Garrett Samuel's Birth Story (gfam23)

gfam23 · February 2014

Garrett Samuel was born (the day before DH's b-day!) Thursday, January 30 at 5:20pm, 7 pounds 14 ounces, 20 inches long. Thank you to @Mevaroo for updating the awesome F14 board when I went into L/D and to all of you for being so awesome and supportive even though I've been a late-comer to this board. I love F14!

I'm finally sitting down to type this out and can't believe he is already 10 days old! I have been so busy with our 11-month old daughter and newborn, but life is really amazing and I'm having a blast with my beautiful babies.

This was my 4th L/D, and this boy came EXTREMELY fast!

The morning of Thursday January 30, I woke up not feeling “right.” Weird upper gastric pains (which worried me a little due to some other pre-e symptoms I’d had over the past week) and nausea, so I went upstairs mid-morning to take a nap, and actually slept a little. I woke up and a few minutes later as I was lying in bed, literally heard and felt a POP. I pretty much knew it was my water, and I’d heard that was possible (to hear/feel it pop) but never knew it could really happen like that! But it did, and actually I didn’t start leaking/gushing till I got up and went to the toilet. This was 12pm. I got in touch with my friend who was watching our older baby and we started frantically packing things together to go. I told DH I wanted to take a shower, and he told me I was crazy and didn’t have time. (Glad I listened to him, in hindsight!)

By 1pm contractions were 2 min apart, and we arrived at hospital triage at 2pm. At 2:45 I was 3 cm. At 4pm I was 4 cm and the pain was seriously unbearable. They took FOREVER getting me up to a room. I was pissed at them at the time and I’m still pretty pissed that they (triage) just allowed me to be in hard labor like I was for two hours without getting me to an L/D room.

I was in horrible pain and acting like I'd never given birth before, doing things I never thought I'd do, like being loud and yelling because I was just in the worst pain I've ever felt. I was begging for the epidural and as soon as I got up to my room at 4pm they called the anesthesiologist to start an IV and epidural. Meanwhile I could hardly breathe for the pain, seriously, as the nurses tried unsuccessfully to start an IV (I have horrible veins). By the time the anesthesiologist got there and got the IV and put the epidural in I literally felt the baby coming down and pushing himself out. I had just been told I was at 4cm so I thought I was just a crazy wuss. I kept saying over and over "I can't do this" and how much worse it was than any of my other labors. So so intense. The nurse could see I was needing to push as he was placing the epidural so she called the doctor in and got everything ready. It was so crazy and painful having to sit still and keep him from coming out, OMG, just crazy. I was so scared, I never wanted a med free birth!!! But that's exactly what I got! The anesthesiologist finished and I got checked and was completely dilated and baby was coming. So I went from 4 to 10 in probably less than 20 min. As I was pushing I started having trouble catching my breath even with oxygen, and the baby's heartbeat was dropping as I was suddenly losing my ability to push (I guess being able to breathe is sort of necessary to push!), so they used a vacuum but it didn't take much and he was out. (I had always thought a vacuum was a way bigger deal than it turned out to be... I had only one small tear with one or two stitches, probably the least tearing of any of my births.) He was born at 5:20. And I felt everything. But I survived and we are great! I'm obsessed with my new baby boy!

I literally couldn't sleep the rest of the time we were in the hospital because I couldn't stop staring at my beautiful, handsome little man. We are so in love!!