On December 5th we welcomed our little Santa Baby into the world. His birth and labor was insane even for me. The day before he was born he wasn’t head down. My blood pressure was okay. I hadn’t dilated any further. We agreed that induction was definitely unnecessary and to wait out externally attempting to spin him. I left that appointment with a gut feeling that Granger wouldn’t be here before Christmas. I let my guard down and stopped thinking into all of my regular contractions and labor scares. Fast forward to the next day. I felt odd and threw up all day but didn’t contract at all. I just didn’t have any energy or an appetite. I didn’t clean my house. Didn’t shave my legs for once. Didn’t think one time ‘wonder if today is the day’. At 3:30 pm I had my first contraction. It was significantly stronger than the contraction from the weeks of prodromal labor that I was used to. The next contraction came 3 minutes later. And the next 2 minutes later. I instantly began to contract every 1-3 minutes. At 3:49 pm I called my husband and told him to come home right away. We ran our toddler to my grandma’s house and made it to the hospital by 4:30 pm. I was 6 cm dilated when we got there and he was HEAD DOWN! though the contractions were back to back and strong, they were only lasting 30-40 seconds. I just knew that there was no way that those types of contractions would dilate me quickly and I 100% expected to have a stalled labor. We left our home so quickly that we didn’t get all of the bags so once I assessed that I’d probably be in labor awhile I had my mom run home to get our stuff. She was gone 20 minutes when the OB came in. We discussed the options as far as breaking my water or just letting things happen on their own. I wanted to make that choice based on if I was dilated any more. Expecting to still be a 6, I figured that we’d just labor without breaking my water. For me once it’s broke the pain kicks in massively and my babies come within 20 minutes but since I wasn’t in pain yet I was worried to take the chance of putting me in pain before my body was ready. He checked and quickly said that I was an 8-9. We both agreed to break my water which was about 5 seconds of a huge relief in pressure then THE contraction happened. That notorious ‘baby just dropped into the birth canal’ transitional contraction. With that contraction my body naturally began to push. From an ‘8-9’ to crowning with two contractions and his body out with the third. It was fast. Intense. He was born at 5:19 pm, roughly 2 hours after my first labor pain. I remember roaring loudly with those 3 pushes and I remember the second that I pulled him up thinking that he was extremely tiny. He didn’t cry at first and his heart rate had shown signs of distress during the pushing stage so I was concerned but he pinked right up. He eventually cried and reached up for my face. I whispered in his ear, “Hello sweet boy. Mama loves you!’ over and over and it was perfect. Because of how quickly it all went down my mom missed his birth. My photographer missed his birth. My camera was in my bags that were left at home and my husband didn’t take pictures until right after he was born. Cell phone pictures. That’s what we got and that’s something that makes me upset but at the same time Granger’s birth was beautiful. It was exciting, drug free, and fast so the pain was very short lived. We did skin to skin for an hour after his birth and labored out my placenta on it’s own. He didn’t leave my chest for get a bath. We didn’t weigh him or measure him. We just took our time meeting one another. Aside from breaking my water, there was no medical intervention or interruptions. My parents and niece arrived shortly after he was born. My husband went to go get our bigs while my family visited. It was intimate and peaceful. He nursed well originally and was so content in my arms. Absolute heaven. Things have been bumpy since then though. I had hemorrhaging issues. He had low blood sugar and shallow latch issues. He has a temper when he’s hungry which doesn’t help the struggling latch problems. He’s very impatient ha. My toddler didn’t like him at all at first. She told me to ‘put him down and make him walk’. It was kind of unexpected because all she does is talk about him and how much she loves him. But we are adjusting. He’s latching better. The kids all 4 adore him. We are finding a better sleep routine. I’m not bleeding heavily and we got his blood sugar stable. I didn’t need stitches but because of the dramatic pushing on my stomach to try to help with the bleeding I was abnormally sore in the stomach area. I felt like a bus hit me in the guts. That’s slowly getting better though. We are so smitten with our big family and can’t believe that he’s finally here. We are so blessed!
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