Noah Christian has made his arrival.....

A Very QUICK one at that. Here's my Birth Story that took almost 3 weeks to write. I've back dated it though so it falls on his actual Birthday! Welcome to the World Sweet Boy! We LOVE you!

I've been reflecting a lot on the birth of my "Little Man" and I finally have a moment to sit and get it all down.

I'm not sure how much everyone knows, but since the middle of Oct I had been having Anlots of contractions & BH, as well as raised BP. My dr's were seeing me weekly and the contractions/BH, BP issues, and the fact that Sierra came early put me in their category of "Risk for Pre-Term".

I was told at my 35w appt that they thought the baby to be aprox 7lbs already. *EEK* was all I was thinking. I was hoping and praying he came around the 37.5 week mark so I wouldn't have to push out a toddler. :giggle: Time rolled by and I got through BooVille (school carnival I helped organize), and Halloween (where the walking around brought my contractions to a point
of me having to stop and breath through them), as well as the Halloween parties for the girls. Next thing I knew, we were out of the "pre-term" risk category, and into full term. WooHoo! Now baby could come at any time. I was having constant contractions that would come every 10 min apart but would taper out after a few hours.

Nov 15th...My sisters birthday. Hoping and praying that baby wouldn't come that day. My sister was in San Francisco (aprox an hour away) celebrating her birthday with friends and family. I was so not going to be that far away from the hospital. Instead, we hung close to home, finished getting the Garden and the backyard ready for winter.

Nov 16th...Brad and My 12yr Anniversary! We mostly had a chill day/cleaning up around the house. Brad took the older 2 girls on some errands to Home Depot & Lowes, and then came home and got the younger 3 (dropped off the older 2) and went to the Grocery store to pick up some things to make me dinner for our Anniversary. (He made a really good Beef Stir Fry and Rice.) While he was at the grocery store, I had (for the first time with any of my pregnancies) a “bloody show” and was having contractions every 4-5 min, but would have them for like an hour and gone for an hour, then have them for an hour. I knew at that point that baby would be coming that night or by tomorrow. It freaked me out and made me excited all in one huge range of emotions. With all my girls except Sierra, (her water leaked before hand with no contractions) I woke up with contractions and when they got close enough/painful enough I went in to the hospital. So this was an all new experience for me. I told Brad when he got home about the show and he said “cool, so I won’t have to go to work tomorrow?” I laughed and said with all that was going on, I wouldn’t feel comfortable with him going to work the next day REGARDLESS! (He works about 1-1.5hrs away from home.)

We went to bed around 11pm and my contractions had completely stopped. I was starting to think I was wrong about it “happening” tonight or tomorrow. I was however grateful that the baby at this point would not come on our Anniversary.

I woke up to this weird jolting stomach zing at 12:51am. I felt like when you wake up with diarrhea. I laid there for a minute hoping it would go away, and at 12:53 had another stomach type pain. I remember mentally thinking...”ok, ok, I’ll get up and go”. When I went to get out of bed I felt very minor leaking. I thought I was feeling things at first, and then I tried to move again. I KNEW I was NOT imagining it. I was leaking and it was a pretty good leak. I some how KNEW I couldn’t get out of bed without my water gushing. I woke Brad up, more like startled the crap out of him. Poor guy...I just kinda belted out “my water just broke”. He was out of the bed so fast. He told me not to move. He then told me to stay where I was and that we needed to call Karrie right away. I really wanted to get out of bed and into the shower, but laid there while he got the phone so I could call my sister. He insisted she be called first, and even though I was not having contractions I agreed it was probably best.

Once the call was made, I scooted myself off the bed (Thank Goodness I was facing the edge of the bed and not rolled over facing the middle...otherwise, I have no idea how I would have gotten out of bed) and remember being grateful that I had thrown a towel next to the bed a few days earlier “just in case”. Haha. At this point I felt the GUSH! I was telling Brad I NEED more towels. He brought them and then made a pathway of towels from the bed to the shower for me to walk on. That was the Worst feeling. I could feel my stomach deflating and the never ending water was freaking me out. I got to the shower and went to pull my shorts off when I noticed that my underwear were inflated like a balloon. How in the world that happened I will never know, but I am thankful for those Lane Bryant panties that I had on. I got into the shower and felt my first contraction at 1:11am. Nothing to write home about, and I didn’t get my next one till 20 min later. I stayed in the shower for about 30-40 min just enjoying the nice warm water, and also waiting for my water to stop leaking. Got out, got dressed and the contractions were still not coming very close together. I finished packing the items that I needed, my sister showed up, and at about 2:45am we left for the hospital.

Right before we left my contractions were actually starting to pick up and became the “breath” through kind of contractions. During the car ride there, things really picked up. The ride was kinda bumpy, and it made the contractions so much worse. We got to the hospital around 3am and I waddled my way upstairs to L&D with Brad’s assistance.

I was put into observations where the 2nd nurse came in (the 1st was a nurse in training) and said that being this was baby #6, that if I knew I was in labor than I was. My midwife came in and talked to Brad and I for a few minutes. They admitted me at 3:30am and walked me over to my birthing suite. The midwife never left me from that point on. She stayed in the room rubbing my back, arm, head, she was so Encouraging, and seriously just AMAZING! When we got to the birthing room, I felt the need to pee. I sat on the toilet, and ended up staying there for about 40 minutes laboring. Brad and the Midwife sat with me. I was in a lot of pain at this point so I had them check me at 4:04am. I was a very “loose” 6 and I decided to get the phentenol (sp?). It worked like a charm for all of 20 min. My contractions were every 2 minutes and so INTENSE! It was like I couldn’t catch a moment in between. I asked if I could have some more of the phentenol and she said I had to wait an hour. You better believe I was watching the clock, and at 5:05 I was asking for more drugs. She told me that she already knew I would be delivered very soon and that I probably wouldn’t be able to have more. I still begged her to check me cause I was hurting and didn’t believe that the baby would be here. At 5:15am she checked me, and all she said was baby was at -2 station and that she was going to get dressed. I started to feel the pressure/urge to push, but it wasn’t intense like when you know the baby is coming. She told me if I felt like pushing to listen to my body and just don’t “bear down” with the contractions. I started letting my body do the pushing to the extent that it felt it needed.

At 5:24 I felt a huge “pop and a thunk” can’t think of another way to describe this. It felt like his head pop under the pelvic bone, and within seconds he was crowning. She had me slow my breathing and just breath through the delivery of his head (which was coming very very fast). Head was out and cord was wrapped, but she was able to unloop it pretty easily. One more deep and intense push, and Noah was here. 5:28am Poor little guy was so bruised from being delivered so fast.(this was said many times during our stay from all the nurses and drs. “Oh, he must have been born very fast...he has a lot of bruising.”) They put him on my stomach and he started to pee. I was the first to catch this, maybe cause he was peeing on me, but we all laughed. Just like his sisters, he is a sprawler and loves having his arms and legs fully extended. One of the things I remember really noting was that they never broke down my bed, put stirrups up, made it into a very hospital type setting. It was as close to a home delivery as I could ever imagine. I just delivered in the bed with the help of Brad. Very Awesome!

His apgars were 9 & 10! Aside from the bruising my little man was perfect and Holy Crap BIG to boot. He was 9lbs .08ozs and 21.5" long.

There were some minor issues with delivering the placenta and sac. The placenta came out, but the sac was tearing as we were trying to push placenta out. So she had to twist and carefully manipulate the sac out. I had no tearing, but a very minor abrasion (skid) which required no stitches.

His labor and delivery were very FAST, but the most intense of all 6 deliveries. The contractions every 2 min made it very difficult to keep myself calm and relaxed. Brad was Absolutely Amazing (like always) during the entire labor and delivery. He kept me focused, told me he knew I could do this, assured me when he knew I was almost done, when I thought I wasn’t, that baby would be here very soon. I should also mention that Brad was totally sick with a horrible cold. He had been miserable for days prior to delivery. He didn’t want to get Noah sick, so he didn’t get to hold Noah till he was many hours old, and it was very brief. His first real time of holding him was the next day when we took some pics.

Here’s some pics. I don’t have any from labor or delivery really....it all went to fast and there was NO way I was letting go of Brad’s hand to let him take pics. Thanks for taking the time to reading this...I’m sure I will come back and update bits and pieces here and there. =)

First look at Noah...Oh so flattering shot of me, but all good for the sake of memories..


AHHH Bliss!


Getting checked out:



An hour after delivery...That's my AWESOME midwife...


First Family pic..Little man was all of 4 hrs old and thrown into the mix of chaos. hehe


Aly:


Megan:


Paige:


Sierra...she didn't want to sit still for the pic. :(


Kayla:


You can see how bruised he was here:


Daddy:


Me:


Me, Megan, Sierra, and Noah...


Getting ready to go home:


Ready to go:


Resting at home: