Thursday, December 19th: My due date arrived and no baby! I wrote my blog about disappointment and went to bed. I laid in bed and said, "Lord, you know my heart. I would love to wake up in the middle of the night in labor. I want my family to be here when he arrives. I want an epidural. I want things to go smoothly and safely. Your timing is perfect so help me to wait for your timing. I had an appointment on Friday so was planning to ask my doctor if she could strip my membranes to get things moving.
Friday, December 20th: Around 4:15 a.m. I woke up with some craps but didn't want to get my hopes up so I went to the living room and ate a bowl of cereal and drank some water. After 30 minutes I went and informed Nate that the contractions were 5 minutes apart and requiring me to breath through them and he told me to call the doctor and see if I should come in or not. I waited. Around 5:30 I went and told Nate that they were starting to hurt and we called our friend, Sara, to come sit with the kids, called our parents and headed to the hospital.
6:15 a.m. - We arrived at the hospital. They hooked me up to the monitor to check out the baby, who kept moving. They checked me and said I was 6 cm (from the 4 cm I already was from our Thanksgiving false alarm). They admitted me and we waited for some blood work, signed some paper and waited for the epidural.
7:15 a.m. - We were still waiting on the epidural because they requested some blood work that required waiting for results. They finally came in and told me the blood work had gotten lost so they were gonna just go ahead and do the epidural anyway.
8:20 a.m. - They came in to administer the epidural. The one awkward part was that since Greenville Memorial is a teaching hospital, they have multiple doctors and the doctor who administered the epidural was asking to be trained on a more advanced doctor's (also in the room) technique. As she put the needle in my back to numb the epidural spot, the more experienced doctor told the other doctor that she had just punctured my epidural vein/nerve. He informed her to come out a few centimeters and that the side effects of what happened may be that I get bad headaches, not what you want to hear when your contractions are getting more intense. Luckily, Nathan talked to me to distract me and the other doctors were all super calm and told me that everything was fine it was just a debate on techniques. I ended up having no headaches and not even experiencing pressure form the epidural needle. Once the epidural was in place I felt great. I was talking non-stop and super giddy. I had a friend, who works at the hospital, come to visit. I even ate an ice fruit pop. We were just waiting. During this time Nathan was laughing at my continuous talking and humored by the fact that my contractions were now right on top of each other and I was feeling nothing. Around this time, my parents arrived.
Around 10-10:15ish - My friend left and I began feeling a great desire to push. I told the nurse and she called the anesthesiologist to give me some medicine to help relieve the pressure. They checked me and said I was 9 1/2 cm. but that he hadn't dropped yet. They gave me medicine to relieve the pressure and I couldn't really feel anything. Everything from my belly down was tingly. I felt great! The nurse left to ask the doctor if we should give some pitocin because my contractions had slowed a bit. As she was leaving the doctor entered the room and announced that she was going to break my water to see if we could get things moving. They broke my water and gave me a very small dosage of pitocin because my contractions had now slowed to 8-10 mins. apart. Side note: I found it funny that when I was there at 37 weeks they were hesitant for using any meds to intervene but this time they were content to give me drugs all the time. They even said, "You've already had multiple kids, you don't need to experience any pain." Apparently when you pass your due date, they are also eager to get the baby out. Considering my other deliveries, I was more than happy to be as pain-free and alert as possible. The only unfortunate side of this was that I had to lay on my back at one point of time during this and between all the drugs and that yummy fruit pop, I threw up :-( Nathan's dad arrived around this time.
10:30ish - This is where everything just got super fast. The doctor came around and said she was heading to do a c-section so she wanted to check and see if I was ready to deliver before. I couldn't really give any opinion on the matter since I wasn't feeling anything so they checked and said I was ready to go. They got me set up in the stirrups and told me they would tell me when to push. I pushed once and they noticed that the baby's heartbeat was dropping. They said they would like to make this quick and since it was my 3rd that it would probably go by quickly as long as I just really focused on pushing when they told me. I pushed two more times and he came out. If I wouldn't have seen it myself I never would have believed I delivered him, especially since it was painless. At 10:48 a.m. Augustine (pronounced A-gus-tin) James Forrest was born at 7 lbs. 9 oz. and 20 3/4 in. long. He will go by the name August. No tearing or anything! We found out afterwards that his umbilical cord was wrapped around his neck and tied in a knot so the quick delivery was a blessing because longer could have had a ver different outcome for him.
How are we doing? August is eating very well and seems to be a pretty calm and quiet baby. For the most part, he sleeps well and has to be awakened every 3 hours to eat unless he wakes up somewhere between every 2 1/2 - 3 hours. Since we know this is our last one, we are enjoying the snuggles and each smile and cuddle. Since this is my third, I made the assumption that I would remember everything but then forgot to remind myself so I have been able to avoid some pressure on myself because my expectations are loose. I am not stressing about a schedule yet and really enjoying having Nathan home to help me when I realize things are different and I can't do it all on my own. So far life just feels like it is going normally with a little extra ball thrown in. I don't feel like I had a baby since I've just been on motrin to relieve the pain. I'm doing well and feel pretty good. There has been one rough night and probably more with sleep but Nate has been a great help with allowing me to nap when I need it and encouraging it too! I don't notice the big change until I do things the way we always have and realize I don't have enough hands or time between feedings to get it all done. Since Nate is a teacher, he has the next 1 1/2 weeks off plus 5 days paternity and my folks will come back once he goes back to work. I am so grateful for the help as I figure out how to care for my kids and do the day to day task of caring for my home. Please pray for Emma and Maddy as they adjust to a new brother. Maddy seems to show her disapproval by being rebellious about everything and Emma does so by being very territorial and pitches a nice fit whenever anyone gets too close to her stuff.
We are so glad he is here and so grateful for your many thoughts and prayers for us over the past few weeks. Look for more pictures to come!
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