Noah's Birth Story

Yesterday was an amazing day! It was one for the record books and another favorite in our eyes!

We checked into the hospital at 6am to be induced after having a few contractions the night before. We met our nurse in the waiting room and she took us off to our delivery room that we would get to know quite well, but only for a few hours. It was nice big room and we had a nice TV and bathroom. I changed into my lovely hospital gown and then awaited the dreaded IV. Last time with Reese it took 5 tries to get it in and that was awful. Yesterday the nurse searched and searched for a good vein and decided my hand would be best after putting a warming blanket on my arm. I was a little worried to get stuck, but my nurse, Hope, was AWESOME! She got it right in on the first try and we were good to go. Phew...first hard part done!

I started pitocin at 7:01am and we awaited the contraction party. They started coming pretty soon after. They weren't too bad, but getting worse. We surfed through TV channels to find nothing really on, but Top Chef. Mainly it kept Jake entertained while my mind was focusing on breathing and other things. I don't even really know what happened on the show, but it was there as background noise. I labored mostly on the bed and started feeling lots of pain in my lower back.

Dr. Rice (my doc) came in around 9 or 9:30ish we think and talked with us and checked me. I was dilated to 3cm, 80% effaced and at a +3 station. She then broke my water to help get me moving along faster. That wasn't so bad and about an hour later they checked me again. I had a resident also working with my doctor and nurse so I got to be checked twice each time (lovely, not!). Around 10:30 they checked me again because the contractions were getting much worse and more regular. I was using the birthing ball and standing alongside the bed to get through these lovely pains. My lower back was killing and the nurse came in and said to Jake to check out my back. It was super swollen and protruding because I was having back labor. I knew it was killing back there and then it all made sense. It is so not fun to have back labor. I hope no one ever has to go through that. Jake would have to push on my back to counter the pressure and hold in my pelvis which would help, but man was it painful!

When they checked me at 10:30 I'd figured I had progressed because of all that pain, but come to find out he was posterior and I was still at 3cm. My heart sank. I just thought all this pain was for nothing! It was upsetting and then I was freaked out that he was posterior. That meant his head was facing the other way and pushing into my back instead of pushing into my cervix to make it more favorable. You can still deliver that way, but it usually takes longer to dilate, is more painful and you push for a lot longer. A lot of times though the baby will flip and turn his head the right way, so I just kept praying that he would do that. It made me worry that I'd have to have a c-section, but the nurse wasn't worried about that at all. So on I went to labor more.

They had turned my pitocin down at one point because breaking my water seemed to make my contractions really regular. We found out that they slowed down though, so the pit was cranked back up. The contractions then just kept getting worse. I kept breathing through them and wanted to hold off on my epidural for as long as possible especially since I was only at 3cm.

By 11:30ish I was really in pain and starting to think this was impossible. I then chose to get my epidural around 11:45 because I couldn't take it any longer. I didn't care at that point if I was still at 3cm, I was hurting. I got the epidural and was good to go around 12:15 and man did that make my world better! Oh that was just glorious. It relaxed me and I had no problems with it at all. The lady giving it to me was so nice, and I was so grateful to finally have some relief from that back labor.

The nurse checked me then to find that I was 7/8cm dilated and about 85% effaced! I was so happy! I knew I had made the right choice by getting that epidural then and knew I'd be pushing soon. Jake called up our parents to let them know and I tried to nap. That unfortunately didn't happen because I got the shakes. My body was convulsing so bad. I was shaking everywhere and my jaw was clattering like crazy. I was going through transition and my body was in shock. It was so annoying that I couldn't control it, but at least I wasn't feeling the contraction pain too. I got calmed down for a little while and then they came back.

Soon after I started to feel this intense pressure down below like I needed to push. I ignored it and then it came back. I let the nurse know and so she said she better check me out. Come to find out I was 10cm and fully effaced on one half and still had to efface a little more on the other half. His head was right there and he had flipped! I wanted to jump for joy! She decided to put a catheter in to empty my bladder to help the other side of my cervix efface and luckily that did that trick. So a little after 1pm we started pushing.

It was crazy while pushing this time because I could actually feel the sensation to push. With this epidural I could feel the sensation, but not have the pain. I was in control and it was so nice. In fact they took the monitor off of me because I could tell when I was getting a contraction and needed to push. Within 3 sets of pushes, for a total of 8 minutes I had this baby boy out! He peed all over, too! I did it so fast and I was soooooo happy! I couldn't believe it when he was out. It went so fast. I had him at 1:13pm! I labored for a total of 6 hours! Not bad at all! Noah Jacob Naylor weighed in at 8 pounds 15 ounces, 22 inches long and had a head circumference of 14 3/4 inches. Needless to say his hat doesn't ever stay on his head! He has lots of blonde hair and is so stinking cute! I love him to pieces and just can't get over his cuteness. We're just so happy he's here and can't wait to get to know him better.