Crew's Birth Story

totally worth the long, sleepless night

(it's a bit of a novel, but had to document it for the family journal)

Here's how it went. I went to my Doc appt Monday late morning and he stripped my membranes. I had them stripped with Macey to no avail, so I wasn't expecting anything this time, but you can always hope. Well, the rest of the day I felt pretty yucky and crampy and all that fun stuff that I believe comes standard with having membranes stripped. Luckily I squeezed in a little nap that afternoon, had I any idea, I would've slept longer. That evening the crampiness kept up and then I noticed it felt a little more like contractions, coming and going and more or less consistent. Benton got home from school around 10 and I told him I thought tonight may be the night. So we decided packing our hospital bag may not be a bad idea. My contractions kept getting stronger, but stayed about 7 min apart, but it was hurting and very consistent so we decided to head to the hospital around 1:00am.
We got in triage but weren't officially admitted for 2 1/2 hours!! It was ridiculous, I was the only patient there. I was at a 4.5 cm and she wanted to make sure I was progressing before she made us official. So we walked the halls for 20 min or so and got to a 5 and she was convinced, but still took another solid hour to get us to our labor and delivery room.
Luckily the anesthesiologist (just wanna point out I spelled that correctly on the 1st try! I'm proud ) walked in right behind us and I was good and numbed up right away. THANK HEAVEN FOR EPIDURALS!!! I was a little bummed Uncle Dan wasn't on call to do it, and figured he wouldn't appreciate a call at 3am to come drug up his neice, but this guy did awesome! I thought my epidural was nice with Macey, but then it Completely putz out right as she was born and I've never been in so much pain! This time, I didn't feel a bloody thing, no pressure, no nothing. It was heaven!

Ok, back to labor. Benton and I tried to get some sleep, he was successful at dozing off, as for me, Not so much. The going was a little slower than expected, I got to a 7 and seemed to stop dilating even though I was contracting just as much. Dr. B broke my water at 6:30 to get things going and was hoping he would be born before his 7:30 c-sec he had scheduled, but that wasn't gonna happen. I got to a 7.5 in an hour and stayed there. We were all a little perplexed. It was like I was in labor but only half-heartedly. I called Mom around 7:15 to update her, she was shocked he hadn't been born yet. She was trying her best to get macey dressed and dropped off so she could come for the birth. Meanwhile I was laying in my bed at a 7.5 cm thinking this baby wasn't ever gonna come. They decided to put me on a pitosin drip (no idea how to spell that one) to get things moving around 7:45. At 8:10am, I call my mom back to see how close she was and not to worry, I was sure she had plenty of time before I started pushing. Dr. B walked in as I was hanging up the phone, took one look, said "ok we can work with this, go ahead a push." WHAT?! That was it. 5 min later, Crew was here! 8:18 am. The first thing Mr. Crew did was pee all over Dr. B. I didn't feel so bad, it was definitely not the first time that's happened to him. I pushed for a whopping 5 minutes! That combined with a fully working epidural, I felt like I could do it all over again. It was a piece of cake compared to the last one, and I actually got to enjoy holding my baby boy right away. It really was such a great experience once things got rolling. Even the recovery has been a lot easier this time around. I've felt a little too good and, as my mom reminds me everyday, I'm over doing it and need to really take it easy. I'm starting to believe her. It's finally catching up with me, but I'm doing great and it hasn't kept me from enjoying our perfect little guy.