Wednesday, March 23, 2011

Maverick's Birth Story


So here's the last pregnancy picture we have of me. I was exactly 37 weeks (or full-term) on Wednesday, March 16th. I remembered to have Derek take a picture of me before I went to bed. It was right after my shower and I was tired, but I'm so glad I took the time for this or obviously I wouldn't have it!

On Thursday, 3/17 I lost my mucous plug when I got up in the morning. Since the day that I lost my mucous plug was the day I had both Chandler and Brighton I was a little shocked. I know that losing the plug doesn't mean anything and that labor could still be days or even weeks away. That's not my "normal" though so I thought it would be sooner rather than later.

We had already planned for Derek to be off on Thursday to go to Farm Animal Days (I'll post about that later) and we continued with our day as planned. I was having contractions throughout the morning, but nothing intense and not very noticeable. I did call my midwives around noon just to let them know what was going on. I already had my 37-week checkup scheduled for Friday, so they said unless major changes occurred they'd see me then.

Friday morning I woke up about 4 a.m. with a very large contraction. I started having them every few minutes for the next half-hour, but I hesitated to call anybody because I just didn't feel like this was "it". The contractions continued for the next hour, but then really started to space out to at least every 20 minutes. I was able to fall back asleep and proceeded with my Friday plans that morning as usual.

After dropping Chandler off to preschool, Brighton and I headed to the midwives for my appointment. Everything went great at the appointment and it appeared Maverick had turned from being posterior to a more favorable position for birth. I left the midwives about 11 a.m. and picked Chandler up from school about 12:45 p.m. The boys went down for their quiet time about 1:30 p.m. I called Derek at 1:55 p.m. and asked him if he could try to be home about 4 p.m. I said I was tired and really needed to rest and once the boys got up I knew that would be hard. At 2:15 p.m. I called Derek back and said change of plans....you need to come home NOW! I was in the middle of making 4 batches of soup for my cooking club and when I could no longer focus on chopping up the chicken I knew something was happening.

Derek got home, loaded the car and the boys and we were on our way shortly after 3 p.m. Traffic on I-40 was backed up so we detoured from our normal route and I thought we were never going to get there! We got to the birth center about 3:45 p.m. and they checked me and I was complete. I had asked them to fill up the tub in advance so after getting my vitals I got in. It felt great! I was so glad and I was able to relax some and hold off the urge to push. My parents hadn't arrived yet and I was hoping they would make it in time. My water also had not broken. When I finally started pushing, I was able to break my water after a few pushes. A few pushes later and I knew he would be out soon.

My family all came into the room and I slowly pushed Maverick out. I was able to have greater control this time and didn't tear at all. Funny thing is that even after moving to a more favorable position for birth, Maverick still came out "sunny-side up". He did great at birth and they didn't even need to suction him out. His apgar scores were a 9 and a 9.

It was such an amazing experience and I'm so in love with my latest little boy!

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