Oh my sweet boy!

Raymond Michael decided to make his entrance on December 29th!

I have antiphospholipid syndrome so the idea of needing to induce me had been thrown around but in the end they said as long as he came on his own before 39 weeks I could do it on my own!

At my 36 week check I was 1.5cm dilated and excited that maybe my body would go into labor on it’s own before the 39 weeks!

We were ready but also not ready 😝

My birthday is Christmas Day so a small part of me hoped he would come that day but that was not his plan!

Two days after Christmas I was at the hospital for one of my weekly non stress tests and I asked the nurse to check my dilation and there was no progress! So I went home and told my family it looked like he would be a January baby after all!

Later that night I lost a little bit of my mucus plug and was excited that maybe we were making a little progress. The next day I was feeling pretty crumby all day, just generally uncomfortable and lots of Braxton Hicks (or so I thought) lots of pressure too. I was sick with a pretty nasty cold and felt as if I was getting an ear infection to top it all off!

However we had a Christmas party that night for our employees so I had to power through! We ate dinner and played games and all I really remember is having some major dizzy spells.

Finally we got home and my husband and I got into bed. I started to feel a little crampy, I would say it felt mostly like a Braxton Hicks with just a bit of period like cramping. I rolled over to try to get some comfort and felt a little gush. So I walked to the bathroom and as I pulled my pants down to sit on the toilet I got a huge gush and I called out to my husband “my water broke!” He came in panicking of course :P called his mom to let her know because she was coming with us to the hospital. Called my mom who had a 4 hr drive to get to us.

I didn’t feel like I was having contractions that were really worth anything at this point. So I slowly gathered some of my last minute hospital bag stuff. Cleaned up the bathroom a bit. As my husband is saying “what are you doing? We need to get going” we have about an hour drive to the hospital and it was snowing a bit.

But I replied oh I have plenty of time because I’m not having serious contractions, they’ll probably end up having to give me pitocin or something. He continued to encourage me that we should get going so we did.

My mom texted me to ask how far apart my contractions were. Again I didn’t really feel like they were real contractions so I hadn’t even bothered timing them. But in the car I decided I would see if there was any pattern to these Braxton Hicks seeming contractions. Sure enough 6 minutes, then five, then four. My husband starts to panic a little. Why are they getting close together so fast!?

We get to the hospital and they get my IV in and check my dilation, 3cm and 50% effaced. And boom they start feeling like real contractions. An hour later they are one on top of each other and I feel like I can’t catch a break at all so I hop in the tub for 20 minutes and then they check me again, 5cm and 95% effaced. At this point I don’t even feel like the last contraction is ending before the next one is starting and I start to consider that I might want an epidural if I’m going to have any energy to push.

Feeling defeated and like I’ve whimped out I ask for the epidural. He comes to explain it all to me and they draw my blood to make sure all my blood thinners were out of my system. He tells me it will be 15-20 minutes before he gets that back and then he can give me the epidural. I feel like I’m not going to make it through that long of pain at this point so I ask if I can get in the tub again while we wait. I get in and the first contraction in there I felt my body involuntarily push a little. And boom the next one hits and I know I need to push now! So I yell it out! They are telling me I need to get out of the tub so she can check me and I say can’t she just check me here and they tell me know so I wait through one more contraction and then I manage to make it to the bed. She checks me and sure enough 9.5cm dilated, she tells me I can push with my next contraction.

I had wanted to push squatting so they set up the bar but when I tried I didn’t feel I had the leverage I wanted. So I ended up on my back. Four contractions later (about five minutes) and my sweet baby Ray was here!

5 1/2 hours from broken waters to baby!

37weeks 1 day

He had lots of fluid in his lungs so they took him away and I had some blood flow issues and fainting spells. So for the first 12 hours I was separated from him and doing all I could just to get to him as my husband stayed with him.

Thankfully enough he latched well as soon as I got him back and now we’re both perfectly healthy! I couldn’t be more in love 💙