Amber Graves: Birth Story

I am finally getting around to blogging about Hudson's birth story.....better late than never right?

We arrived at Centennial Hospital around 12:30AM September 19th to be induced. After we got checked in and settled into our room my nurse put some meds in my cervix that would help me thin out and dilate faster, since I was STILL only at a two. She said she would check me again at 5 AM and if there was no progress she would start the Pitocin. When she checked me at 5 I had not made progress so she gave me a small dose of Pitocin. Around 9AM my doctor came in to check on me and I was only dilated to a three so she decided to break my water. Boy did that do the trick because my contractions started coming on pretty strong not long after that. Around 2 PM my nurse checked me and I was between a 4 and 5, at that point I decided I did not want to ride out the pain any longer and asked for my epidural. That was the best decision ever, the time between asking for it and it kicking in was no fun. From that point on it was just a waiting game and thankfully I was in no pain. My nurse checked me again around 3:30 PM and I was completely thinned out and dilated to a 9 1/2...it was almost time to push. I didn't take birthing classes so I didn't know what to expect and began to get really nervous. After about 15 minutes she cleared the room out, and told me it was time to get started pushing, my mom and sister were on each side of me "coaching", Luke was at my head staring at the wall, and my mother in law was waiting with camera in hand.

My nurse (who I have to say was absolutely amazing) sat down with her bottle of olive oil (yep that's what she used to help him "slide" out ha ha) on the bed and very calmly said when she told me to I needed for push for 10 seconds and we would do three pushes back to back. After one round of pushes she told me to stop she needed to call the doctor, and my doctor arrived with the rest of the "team" in just a few minutes. Once my Dr was ready we did one more round of pushes and at 4:08PM he was here! I never in my wildest dreams imagined labor to be so easy and go so smooth. I tell people it was almost as if it was a tranquil experience, because everyone was so calm and it went so smooth that I didn't even know how to react when he came out, because it all happened so fast. Of course once he was born there were tears of joy, and I had that special moment when I got to hold my baby boy for the first time.

I am so blessed and thankful that I had such a wonderful birth experience, and not one of those horror stories. My mom contributes it to me staying so active and coming to her house to swim and do squats several times a week. I am not sure if that was it or not, but I know I will definitely be following the same regimen with my next pregnancy. I also have to credit the amazing labor and delivery staff at Centennial Women's Hospital, I think they definitely helped make the experience so wonderful. Now on to the good stuff.....pictures!

Not my best look, but it was part of the experience. I had to wear an oxygen mask throughout the entire labor and delivery because his heart rate kept dropping. Once he was born my doctor discovered a knot in his umbilical cord which is very rare, but she thinks that's what was causing the problems with his heart rate. She couldn't really say how long it had been knotted, but it only caused problems during delivery because of my contractions.

I think Luke's eyes were crossed by the end of the from watching my contractions on the monitor and the paper.

While we were all waiting around someone suggested guessing his time of birth, weight, and height. As you can see most of Luke's family thought I was going to have a 9+ lb baby...thank goodness they were way off.

The best nurse ever!

Checking him out....I was a proud mama when she said his APGAR was 9 1/2

When they handed him to me I was for sure he was going to weight a lot because his hands and feet were HUGE, but it turned out he was just tall and skinny. 7lbs 2oz/ 20 inches.