waiting room for almost 30 minutes making small talk with other patients and grinding my teeth through contractors so that people wouldn’t know what was happening (small town problems).

I finally got called in and the intern working with our doctor started the appointment. At one point during the chit chat portion, I stopped talking and just danced in the room through a contraction. The interns eyes lit up and asked, “Are you in labour?”

I was kind of snotty when I replied, “Well, that’s kind of what I’m here to find out!”

Our doctor walked in at that point, waited for another contraction to be over and checked my cervix to see if I had progressed any from the week before (2 cm, 90% effaced). The doctor calmly started removing his gloves, helped me up from the exam table and said, “Well, I hope you brought your bags. You are 5 cm dilated and you need to go to the hospital.”

Stay tuned for Part 2!