Birth story

Atticus joined our family on November 22, 2013. 

I was 38 weeks and 5 days pregnant and at this time we were going to the doctor every week. I had an appointment early on the 21st with a doctor other than my own. My doctor was on service at the hospital so we had talked the previous week about stripping my membranes if I wasn't having contractions or progressing. So once we got to the doctors, the new doctor asked if that was something I still wanted to do and I said yes. She told us that it wouldn't necessarily put me into labor but might start the contractions.

After the doctors appointment, I went about my day and ran some errands while Adam slept. He had worked the night before and was supposed to work that night. I came home and asked Adam to help me make dinner. At this point in my pregnancy it was hard to stand for a long time. We sat down and was watching Who Wants to be a Millionaire. Adam finished his dinner and started getting ready for work. He had showered and was doing a treatment and I finished the show and stood up to put my dishes away.

That is when our lives would never be the same again. As I stood up, I felt a gush and thought maybe I had peed my pants or my water had just broke. I didn't say anything to Adam and went to the bathroom. To my surprise, it was my water that had broke because I kept leaking. I walked into our bedroom with a towel between my legs and Adam looked up and gave me a funny look. I proceeded to tell him that I was pretty sure that my water broke. He was still doing his treatment at this time and said, "are you kidding me?"

Earlier that day, Adam had said it would be really inconvenient if he let him sleep but decided to come while doing his treatment. So of course that is when Atticus thought would be the best time to come. Adam asked if he had time to finish his treatment because he wouldn't be any good to me if he couldn't breathe. I told him that he did have time because I wasn't contracting at this time. I was standing by our bed, laughing. I don't know why I was laughing. I think I was shocked that I was in labor and kept saying, "we are having a baby" or "is this really happening right now?"

After Adam was finished, we headed to the hospital. I was really glad that Adam was still home and hadn't left to work yet. Although, our nice friend, Leah had offered to take me to the hospital if Adam was at work, earlier that day when I told her about my appointment. At this point I was contracting and they seemed to be pretty close together. Once we got to the hospital, we went to the OB triage to make sure I was in labor. The doctor came in at 9:00 pm to check me and she confirmed that my water had broken and I was dilated to a 2 and 1/2. I had been dilated to a 1 that morning.

We were then moved to labor and delivery and called our parents to let them know that we were having a baby some time in the next several hours. My mom and mother-in-law stayed in the room with us to help out in case Adam got tired and needed a break. I was trying hard to have Atticus naturally and I was able to labor on my own for about 4 hours but I couldn't handle the pain and was so uncomfortable that I didn't want to move around and do any of the positions we learned about our birthing class. At 11:30, the doctor checked me again and I was at 4 cm and at midnight, I got my epidural. Now to me the epidural didn't do a lot. It seemed to work for what seemed like 5 minutes and then I was in pain again. I wasn't feeling pain in my uterus but I was having a lot of pain in my legs. I couldn't relax and was really frustrated because I thought that is what the epidural was supposed to do. The anesthesiologist  had to keep coming in to re-dose and give me more medication.

Anyway, at 1 am, they checked me again and I was at 8 cm. So at this point, I was kind of bummed that I had gotten the epidural. I progressed quickly and kept telling my wonderful nurse that I felt like I need to push. She was in the room every 15 minutes to check me because I kept feeling pressure. I was at a 9 and 1/2 for a while and they told us that they could feel a lot of hair on his head. At 3:30 am, I was at 10 cm and ready to start pushing. I pushed for an hour and I don't remember much about it. I remember the first several pushes but after awhile my eyes were closed and I could hear people telling me to push.

At one point, the doctors were worried about his heart rate because it had dropped so they told me that I had to deliver him quickly. So they told me to keep pushing even though I wasn't contracting. I am not even sure how I kept doing this because I don't remember having contractions and pushing at all. I almost felt like I blacked out for the last part of the delivery. I did open my eyes a couple times to see if my doctor had showed up yet. Remember earlier in the story when I said she was on service? We were really excited that she would be there for the delivery and had even joked about me hopefully going in to labor that week.

At 4:53 am, our little miracle came into our lives. I was not able to hold him right away because of his heart rate. I finally got to hold him and it didn't feel real that this little sweetie was ours. After holding him, Adam had to take him back because I was bleeding a little more than they wanted and they had to repair my tear. They took Atticus to the nursery on the post partum floor so they could focus on me. Adam came back with a scared look on his face and I was worried that something happened to Atticus but he said that he was worried about me.

We moved over to the post partum unit around 7:30 or so. We had such wonderful care on both units but it was so nice to be on post partum because I knew most of the nurses and CNAs. I will never forget all of the amazing care and love that we got from each and every one of them. Thank you so much to all of the staff that took care of us.

It certainly has been an adjustment to having this little life to take care of but I love every minute of it. I love seeing Adam play with his son and how cute he is with Atticus. I can't imagine my life without either one of them. I will end this with some pictures because how can I not? He is just so cute and I want to show him off to everyone. =)