Ethan Robert - Born 9/11/11 (birth story)

sgibbs16 · September 2011

We welcomed Ethan Robert on September 11th.

It all started Friday morning when I woke up. I couldn't sleep the night before and when I got up to get ready for work I had a heavier than normal amount of discharge (or what I thought was discharge). It wasn't a huge gush but definitely more than normal.

I wasn't sure if it was my water breaking so I decided to get ready and see how the day went, if contractions started or there was more. The discharge was pretty steady for the rest of the day but nothing more than the usual and no contractions what so ever so I figured it wasn't my water.

Fast forward to Saturday and still pretty steady discharge but nothing else. Until later that afternoon when I had to more substantial amounts of discharge. I started researching on the net and reading about infection if baby isn't delivered soon after the water breaking and got really worried so I called my doctor and they sent me in to L&D to get checked.

I got there thinking they were just going to send me home and when they did the initial strip test of the fluid it was negative for amniotic fluid. Just to be safe the doc wanted to check me with a speculum and sure enough there was pooling which is an indicator that your water has broken. She did an exam next and found my water was still in tact which meant I was just leaking.

To my shock - they admitted me (this was at 6 pm) and at 9 pm they broke my water. I was 3 cm when I was admitted and within 15 minutes the contractions were so strong, only 2 minutes apart and I shot up to 6 cm. I got my epidural then and within another half hour I was at 9 cm. They thought for sure I would deliver before midnight but I sat at 9 cm for about 3 hours.

I finally got to almost 10, I say almost because there was still a very tiny rim left when they had me start pushing, hoping the rim would disappear which it did. I pushed for a little over 2 and half hours and finally delivered Ethan at 4:24 am Sunday morning.

The pain wasn't bad at all once I got my epidural, in fact I didn't feel anything for the most part except a tiny bit of pressure every so often from the contractions. That is until the very end when he descended down into the birth canal and was almost out. There was no pain but oh man THE PRESSURE was terrible. I have never been so uncomfortable in my life and I had to really focus on breathing in order to handle it.

Once the doctor got there she wheeled over a mirror (even though I didn't want one) to help me focus on where to push. So I watched the whole delivery and let me just say...not a pretty sight! But it did help me focus.

I am falling more in love every day and he is a happy healthy baby boy. Breastfeeding is going really slow and were having to supplement with formula because my milk is very slow to come in but we'll get there I hope!

Ethan weighed 8 lbs 14 ounces and was 22 inches long. big head, big hands and big feet! He looks just like his dad but got his mama's height!