birth story (very long...)

So, I figured I would write this down so I wouldn't forget it, but first...Logan is finally home! He got to come home on Saturday.  He did come home on oxygen and on an apnea monitor, but hopefully those will leave soon.  I'll post pictures later, but for now, here is how everything happened to get him here:

Looking back I had a lot of signs that told me I was in labor, but being my first pregnancy I didn't want to jump to conclusions.  It started in St. George, when I went for my nephew's blessing.  We were eating lunch and my belly hurt.  I thought maybe it was just a stomach ache.  In the car later it still hurt and my back was hurting a little too.  For the most part it went away, but I would still feel a tiny pain in my back throughout that day (Saturday).  Sunday I felt back to normal, just pretty tired.

On Monday, I went back to work.  It was a stressful week; we were putting on Shakespeare plays.  My back started hurting pretty bad.  Most of the day I would give out an assignment and then just sit down.  I remember wincing a couple times while trying to give directions to my class.  I was a little worried, so I called my doctor.  I talked to the nurse on-call and she said to notice any contractions, sit down and relax, and put my feet up.  I thought this was stupid because number 1, I was at school, and number 2, any contractions I had I didn't feel pain so it was too hard to tell how regular they were.

When I got home, I put a heating pad on my back and it felt much better.  Ironically, Darrin and I decided to pack our hospital bag that night.  I was reading about preterm labor and we thought it would be smart just in case.  Around 10:45 or so, we laid down to bed.  As I was drifting off to sleep, my water broke.  I said to Darrin: Well, I think my water just broke. Either that or I wet my pants.  Of course I was joking around, but Darrin hopped out of bed and started getting things ready.  I was surprised at how fast he was moving.

Our neighbor, Teri, ended up driving us to the hospital because Darrin had just taken some cough syrup with Codeine in it :)  When we got to the hospital, the nurse checked me and I was dialated to 4cm.  I felt pretty good at that point and told the nurse I didn't know if I wanted an epidural or not.  I had to be put on antibiotics because I hadn't been tested for group B Strep yet.  The nurse told me she needed the labor to last 4 hours for the antibiotics.  Around 12:30 the contractions were getting awful.  I felt like they were right on top of each other.  I wasn't getting any relief between them so I told the nurse I wanted an epidural.  The anesthesiologist was called but was at home so he didn't show up for about a half hour-the longest in my life. Right after the epidural the nurse said I was at 9cm.  I realized that was why it was so painful, it was happening so fast! Boy was the epidural wonderful :)

In order to get more of the antibiotics in me, the nurse told me to hang out for an hour and then I could start pushing.  Darrin and I tried to get some sleep but with the constant noise and blood pressure taking, it was worthless.  After the hour, I started pushing.  When the nurse told me pushing usually lasts from 1-4 hours I gave myself a goal of an hour and wanted the baby out by 4:15 am.  Logan was born at 4:12 am, just making my goal :)

When I saw Logan pulled out by the doctor tears just streamed down my face.  I hadn't even felt a buid-up of tears, they all just fell out.  I was so happy.  The NICU team took him on a table to work on him.  He was crying but then stopped and was doing what a nurse called "grunting", which she said is an outward sign of an inward problem in the lungs.  They held him up for me to see and then rushed him out of the room.  It was 2 long hours until I even got to see my baby up close and touch him.  I didn't get to hold him until the next day after I had been discharged from the hospital.

This whole experience was different than I ever imagined.  It was not fun to have my baby in the hospital for 2 1/2 weeks or bring him home with all this equipment, but it was completely worth it to have a healthy, beautiful baby boy.