Aidan's Birthday

This is what you look like after a week with a newborn! But those smiles are genuine and that's all that matters :-)

Well here is an abbreviated version of the birth story. Leading up until the day that Aidan was born I kept telling Zach that I felt like my stomach couldn't get any bigger. My stretch marks hurt so bad and I felt like I was going to explode (little did we know we had a big guy in there!). On May 28th at 4:15 am my "water broke" (or so I thought). We started getting everything ready- putting MJ outside with food for a few days in case Zach couldn't get away, putting the bags in the car, cleaning up a little bit, etc. But, my contractions started asap so we couldnt really get too much done. We got in the car and got to the hospital at about 5am.

We got to the hostpital and I was 4 cm and 100% dilated (which I had been 3 cm and 80% at the last doctor's visit). My bag of waters was still in tact so I just had a "high leak" but my contractions were already about 4-5 minutes apart.

They stuck an IV in me asap so I was really unable to move around- although laying down did seem to be one of the better positions for the pain. I tried the birthing ball, which is a yoga ball to sit on. It helped, but because my belly was so "round" and they had to have the baby heart monitor strapped around it, they kept losing his heartbeat because I was moving around on the ball which moved the monitor out of place. So back to bed...

At this point we were rolling. After about 3 hours at the hostpital we were at 7 cm and I was really able to handle all of the contractions. Stupid me- I thought "this isn't so bad." BUt then we got stuck at 7-8 cm for hours and in comes the Pitocin (which is put into my IV and increases the intensity and the number of contractions). Gag.

At that point I got some pain medication into my IV to take the edge off. It really worked because I was still able to feel each contraction but my body was relaxed enough that I was able to breathe through it. Up until that point I started fighting the contractions and tensing up, which makes them so much worse.

At about 11:15 or so I started feeling the urge to push. I pretty much already started pushing before I was checked- I really couldn't help it. The doctor never told me if I was 10 cm, she just said "close enough, she can push through it." So I said "thank goodness".

The pushing stage put a lot of stress on Aidan and towards the end his heart rate was really dropping. I just kept pushing and pushing and pushing and I felt like nothing was happening. No one told me that his heart rate was dropping so I really didn't have a chance to worry. Towards the end they used the suction to help pull him out and then we had our baby boy! 8lbs and 6 oz and 22 inches long.

No one really warned me just how much everything would hurt afterwards. I even felt like someone punched me in my stomach for days afterwards from all of the pushing and holding my breath. I told Zach we might never have kids again :-) haha. But it was totally worth it- he has been amazing!