finally can share my birth story!

After I really tried hard to trigger labor, membranes stripped, long walks, spicy chicken sandwich from chick fil a, Sex, pineapple... well, whataya know, I woke up st 4:26am on Tuesday January 3rd with a contraction that was pretty damn intense. I woke up my husband and told him and said let's see if we get another, sure enough we did. So we broke out the app and started timing  them and whoa! They were already coming 5 mins apart. My mom had extremely short labors so we decided to head to the hospital after about twenty minutes and 5 contractions. 

We get to the hospital and of course they treat me like a FTM, lackadaisically getting me to a room to check me out. I keep telling them about my mom and they're like, ya ya. Anyway. The nurse finally checks my cervix and she's blown away that I am already dilated to a six and 90%effaced. Ok! We are having a baby today!!! It was 6am. 

The epidural gets ordered (I was progressing so quickly) I get set up to labor in bed and I'm comfy but I have the uncontrollable shakes!!! I was told they're hormone related and not to fight them. Crazy!!! I never read about shakes being a side effect of labor. They covered me with blankets but to little avail.

Couple hours go by and I'm able to get the shakes under control, but I am super starving and they won't let me eat so I can't sleep. By 9:30am I'm dilated to a 9. I have a few high blood pressure readings and then, my contractions stop altogether. The nurse wants to start me on pit to get them going again, but my doctor (who's been kept updated by phone the whole time) wants more info. She orders an internal monitor to get better readings. When the on call doc administers it she feels a "compound presentation" meaning, she isn't sure it is the head she's feeling. I suppose. She orders and ultrasound and lo and behold my baby is breech!!!

Since 33 weeks my baby had been fooling everyone!!!

So now I'm being prepped for a C section. 

My husband and I are sad but just want him to come healthy. They wheel us to the OR. My hubby and I lock eyes and through tears he mouths the words I love you. Then they cut me. Man, the feeling of them extracting my son was so weird!!! Then the doc says "he looks just like daddy" and holds him above the curtain. He wailed!!! They took him to be cleaned up and my husband didn't know who to attend to, me or the baby. I kept telling him go! Be with him!! It killed me that my baby's first moments were cold and tended to by medical personnel. I really wanted that first skin to skin moment. I balled that my son was alone and kept telling his dad to go be with him!!! He had his phone out taking pics and I told him to play a song by the Avett Brothers called Murder in the City. They whole OR kinda stopped and I laughed, the title is off putting but the song is wonderful! So my hubby played it and baby calmed down. He remembered it from inside the womb. Finally I was all stapled shut and they moved me to the bed and placed my baby on my chest. He was so tiny and I was so scared!!! Now he was finally here on the outside and I was responsible for keeping him alive! 

They wheeled us back to the labor room and we did skin to skin. 

Ladies, it all really goes so fast! After three weeks, I miss the first days and try to keep myself present with today. 

It was a comedy of errors that led to my C section but I'm healing very well. It was a rough recovery initially but after the first three days it was pretty speedy. I'm grateful I got to experience real labor, if they had known he was breech all along I would have had to have a scheduled C and never gotten to labor on my own. It was exactly how it was supposed to be. 

Here he is. Avett James Callahan! Named after The Avett Brothers :) 

7lbs 5oz

20 inches 

Pure joy!