Finally getting around to Caden’s birth story. I will try to keep it contained in one post so it doesn’t become shy of a novel.
I was certain that this baby was going to come early especially with my progesterone levels never elevating nearly as high as my doctor would have liked to have seen. With that in mind I started prepping early, making freezer meals in June and purchasing baby supplies and packing bags in July. Little did I know that this guy was going to be almost an entire week late, making the pregnancy seem like it lasted forever going 7 weeks longer than I did with Grace.
Fast forward to 40 weeks, still very pregnant and 1/2cm dilated. I was pretty nervous going over my due date, but knew that with trying a VBAC we couldn’t induce when I wasn’t even a 1. To help ease some of the anxiety the doctor had me go in twice that week for the baby to be monitored to ensure everything looked normal. This little man past all the tests with flying colors and I progressed to 1cm, woohoo! So we continued the waiting game.
The game plan was I would be induced at 41 weeks, which was a Monday. Although if I hadn’t progressed any further come 6:00am Monday morning, the options were wait a few more days, c-section or try to induce and hope for the best. Heading into the weekend I was a wreck. None of the options sounded good and I was struggling to find peace with having to make a decision come Monday morning.
Trying to distract myself from the “what ifs” I rounded up the final items for my hospital bag Friday night and made some notes for the sitter. I went to bed feeling a few contractions and struggled through the night to sleep. Nerves and the contractions kept me awake most of the night, nothing consistent enough to signal I was in labor though.
I had just laid back down in bed at 5:00am when my water broke. Excited, nervous and panicked all at the same time. Wow, this baby was finally going to come!!
My contractions still weren’t any closer together, so I jumped in the shower and ate a small breakfast because I knew they wouldn’t let me touch food once I got to the hospital. The boys were ecstatic when they woke up to find out what was going on and wanted to know how soon the baby would come. I told them by later that afternoon, in my mind I thought no way would this take longer than 12 hours.
We finally made our way to the hospital around 8:30am, with the contractions still sporadic. The doctor checked me and I was barely 3cm, so I made it my mission to not stop moving. I walked the hallways so many times that one nurse commented, boy you sure are ambitious. We even did 12 flights of stairs only to be locked out of our floor on the way back down. Slightly embarrassing taking the main guest elevators robed in hospital gowns. And still…no progress.
(I guess this will have to be a two part post, it has turned into a novel.)
Caleb is beautiful! !!