Canon's birth story...XP from March 2012

The next morning, Jon had to go to church early because he was playing drums. I was going to go in later but wasn't feeling great. I was contemplating not going in, but decided I should since it might be the last time before the baby arrived. As I was putting on my make-up, I felt a small trickle of water. I wasn't completely sure at first, but then it became clear that my water broke. This was about 10:30am. I called Jon to tell him what happened and he left right away. On the way home, he picked up some stuff for the house and some snacks for the hospital. The on-call doctor told me that I could wait at home and call her in about 4 hours since I was not having contractions yet.

It gave Jon and I the opportunity to do laundry, eat lunch, nap, and finish packing, as well as go on a couple of little walks to try and get labor started. It was a really special time and I'm glad we did not have to rush around.

Finally, at about 4pm, I decided we should probably go to the hospital even though I wasn't feeling much pain or any regular contractions. I was gushing non-stop and just kind of wanted to get the ball rolling. I felt very calm and ready for it all - definitely a surreal feeling pulling up to the hospital and checking in. They confirmed that my water did, indeed, break, and once I was hooked up to the monitors, it was evident I actually was having contractions, steady ones, two minutes apart, 50-60 seconds long! I didn't feel them. I was also 2-3 centimeters dilated and about 80% effaced. After they checked baby's heartbeat and monitored me for a little, they let us walk the halls of the labor and delivery ward. Pretty soon, however, contractions really started to pick up. We headed back to the room and I tried to breathe through them, rock through them, and use a birthing ball to cope. At about 5 centimeters, I asked for IV drugs to hopefully take the edge off. This didn't work, however, and I was just really groggy. Soon after writhing around in bed in pain, I asked for an epidural. Unfortunately, my blood pressure dropped very low when the epidural was administered - about 77/39 was the lowest. I was given lots of fluids and used the oxygen mask. The baby was doing fine and thankfully things leveled out.

I was checked again. Now I was 6-7 centimeters and about 90 percent effaced. Things were moving much quicker than I ever expected them to as a first time mom. I was really pleased that my body was progressing and I did not have to be induced due to my water breaking.

I was able to actually sleep through some contractions, which was good, since it looked like I would be pushing in the wee hours - I was already at about 9 centimeters around midnight. The longest part was waiting to go to 10 centimeters and actually begin pushing. When it was time, I did some practice pushes, but they were ineffective because the epidural was turned all the way up to 10. The nurse lowered it to 5 and helped me labor down for about an hour with Jon's assistance. This was very hard because my contractions were coming four in a row and I was feeling tremendous pressure, bordering on pain, since the epidural was turned down. However, the only thing that felt good was to push, so I was doing so and doing so quite effectively, I'm told. Before I knew it, the nurse (who was an absolute angel), called the doctor and it was go time. Canon Zachary David was born exactly one week early on March 12, 2012 at 4:24am. He was 7 pounds, 2 ounces, 19 inches long and perfect!

I pumped my fists in the air and said, "I did it!" and gave Jon a high-five. I had a first degree tear and was pretty sore at first, but five days later, things are feeling much, much better. All in all, I was in labor for about 12 hours, start to finish and pushed for about an hour and a half. It actually was a really great experience and our little guy is awesome.