September 13, 2014

September 13, 2014 was a crazy, eventful, surprising, memorable day. We are so grateful that our baby Hudson entered our lives that day. Our family will never be the same. Here is my journal excerpt:

We have a healthy baby BOY! Born last week. I am still in shock that it's a boy. And he has RED hair! I never would have dreamed two weeks ago that I would be the mother of three sons, AND a redhead. I pushed for the name Hudson, because I think it sounds so handsome. Chad is still adjusting to that name. He says it’s not a redhead name. Chad always gets to choose the middle name. We were debating between Harrison, Grant, and Nash, but at the last minute, Chad felt good about the name Michael and we went with that. We feel like Hudson having a real live person to associate his middle name with will be the most beneficial for him. The other names would probably be more meaningful to us than him.

 

Chad's parents arrived one week before my due date to help us prepare for the arrival of this little one. It was great to have them here and have their help. It was also a bit stressful at times because I felt like I was hosting/entertaining a bit. I also felt some pressure to go into labor early, since there were four adults at my house, staring at my belly, just waiting for the big moment for a week. But it felt so good to get all that done, and it was certainly peace of mind to know that whenever I went into labor, I had full-time childcare immediately at my disposal. No middle of the night can-you-come-watch-my-kids phone call.

 

It's a good thing we had instant childcare too, because this baby came fast! I started feeling crampy and nauseous and occasional random contractions Thursday night and Friday night. Friday night I would get up and try to have a bowel movement every few hours, thinking that that might relieve my cramps and pain. But I then had a real, forceful contraction at 6:20 AM, then 15 minutes later, then again at 7 AM. Chad woke at 7 and I told him he might not want to go golfing with his dad as planned. I thought we should start packing up to go to the hospital. He jumped in the shower, I got dressed and said good morning to the kids, and we left the house around 7:40. I was having contractions maybe every 8 to 10 minutes at that point. Things heated up quickly during the drive.  I was frantically putting makeup on between contractions, Chad was frantically trying to avoid the street fairs (9th & 9th AND the avenues!), but by the time he dropped me off at 8 and I got to the labor and delivery unit, I was contracting every two minutes. It took me till 8:20 to check in and get changed because I had to stop so frequently to breathe through my contractions. I got hooked up to the fetal monitor at 8:20, the nurse checked my cervix, got wide eyed, said I was "complete", and called the other 4 nurses in who quickly ran in and frantically began prepping for an imminent birth.

 

They called my doctor, who did happen to be on call that weekend, and she started driving to the hospital from her house. They asked if I would like to wait for her but I said no I felt like I needed to start pushing. A male doctor, Dr. Pead(?) came in, told me I needed to stop fighting that urged to push, told me that with an epidural it's easy to relax and push but without one I needed to just fight through my resistance. They raised the bed up really high, and 4 nurses plus Chad and the doctor were all standing around me. I just remember a lot of heads looking at me, almost at my eye level. They grabbed my legs, and told me to push. I have never felt pain like that before. Pushing was the last thing I wanted to do because it was excruciating, but I knew pushing was the only thing to end the pain. While I pushed, the pain was overwhelming. I felt dizzy, my vision was blurry, I thought I was going to black out. I have this recollection of faces and voices kind of swimming around my head and me screaming through the pain. I've never been a screamer before, but it was just survival instinct. I think I was screaming "I can't, "or "Is it out? " It truly was the valley of the shadow of death. I would have rather died right then than continue on with the excruciating sensation of my body ripping apart. I was probably pushing for maybe five minutes, but it seems like an eternity. When the head came out, the baby’s body was putting so much pressure on my pelvis I thought I might die. When they wanted me to push more to get the shoulders and body out, I did not think I could possibly do it. I remember screaming and pushing against people with my feet, then a huge body coming out of me, and then relief. Someone said "What are you having? " I panted "We don't know,” they responded with, "It's a boy!" and put him on my tummy. I just wanted to black out. I didn't want to hold him. I felt terrible. It is all very foggy now. I was completely in shock at how excruciatingly painful natural childbirth is. It was all a little more surprise than I could handle. Chad was not faring well either. He felt nauseous and had to sit down. The poor nurses had no parents to give the baby to, so they took him back and started weighing and cleaning him. 8 lbs. 0 oz.! 20.5 inches long. His head was 36 cm, which is apparently on the large side. They attributed that to having no time to mold while in the birth canal. That is a big baby!

 

My obstetrician showed up, stitched up my tear, and delivered the placenta. I still felt pretty miserable. Everything she was doing was super painful. The nurses kept pushing on my uterus and getting huge blood clots out. I was screaming and huffing and puffing all over again. Then, in an instant, everyone left the room, handed me our baby, and there Chad and I were, 30 minutes after we had arrived at the hospital, staring at each other wide eyed with a baby boy in our arms. We were in bed at seven, and at 8:32, our baby was born. And it was a boy. And he had RED hair. It was all very surreal. I felt like I was watching someone else's life. We sat there in the delivery room for an hour until they transferred us, and I don't know that we said a word to each other. I felt awful and nauseous and in pain and shocked. I think Chad felt similarly. I was looking down, holding my new baby, thinking "Is this mine? This is NOT what I was expecting."

 

The rest of our hospital stay was actually quite peaceful. Very few visitors. Lots of time to just snuggle our new baby, and let the fact that I will have three sons sink in. We also settled on a name. Hudson. I absolutely love it. No reservations. Hudson looks different than any of our other children. Fair complexion, red hair, different facial features. But so far he is in all-star cuddler. I can't put him down. He was in my hospital bed with me (or in Chad's arms) our entire stay. I'm sure it will continue like this now that we are home. My last baby.....