cal has arrived!

Photo by Maria Gloer Photography

It happened! I had a baby. It's been a while since I last talked to you, obviously. But I went through a whole 9-10 months growing our sweet boy and he has finally arrived! I have never really understood, am I to say "we" had a baby, or "I". I don't know, I mean it did take two of us to make this happen and my husband helped out tremendously while I was pregnant so I have no problem with calling "us" pregnant but when it came to labor, yeah no, "I" had that baby, haha. 

You didn't ask but I am sharing with you my/our birth story! 

birth story:

It all started when I was around 38 weeks pregnant. I went into my weekly appointment and I was 2 cm! I was super excited but tried to not get too excited for I heard and knew, especially for first time moms, that you can stay 1-3cm for weeks on weeks! And that's similar to what I did. 

THURSDAY // 04.21.22

I went back in for my next appointment and I was 39 weeks, 5 days, SO ready to have this baby at any moment. My doctor told me I was an easy 3. We didn't have any plans at the moment for induction, I wanted to go as long as I could, I even joked earlier on in my pregnancy that I would be fine if he came May 1 (his due date was April 24, so a whole week later making me 41 weeks). But when it came time for being almost 40 weeks, I was losing patience, haha. I talked to her (my doctor) about doing a membrane sweep. She said "okay, you know this could send you into labor within 12-24 hrs". I said, "great, perfect". Later on that evening, I started having major cramping pains, it was in my back and my pelvis. However, it wasn't consistent, I wasn't able to track it. It wasn't the type of cramping pain that came and went, it just came and never left and just became this dull hum in my body all night.

FRIDAY //  04.22.22

The next day, I was feeling around the same but a little better. Just kept trying to drink my water and paying attention to how I was feeling and how my body felt. I was still in pain but I just didn't think it was time yet. It wasn't bad enough to where I wasn't able to speak or move so I figure, we were all doing alright! I just remember being on my back porch in so much pain, It's hard to explain BUT in an effort to keep moving, I  joined my husband on the golf course to walk the course to really try to get this moving. I joked because apparently, that's what my parents did as well for one of her pregnancies. ​

SATURDAY // 04.23.22

Saturday morning rolled around about 3 AM and I was asleep on the couch. Something had startled me as I felt a gush as if I had peed. I thought to myself instead of going back to sleep, what if my water broke? I went to the bathroom and cleaned up, put a pad in and just went back to sleep. I thought, okay if it was, I would feel more as the day went on. I woke up again around 6 AM, not for another gush but more because I was experiencing some cramping. While I was already up, thought, might as well check to see if I've experienced any more leakage. It seemed subtle so I wasn't sure. I've heard of the huge water breaking, flood gates before but then again it could had been a slow leak and maybe just punctured the sack so it wouldn't necessarily come all flooding down but more like a small tear. But my cramping was significant enough that I thought I should monitor it. I did just that. I called my doctors office around 8 AM, told them my concerns and symptoms. She said if you feel like you need to come in, let me know and I will make sure they know you are on your way. I'm not sure but my biggest fear would be that we would go to the hospital and they would check me, and tell me I'm not in labor and then we'd have to turn right back home and I'd still be in pain! Honestly, I thought, wow if I'm not in at least early labor right now, I don't know what this is because it hurt pretty darn bad (putting it lightly) and I was certainly not prepared!

I stayed home and monitored myself for the next two hours and made my husband aware that we may need to go. I monitored my cramps intensely from 8-10AM to really see if they the "5-1-1 rule". 5 minutes apart, 1 minute in duration for 1 hour. Meanwhile, my husband went out to try and get a haircut and get chick fila ,HA! Such a man thing to do. I called my mom sometime in between there and she was having breakfast with a friend. When we were FaceTiming, she said she knew by the way I would talk then stop talking; and then of course there was my face from the pain; she just knew, it was almost time. I used an app to track my cramps and they were a little bit of everywhere but they were pretty consistently around 4.5-5.5minutes apart and about 1 minute in duration between that 9-10 AM timeframe. I told my husband, okay, I think we should go. Mind you we had mostly everything packed in the car ready to go since week 36! 

We arrived to the hospital around 11:30 AM and they took us into a room, got me all monitored up and did their check. She said I was 4 cm! Thank God, it seemed like I was progressing and it wasn't fake! However, they did a test to see if the fluid I thought might had been my water was really that but it didn't show as that, so I'm still unsure. Maybe, I really did just pee myself but anyway. She said it could had been possible that you do have a slow leak and it might be at the top but from their test, it wasn't it. She told us that they would continue to monitor me for the next hour to see if I really was progressing enough to be admitted, meanwhile, I was still able to feel allll those cramps. ​

SIDE NOTE ---->

 I was fully NOT prepared to think "contractions" felt like cramps. I know everyone feels things differently and everyone's pain tolerance is different as well but I was not expecting my contractions to feel almost like period cramps but worse. All the books and classes tell you you will experience a tightness in your belly near the top and that it would taper downward and that's how you knew it was a contraction vs Braxton hicks. I had been feeling Braxton hicks for weeks upon weeks. The Braxton hicks just felt like a tightness in the belly all over like a squeeze. But I was taught that the actual contractions felt at the top and then down but NOPE ya'll. I NEVER felt a contraction like that, ALL my contractions were felt in my back and lower belly, like a period cramp but on steroids and 100x worse. Another reason why I thought maybe this wasn't labor because I was not looking for that type of pain! 

When she came back to check me around 12:30 PM, she said I was closer to 5cm than 4cm so they went ahead and admitted me, I was never so happy!! We finally got into our room and all settled around 1:30 PM or so. My nurses came in and got me all squared away while I was having contraction after contraction. They asked If I wanted to go ahead and get the epidural, I said yes but can I eat first? Mind you, I haven't eaten all day! This all started around 3 AM! 

They brought me some food while they ordered the epidural. Now here's where it all gets a little foggy so follow along with me. I'm still a bit unsure what happened these next 6 hours so here it goes. Around 2:30pm-3:00pm I get my epidural and I'm about 5.5-6 CM. My water still hasn't broken so the on-call doctor came in and asked If I wanted her to break my water. Me, really wanting to try to do it as natural (with an epidural haha) as I could, I said no, I'd like to see if it'll break on it's own, I feel like I'm pretty close ya know! So they bring me the peanut ball, which I had heard from so many of my friends that that really kicked it into high gear for them and their water broke within an hour after getting; so I was confident! Well 5pm rolls around and nothing, I was still stuck at this 6cm mark and water not broken.

​( Also, the epidural was NOT bad at all! I don't know if they've just improved it over the years but honestly, the pen mark they make to know where to insert hurt way worse. I think also, it's the anticipation and knowing you have to stay still while getting it and worried you'll have a contraction when they are poking you. The guy who did mine was an angel, he was so kind! He told me to tell him when I was ready because, well, I was the one having the contractions. He said it feels like a bee sting, and it did. It truly wasn't that bad and no, the needle was not a foot long, you fools. )

At that point (around 5pm-6pm), I ask the nurse if I actually could go ahead and get her to break my water. Something happens here between hours 6pm-9pm) to where I couldn't get an answer as to why the doctor wouldn't break my water. It had been about 30-45 minutes since I asked this nurse to get the doctor to break it, she told me that the on-call doctor had been talking to my doctor and my doctor had said no, not to break it because they didn't want it broken too early since I wasn't progressing as much as they'd like. I was so confused! Earlier she wanted to and could but now she can't? It's going on 8pm now and I've been here since 11:30am! I'm hungry mind you as well, haha. I know it can be normal for first time moms to be in labor for A LONG TIME but I just didn't understand what was happening here, and I honestly don't think this nurse did either. But I wanted a plan. 

She said okay, we will come back and check you around 9pm and see how far along you were, 9pm came and still 6cm. What's the plan now, can you break it now? Let's go! No, still can't, if my water hadn't broke around 1130pm-midnight then they would break it, that was the plan, I didn't understand it whatever, I was pissed. That's like 3 hours!!

LUCKILY, I actually did feel a bit gush right around 10pm, I called the nurse in and not to get too excited I was like I'm pretty sure my water broke and it did! YAY! My water ended up breaking on it's own, that was exciting! They checked me, I was moving along to a 7cm now! Heck yeah!

Another hour later, 11:00pm, I was 9 CM! OMG I thought, we're going to have a baby TONIGHT!!  
Well....were we all wrong haha. Midnight rolls around and guess what, I'm still 9 CM, goodness! ​

SUNDAY // 04.24.22 (DUE DATE)

I mean what the hell is happening here. It's midnight now, and we thought we were going to have a baby at like, I don't know, 11:30pm-11:45pm! But nope!

I won't get into specifics too much but it wasn't until 2:30am did they say "okay, it's time to push". I was never so happy to hear those words!! Until, I kept hearing it for the next 5 hours. OH MY GOD, if I have to hear "okay, one, two, three, four....." and so on and so forth one more time, I'm going to scream, and not because I'm in labor and it hurts scream. Scream because I want to rip your throat out. I never ever want to knock on someone's job EVER! But this nurse, I honest to God, think she had no idea what she was doing. Of course, I can say this now because after talking with more people, I realize, I should had never pushed as long as I did but at the moment and had not done this before, I had no idea. 

The doctor finally had been in sometime between 4:00am-5:00pm and was confident we'd have a baby then but NOPE. Turns out Cal was sunny side up. How we did not know this by the already 2.5-3 hours of pushing at this time, beats me. I do consider us luckily though because even through all this time pushing, either I or the baby was in distress the whole time, which is another reason why we were able to keep pushing. Mine and Cal's vitals were still showing fine!

Sometime between 5-6am, in the room was me, my mom, my husband, the on-call doctor, and the nurse. We had been pushing the same way this whole time and I'm just begging them to try something different, if I could be in a different position, please! But I had the epidural so it would had been extremely hard if not impossible for me to move my position. We did try another strategy though called tug of war to try and push that way. 

*not me pictured but this is a good example of tug of war in the labor and delivery room*

​
6:00am rolls around and the doctor is obligated to tell me that we have hit our max time for pushing on it's own really. Our options now were:

a. C-Section
b. Vacuum/Kiwi style of pushing and if that didn't work, C-Section

​Devon and I were distraught and just in utter disbelief. We couldn't understand clearly or believe this really. All this time, all this work, and now we are on the verge of a C section. Not only that, the doctor explained to us that this type of C-section also wouldn't necessarily be a normal one because he was already so far down in the birth canal (because I was pushing forever) that they would have to bring him back up and then take him out. So it would be rough either way. Basically, if we had to do a c-section, it would essentially be recovering from both a vaginal and c-section delivery.

Everyone left the room and it was just me and Devon. We both just broken down in tears. We just needed a moment to really grasp and understand what was happening here. Devon was pissed, I was in shock and didn't know what to do.

I mean what even is a vacuum?? We asked them to come back so we can ask all the questions about the vacuum. I won't go into it too much but basically, it's this thing they put on the top of his head that they could see (because every time I was contracting and pushing, you could see his head but then when it was over and I stopped pushing, his head would fall back in. It was like wack-a-mole) and as I was contracting and pushing, she would use the vacuum and pull. BUT, she wouldn't be able to pull any harder than I was pushing so it was still all on me. Once the vacuum pops off though, it was over; done for and we couldn't try again and that would immediately mean, c-section.

We thought okay, let's try it. Maybe his head is a little bit more coney than normal after delivery but if that means, no c-section, It's worth a shot! ​

For reference, this is what it looks like and that yellow circular part is put on his head. Not only that but the doctor also tried several tries to try to turn him but too avail. So now, after thinking more through it, we decided we'd try it. 

It was a little after 7:00am and now it was time to push with the vacuum. Anyone who as gone through labor the standard way knows that she it's time for the pushing you do three pushes for 10 seconds each time during the contractions. This last time I pushed, I swear it was at least 5 or 6 pushes, 10 seconds each. I honestly am not sure how I did it after all that time. I was so extremely exhausted and felt like I had been running multiple marathons. I wish I could had seen my heart rate because I'm sure it was threw the roof at least the last few pushes. 

The last set, Devon turned to me in tears and I will never forget it; he said that he could see him and just kept saying please, you can do it. Now, I'm not sure if he was saying please to me or God but either way, it definitely helped seeing his face. Eventually, I heard the doctor got him turned and that's when she had the biggest eyes and Devon said he could see it in her face that we were going to get this done, here and now. 

and at 7:36 am on Sunday, April 24, 2022

Callahan Jay was earth side! 8 pound 2oz baby boy who was 21 inches long! 

Immediately after he was born, they sat him on my chest of course for a second and then brought him over to the incubation area. I don't know it's really called but that's what it looked like to me. They did all the things I'm sure, then brought him back over to me to breastfeed. 

As we were doing that a few minutes later past by, we noticed that he was turning purplish/blue. I looked up at the nurse standing next to me and said, "hmm...is he okay?"

She immediately grabbed him from me and hurried over to the incubation area, yelled for the NICU and we all panicked. He wasn't breathing anymore. I couldn't move. Literally and figuratively. I couldn't talk, I was in shock. I just spent how many hours in labor and 5 hours of pushing and now my baby who finally came out (non c-section), isn't breathing. I turn over and my husband, in tears with him mom. All I could do was try my best to stare deeply and directly at the front of the room, praying I could hear him cry again. A few moments later, I heard it. I began to have a sigh of relief but not until I heard him cry once more. And we did. I cannot explain to you the feeling that you get when you are holding a lifeless looking baby in your arms, I mean the pain and torture. Did I do something? What's wrong with him? This team of nurses are angels though and I know they immediately did everything they could to work with him and get him breathing again but I have never experienced anything more terrifying in my life.

They believe that he had swallowed some of the mucus plug and it had gotten stuck but thank the Lord, they were able to get it out quickly.

Soon after, I was finally able to hold my baby boy!  

Then after that, you get to watch your husband become a dad. Parents become grandparents, siblings become aunts and uncles and it's just the most wonderful and magical thing! 

If you've made it this way, bravo. Thank you so much for reading about our little family. What was your birth story like? I'd love to chat more!