It's hard to believe that it's been almost a month since I gave birth to our beautiful little Boy!  That's why I decided that I better write down his Birthday story now before more time passes by and I forget many of the details.

As I wrote in previous blogs his actual birth began weeks before he came into the world.  I was in what is called pre-labor for about a month prior to his birthday.  On the one hand that was a good thing since it made the toughest part of labor very fast, but on the other hand I belive that quickness caused one of the two complications we experienced at his birth. 

More on that latter. 

The morning of the 29 of October began like any other I've had for the past few weeks.  I had a very restless night because I was so anxious from being 3 days past my due date.  As I've writen before my greatest fear was that I would have to be induced.  At my last doctor's apointment he said I was  3cm dialated and had effaced to 60%.  I was a bit relived that I was progressing some but at the same time by then I was growing tired of the slow progress.  I had asked the doctor that previous Tuesday if I could do anything on my own to induce labor.  He was adament about me not trying any home induction teqniques including castor oil and he told me to just keep walking.

That Sunday morning however I decided to ignore his instructions.  I went to Church  that morning and afterward I went to the drug store to buy a small bottle of castor oil.  I didn't even tell my DH Nick that I had done that because I knew he would get mad that I had ignored doctor's orderes.  After the birth I confessed and apologies to Nick for that, we never keep secrets from each other and I wasn't going to start then.   Many people I knew had recomended castor oil to me to induce labor and I had tried it a couple of weeks before with no success other than getting very clean bowels!

In my desperation I decided to try castor oil just once more but only 2oz which is half of what I'd tried two weeks before.  The rest of the day went on as ususal until my oldest girl asked if we could pray for the baby to come out that night.  I told her that God will have the baby born when he is ready (although in my mind I also hoped it was that day!!!).  So we prayed that if God willed the baby would finaly be born that night healthy and happy.

A few hours latter at about 7pm I began to feel some contractions.  I felt a mixture of hope and of caution since I didn't want to get dissapointed if those were just false labor pains again.  One hour passed, and then two and the contractions kept coming although they didn't seem very regular yet.  They were from 8 to 30 minutes apart varying times with each one.  At about 9pm with mild to medium contractions still coming my mother in law advised me to call my DH Nick at work to tell him that my contrctions have been non stop for the past 2 hours (my previous false labor contractions would stop at about one hour).  So I called Nick and I told him.  He seemed a bit skeptical too and I told him not to come home until I knew for sure this was the real thing.  He kept calling me through out the evening to check up on me.  At about 10:45 pm Nick got home from work and my contractions had become more regular at about 8-10minutes apart and had become a steady medum strength.  I called the hospital but they told me to just wait until the contractions got so painful that I couldn't stand it anymore.  I was dissapointed that they didn't tell me to come in but by that point I was getting used to dissapointing news.  I decided to go to bed with some hope this was it, but at the same time atticipating another night of nothing.

Then at about 11pm I had a rude awakening.  I remember I was just begining to dream as I drifted off to sleep when I felt a pain as if someone had punched in in the stomach.  After that pain subsided I had only a few seconds of rest before another one struck me just as suddenly and strong.  I went to the bathroom and noticed heavy bleeding.  I went into the living room where Nick was and I told him that I thought it was time for us to go.  I had a few more contractions but those were not as strong anymore.  I prayed that they would not continue to subside.  My prayer was answered because just as we were ready to leave I began to have contractions so strong that I litterally had to stop in my tracks and couldn't even utter a word from the intensity.  Quickly we said goodbye to my mother in law who had been staying with us to help me out and also waiting for baby to be born and said goodbye to a groggy Rosebud who had been awakened by our hurried voices. 

I had fantasised about that drive to the hospital dozens of times before in my head whenever we would drive the same freeway we took to the hospital, specialy because this would be the first time I had taken that drive while being in actual active labor!   However, now that it was realy happening I barely got a chance to enjoy the midnight drive since I had my eyes closed most of the way due to the intensity of each contraction.

When we got to the hospital we had to park far away because there was some construction going on there.  Every step I took felt like an eternity and every few steps I would get a contraction so I had to stop.  Nick would patiently and lovingly hold on to me as we waited for each contraction to pass.   Finally we got to the ER where I had to wait another few minutes (it felt like hours!) as I got admitted.  I was wheelchaired into the maternity ward triage room since all the regurar LDR's were full.  I was told that as soon as an LDR was free I would get it.  It was a promise they never fulfilled.  The nurses told me that they would keep me in observation for an hour to make sure I was in real labor.  I almost slaped someone because if this crazy pain I had wasn't real labor than I must have been going nuts!  There was no way I was going home no matter what they said!

After an hour I had gone from 3cm to 4cm which caused the nurses to conclude it was indeed real labor (duh!).  We called my mom and she rushed to the hospital to be with me during the birth.  In the mean time the pains got more and more intense.  Just when I though they were a strong as they could be the next one seemed worse!

I vowed to myself not to have an epidural and I had told Nick a few weeks before that no matter how much I begged for it that he would not let me get one.  He did his job well.  The nurse offered me another type of drug that, as she explained, would take the edge off the pains but would make me feel drunk and drowsy.  It wasn't an epidural so in my moment of weakness I agreed to take some of that drug.  She was right when she said that it would make me feel drunk and drowsy, I felt as if I had at least a 6 pack of beers, however and regretably it did nothing for the pain.  So now besides the intence sensations from the contractions I also had a major buzz and I could barely keep my eyes opened from feeling so sleepy.   With evey contraction I remember asking Nick to pray that God would give me strength because I felt mine draining away fast.  I felt bad for my poor mom who had to witness me in that state but having her there deffenately gave me more comfort.   

I don't know how much time had passed but I had enough of the pains and asked the nurse about an epidural, as soon as Nick left the room for some coffee of course.  She checked me and said I was already at 7cm so an epidural was out of the question.   I'm extremely glad I didn't get a chance to get an epidural and I thank my amazing DH Nick for his loving support in that decition.  I know it must have been hard for him too seeing me that way and having to be the one to remind me of my resolve like I asked him to.  He is my best coach and motivator after God!  I love him so! 

Also, when the nurse checked me she said that I had a bulging bag of waters and that although she wasn't allowed to break it (only the Doc was allowed to do that) she had pinched it in hopes that would weaken it and it would pop with the next contraction.  After she left the room all I remember is my eyes involuntarily closing from that drunk drug's drowsy effect when suddenly I felt an amazingly  intence and strong feeling with the next contraction!  I had just a couple of seconds before another one just like it happened and I felt a pop and then a hot gush of water.  That's when I had one of the most surreal moments of my life!  I heard myself let out this great yell and I fell a tremendous amout of preassure.  My mom ran out to call the nurse.  When the nurse came back in I saw her eyes open wide and she told me not to push (I HATE WHEN THEY TELL ME THAT!), the baby was crowning!  I barely managed enough strength and breath to tell her that I couldn't stop.  I felt all consious control over my own body completely dissapear as it took over the work on it's own.  Nothing my body did after that was my own will, it just did what it was created to do as if some other force had totaly taken over it.  It was both amazing and terrifying at the same time specialy since that didn't happen to me with my two other babies.  Even my emotional reaction wasn't voluntary.  I heard myself yell out, yet in my mind I was thinking to myself "This is so ridicuous, I wish I could just shut up, how dramatic!" but I couldn't stop that reflex reaction!

After the pop and the gush I felt a sting as if I were being ripped in half.  I though for sure I would need corrective surgery after that birth.  In the mean time more nurses came in and they finaly realised that no matter how much they begged me not to push that my baby was coming and that they better be ready to catch him.   Panic filled the room once more and I heard them say that the baby had shouler distocia which means that his showlders were stuck in the birth cannal in my pubic bone.  Latter on after the baby was born I heard the nurse explaining to the doctor that she had to put her hands inside me to turn baby around.  She also said that in her 30 years of being a nurse and delivering babies that was the first time she had delivered a baby with showlder dystocia.  What a way to be remembered!  I belive that he got stuck because he poped out like a cannon ball so he didn't have time to plac himself properly in the birth cannal.  That must have been when I felt like I was going to rip in half!   I even thought about my little girls and what would happen to them if something realy bad happened to me right then and there!  Finaly after what seemed like an eternity that Monday October 30 at 4:23 am my precious baby boy was born!  Just then as I saw him laying on my bed with his cord still connected to me I felt the greatest high!  All those sensations just a few seconds ago which had made me feel as if death was imminent for me had in a moment completely dissapered and were replaced by complete euphoria.  I felt as if I was floating on air.  Even that annoying drunk feeling the drug had given me went away as soon as Baby Nick came out of me!   They took my baby away because like my body traditionaly likes to do I began to hemorrage.  The poor nurses paniced once again.  Latter on Nick told me I was the talk of the maternity ward since my labor was so interesting, to say the least.  I even had a student nurse interview me for a paper she had to do because of that.

The same nurse who delivered Baby Nick worked fevershly to stop the bleeding.  She had told me before she was a Christian but at that moment the way I heard her expressing herself verbaly from the situation at hand did not morror her faith, poor lady!   She massaged my uterus and gave me a shot that burned (just when I thought the pain was over).  She ordered the other nurses that I be given pitocin to cause my uterus to contract.

Then the doctor finaly showed up.  The nurse explined to the Doc everything that had happened and asked her to sign the ok for all the drugs she had given me (RN's are not allwed to prescribe medications which she had to do to save me from bleeding to death).

By the time the doctor got there all she realy had to do was make sure that I was ok and that the bleeding was under control.  All the real chaos was over before she even got there.

My poor mom had been kicked out of the room since it was too small for her to be there during the actual birth.  I ended up delivering it the triage room instead of the LDR I was promised when I first came in.  Not having my mom there to witness the birth of our third child was upseting to me specialy since she had been there for the previous two.  Of course the presence of my precious husband there was a tremendous comfort for me like always.

An hour or so latter the nurses finaly gave me my Baby Nick back.  Just as with my first two little Angels he seemed even more amazing and beautiful than I could ever have imagined and just as my first two it was love at first sight (the only love at first sight I do believe in).  It's moments like that one that I feel closest to Heaven and that have convinced me beyong a shadow of a doubt that a loving, mercyful and graceful God does exsist!

Thankful to my mercyful Lord I didn't even as much as tear and I recovered completetly and perfectly from bringing our third miracle our Baby Nicholas into the world!  And I'm already looking forward to my next birthing experience, and yes I will attempt natural birth once more.  This last experience prooved to me that my body indeed has the amazing ability to do what God created it to do and it gave me renewed love, respect and pride for that Female body of mine!

To my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ be all the Glory and Praise!! 

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