The final stretch: I got a lot of odd comments from random people during my pregnancy; some were nice but most just made me think, "Did you really just say that outloud... to a pregnant lady?" The last month or so I got a lot of people asking me if I was ready to be done. Honestly, I loved being pregnant. It had it's uncomfortable moments but over all I loved it. I loved realizing my dream of being able to have a baby in my belly and being able to feel him move and watch my tummy grow. He was easy to take care of while he was in my belly. He was such a wiggle worm and he took up every ounce of space available to him but I still loved it.
Two days before my due date I woke up and started my day like normal. I started my maternity leave from work the week of my due date so that I'd have a few extra days to put the finishing touches on getting ready for the babe. Those days at home were probably the longest of my pregnancy, other than that the nine months flew by! As I got ready I noticed that I was having pretty steady contractions. They were about five minutes apart and would last for about one minute. I timed them and after about 45 minutes I called my husband at work and told him we probably should head up to the hospital. My contractions weren't painful, but I hadn't felt the baby moving since the night before so I was getting worried. Later someone told me that babies are usually calm and don't move a lot right before they're ready to come... that would have been nice to know. We got to the hospital, got checked in and moved in to a little temporary room for observation. Baby's heart was beating strong on the monitors and my contractions had stopped, but I was progressing so I was given some options: we could go home and wait it out, I could walk around the hospital and see if I could get my contractions to start up again, or I could be induced. I was nervous about being induced so we decided to walk around the halls for a bit. After about an hour we were given two options, be induced or go home. We decided to give baby a jump start and stayed at the hospital. I felt peaceful about our decision to induce, I was technically in labor and I thought that at home I'd just drive myself crazy. They started my pitocin around 5 that afternoon.
I tried to tough it out and experience as much of labor as I could handle. But after mostly back contractions, that were completely miserable and difficult to breathe through, I opted for the epidural. That thing was fabulous. It was a bit uncomfortable and kind of painful during the process but the end result was awesome. Baby didn't react well to the pitocin, his heart rate kept dropping and I was getting light headed so they stopped my meds and put me on oxygen. I stopped progressing and tried to get some rest. By this time both of our families had stopped by and were patiently waiting. At 2 in the morning our dr was called and we were headed for go time. Pushing lasted about 15-20 minutes and was such an odd experience. It was hard to tell what exactly to do and if I was doing it right, but once baby was on his way out I could definitely tell. At 2:43 our little Hiccup was born. He weighed 8 pounds 5 ounces and was 20 inches long. He had some breathing problems so I couldn't hold him right away. The NICU team worked their magic on him and took good care of him and about 15 long minutes later I finally got to meet my little boy.
He was so much chubbier than I thought he would be and looked nothing like I expected. But he was all mine and my heart just melted holding him and looking at him and taking it all in. He was wide awake and ready to meet the world and everyone who had waited to meet him. I didn't cry or get emotional when he was first born. I think I was too worried about him being ok. But holding him in my arms those first hours were some of the most peaceful and reassuring moments of my life. It is weird how something can come together so quickly and feel like right in that exact moment, everything in your little world makes perfect sense. It is amazing how much love you can have for someone so little and so new. When we first met him we couldn't grasp how we had gone so long without him.
The nurses took such wonderful care of me but I absolutely hated being in the hospital. I couldn't wait to take my little boy home and start our new adventure together as a family. Our pediatrician told us he'd really like the monitor baby for another 12 hours but I was going stir crazy so we were able to go home and then back to the dr office a day later.
Motherhood has been an adjustment. It has had more complications than I thought; some aspects have been better than I could have imagined and others have been a bit more difficult. I have had to go back to work for now but we have family watching the babe during the day. Once my husband finishes school hopefully I'll be able to stay home a little more, but for now we will do what works best for our little family.
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