Landon's Birth Story

pinkshades05 · April 2017

Four days late and still not much going on. Mild cramping for two weeks straight but no contractions or signs of labor. It was very frustrating! I went to bed Thursday night the same way I did the past four nights--pretty certain I would make it to 42 weeks before this little guy would come.

At 1am I woke up for my usual bathroom break. And as usual, I went back to bed with cramping that usually lasts several minutes before subsiding so I could go to sleep. Only this time, it just wasn't going away. And when it did, it was followed by more cramps in a pattern that I recognized as contractions. They were about 8 minutes apart and anywhere from 30s to 1:30 long.

After an hour of this, I woke up my husband to let him know. I wasn't 100% that this was quite it but he took it very seriously--which in hindsight I'm glad. We needed to call the midwife on call at the birth center, my friend to watch the my two girls, my mom that lived 5 hours away, and my SIL who was in charge of pictures. That was a lot to do to coordinate everything! Thankfully, the midwife on call did not hesitate to have me come in to get checked even though I only just started having contractions. My last birth almost ended in a car birth because the midwife doubted I was in labor. This time I made it to the Birth Center by 3am and was at 5cm--perfect! No car baby!

Labor was intense and my back hurt in the worst way from all the walking and bouncing I had been doing to try to get him out. I was having trouble finding comfortable positions while the contractions were getting stronger. The first few hours I labored in the tub but as I was getting towards the end of transition I could no longer sit in the water. Out of the tub, I tried various positions--birthing stool, birth ball, and then finally I just stood up and held onto my husband. That's when my water finally broke and baby started to come down.

I couldn't wait to push this baby out and get it all over with. However, the midwife kept telling me to slow it down. I later learned my baby had tried to come out with his elbow by his face! Not very easy to do and could have caused a lot of damage. Thankfully, it all worked out. The midwife handed me my baby and I could finally relax for a minute.

Landon Reed arrived at 6:41am weighing a whopping 10lbs 8.5oz and measuring 21.5in. They had to weigh him to determine if he needed his blood sugar checked and he was over the limit weight-wise. Luckily his sugar level was fine. I was just instructed to nurse him a lot to make sure his blood sugar stayed up and he has happily obliged. So far he's doing great and we are so in love with him!

MWoodside · April 2017

Thanks for sharing your birth story. I can't believe how big he is! How big were your other 2?

pinkshades05 · April 2017

@MWoodside My other two were 8.1 at 38+3 and 8.8 at 40w exactly. I'm seriously surprised he weighed so much because he's as long as the girls were and didn't seem particularly heavy! BUT he's pooped 5x in 24 hours so I guess there is a lot going on inside