Bennett is here!

heidi.murken · November 2011

My beautiful son arrived 2 weeks, 1 day early on October 18! He weighed 7 lbs, 13 ozs and was 19 1/2 inches long. We named him Bennett, which means "little blessed one."

I had taken the 17th off work to do some baby shopping and setting up the nursery with a friend's help. Thank God I got that done just in time! My husband came home, we had dinner and as I was laying on our new couch (on my side luckily), I felt a trickle between my legs. Then it turned into a gush and I got up and said ?Oh my God, I think my water is breaking!? I ran to the bathroom and my husband called the nurses line and finished packing my half-packed hospital bag. I was having contractions but pretty mild and irregular.

We got the hospital and checked in. They told me another doctor was on call that night, and I was surprised. I thought that if I had my baby during the week, I would have my own doctor. We went to our room and I got hooked up to a bunch of stuff, which was strange but not as scary as I had thought it would be. I had been kind of nervous about being a ?patient? in the hospital rather than a visitor, which I am a lot as a pastor.

The nurse checked me (OWW!) and I wasn't too far dialated, maybe a 1. The contractions were still pretty mild. There were tons of people coming in and out, and it was kind of overwhelming. I got tired of saying the same things over and over again.

I got checked again later and I was 2-3 centimeters. Finally it was about time to sleep around midnight. By then the contractions were getting a little stronger and I knew I wouldn't be able to sleep so I called for the epidural. I had it by 1 and it was AWESOME!!! It made me very sleepy. Brian and I slept until about 6 when my doctor came in to see us- YAY! I was still about 3 centimeters, so they started me on pitocin. Brian and I slept again until 10:30 or so. Then I started to have a lot of pain in my vagina and down my left hip/leg, despite the epidural. I was visualizing dialating cuz I was frustrated I hadn't made much progress. Apparently it worked! They checked me a little before noon and I was almost fully dialated! Wahoo!

Unfortunately, I still had to wait quite a while to push. They wanted to baby to labor down. My doula helped with the pain in my leg with some massage. We waited and watched tv. I started to feel more pressure over time. They'd check me periodically and tell me I had to wait. Ugh. FINALLY at 3:15, the nurse said I could try some ?practice pushes?. I thought, ?Practice my a$$, this baby is coming out!? I pushed a couple of times before I got the hang of it, but then I was a super star pusher. I'll add that to my resume I pushed about 30 minutes and the nurse said she'd call the doctor and tell her it would be another hour. Huh? I had no idea it took most first time moms 2 hours of pushing! Well after she called the doctor, I pushed 2 more times and the nurse and doula were like, ?Umm, we'd better call Dr. Coulter back!? I ended up having to wait through a few contractions, which was really hard.

I was pushing and I could feel Dr. Coulter stretching me out. What they say about how you forget about the pain is so true- I can hardly remember it! I did know when the head came out and so then I knew it was almost over. I pushed again and out came my baby! Brian announced, ?It's a Bennett! It's a boy!? And I was so relieved. They held him up for me to see and I was in awe. It was really the most amazing thing to think that he had come out of me! Brian and I cried and they put him on my chest. Bennett was hardly even crying. He was so alert though! It was awesome. We just thought he was the cutest baby

You all are in my thoughts and prayers- for healthy deliveries and healthy outside babies!