Beckett's Birth Story

Let's just note that I'm totally cheating and dating this post in November when in actuality it is MARCH. You shouldn't be surprised. I also just sent out my Christmas cards two weeks ago. I could pretend I have a valid excuse, but really I have the chillest baby ever, so blaming him would be unfair.

But on to the birth story.

The last month and a half of my pregnancy was just about MISERABLE. I gained WAY too much weight so I was OVER the waddling and the not sleeping and the 20 pound child living inside of all of my parts and using my ribs as his own personal monkey bars/trampoline/punching bag. Brian had been as patient and encouraging as you could expect a man to be, but on November 15, our sanity began to crumble. WE COULDN'T HANDLE IT, PEOPLE. I'm not sure what all was said but I do remember Brian and me driving over to Brittany's house so I could have a girls' night and he could do whatever he was going to do… and in the car FEELINGS WERE RELEASED. To sum it up: we were BOTH sick of me being pregnant. 

11/14/13 - Two Days Before D-Day

That night I went with the girls to a Christmas Craft Sale. Friends, I shopped all those emotions straight out. By the end of the shopping excursion, I was in pain. It was more pain than usual, but I figured it was just because I weighed a BUNCH of pounds and my body couldn't handle being upright anymore. 

By 10p I was home with Brian {we were friends again by now} and I was squirming in pain. BACK PAIN. Ooooooh the back pain! At this point I was PRAYING that the back labor that my mom and aunts had so kindly enlightened me of was NOT my impending fate. I've never been in labor, so I still had no idea what was happening, but I knew things were happening that had never happened before and therefore we better go ahead and pack that bag we've been meaning to put together for a month now. Then we went to bed.

I layed there like I was going to sleep, but the pain just kept coming. With the whole first labor situation, I wasn't exactly sure what I was going for, and I didn't want to drag my whale-self to the hospital and end up being in false labor so I did what any first time maybe in labor pregnant person would do: I googled it. "How do I know I'm in labor?" The answer was a resounding: "Oh! You'll know." Well, I hurt a lot, but everything on the internet said that I should be feeling contractions… unless I was in back labor, in which case I would just feel PAIN. I was preeeeetty sure that was my situation, but I wasn't screaming like the girls in the movies and I didn't want to be wrong so I just hung out and pretended like I was going to be able to sleep.

By 2am my intense back pain had evolved into contractions. I think this is it? Maybe? I should ask Brian… So I did. "Do you think I'm in labor? I think this is it? We should go…" So we grabbed the bags and headed downstairs and as we got in the car I decided I should call the hospital and ask the nurse if I was really in labor. I'm not sure why I thought anybody else would be able to help me out with this, but bear with me. I have no clue what I'm doing here. 

The nurse told me to take a shower and see if my contractions calmed. I still don't know why in the world these were her instructions, but I obeyed. The shower felt AH-MAZING. The pain slowed, the contractions were further apart. It was great. And then I got out. BIG. MISTAKE. I think that damned shower made the whole things worse. I was NOT A HAPPY CAMPER. As soon as I was dried off and dressed again, we headed to the hospital. 

PAIN. PAIN. CONTRACTIONS. 

SQUIRM. PAIN. COUNT. SQUIRM. WIMPER.

And then Brian wanted to stop for Starbucks. Yeah. No. We arrived at the hospital sometime around 3am (I think)… We thought it would be cute to take a picture near the "Reserved for Patients in Labor" Sign. I'd been waiting to park there for months!! Of course, right as he whipped out the camera, a contraction hit, resulting in this gem:

We proceeded to the delivery floor and they did the whole getting me ready thing. It seemed to take forever. Lots of cringing and puking and squirming and wishing for my drugs to arrive. Then they moved me into another room and starting doing all the hooking me up to thing. Still no drugs. 

I'm pretty sure there were 30 or 40 nurses in my room, but they chose the trainee to get my IV started. Next time they try and pull that crap, I'LL BE THE ONE STICKING SOMEONE. By this point, Brian was becoming more aware of how intense our little adventure was going to be. Apparently the labor + the puking + the nurse digging for gold in my arm was too much for him because while I'm trying to hold still through a contraction and thru baby nurse lady's adventures in my arm, all of a sudden I hear, "CLUNK.THUD." That, my dear friends, would be the sound of my hubby passing out. Yeah. That happened. And I FUH-REAKED OUT. Up to this point, I was calm. There was no screaming. I had every confidence in my nurses (except the jerk still digging in my arm). But as soon as I saw that man fall, "OH MY GOSH!! HE'S DYING! HELP!!! MY HUSBAND IS DYING!"

"He's not dying. He's just passed out."

"No! HE'S SEIZING! HE'S HAVING A STROKE! IS HE DEAD?!?!"

"Sweetheart. Calm down. You need to focus on you. You can't get all worked up… it's not good for the baby." BLA BLA BLA

Insert more screams and wails and ramblings of a crazy woman. "DON'T LET HIM DIE."

Turns out the nurses were right… he just passed out. 

Whatever. He could have been dying. And next time he pulls that crap, I'll kill him.

All of my nurses abandoned me during this to attend to seizing/stroking/dying husband. Except BabyDigsALot. She just kept on jabbing like she was going for the record for Worst IV-Starter EVER. At this point I was crying. Because my husband almost died, not because of Jabs-A-Lot.

Once the IV was FINALLY in, they could get my epidural started. At this point I had been at the hospital for a few hours and was dilated to 5cm. They wouldn't let Brian watch for fear of another hubby fainting + wifey melt down debacle, but they did let him get a picture of the needle afterward. 

Epidural Needle.

Don't worry. They use a local anesthetic before they jab that into your spine. And even if they didn't, IT WOULD BE WORTH IT. Once that baby kicked in:

Over the next few hours, we tried to get some sleep and waited for nature to take it's course. Unfortunately, the epidural slowed my labor so they had to use Pitocin to get it started again. Eventually I made it to 10cm, but then this:

Beckett's Heart Monitor

That, my dear friends, is a picture (that we later found out you're not supposed to take) of my baby's heart rate dropping off. ALL OF THE FEAR came rushing in at this point. They didn't know why, but every time I had a contraction, this happened. We tried pushing anyway, but it only made it worse. So they prepped for a c-section. We had prepared ourselves emotionally for a c-section just incase Beckett decided he wasn't going to "fit," but we really really really wanted to avoid it. But the MINUTE I saw that heart rate monitor dropping, all the disappointment in the idea of cesarean went FLYING out the window and all I wanted in the whole wide world was for them to get that baby out of me SAFELY. 

A couple minutes later, Brian donned this cutest outfit ever and they were wheeling me to the O.R.

My Hotty Doctor Hubby

The number of people I had in the delivery room was NOTHING compared to the people in the O.R. I told them I felt like I was on TV: Bright lights everywhere, a bunch of people all dressed up in cutie little outfits and cutie little masks. I was so entertained. Have I mentioned I've never even BEEN in the hospital, let alone had a surgery? This was a first for me :).

It took FOUR additional doses of anesthesia before I was numb enough for surgery, but eventually we were ready and the rest went pretty quickly. It turned out the reason for the heart rate dropping was because the umbilical cord was wrapped over his shoulder and therefore being pinched every time I had a contraction. We're so very thankful for all of our doctors & nurses and their choices.

At 11:59am on November 16, Beckett arrived in all his 8 pound 15 ounces of glory... Head misshapen from attempted delivery, eyes all puffy and swollen shut. Before I saw him I heard him cry and remember saying how beautiful that sound was. Two second later I saw this hot mess and definitely told Brian the kid was a bit ugly. Don't judge! I don't know what fresh babies look like! 

It wasn't even a couple hours before he started to look more normal. And now we've got the cutest baby in the whole entire world.