Our Roadside Adventure

Well, after much waiting and tribulation, our new little guy has arrived. We had quite an adventure getting him here, and though childbirth is always kind of an adventure no matter what, I thought I'd better chronicle the whole thing, so he someday can know the whole story if he wants to. We have my in laws here for the last week, so I'd been trying not to lose patience waiting for our baby to arrive since that's what they came half way across the world to see. His due date wasn't till the 28th of October, but we really expected to see him much sooner since I was consistently measuring big. Plus, I'd been having pretty consistent Braxton-Hicks that sometimes got pretty strong for the last month or so. So on the 26th, I started to feel contractions (or birth-waves as my hypnobabies training would have me call them) that were strong enough I had to close my eyes through them. They were still six or seven minutes apart, but we decided that once I was sure they were actual labor pains, no matter how far apart, we would just make our way to the hospital  mostly because I tend to have a harder time focusing in the car and would rather be able to settle in at the hospital for the hardest part of birthing time rather than be driving through it. And we live about 35 minutes away from the hospital, so we just didn't want to take any chances. So, we packed up our mountain of stuff and started the trip. About five minutes into driveing, my contraction started getting further apart and lightening up quite a bit. We almost turned around and went home, but decided to just go there and see. When we called, the midwife wasn't super optimistic that we would be ready to admit yet, so she said to go and get checked and the hospital would let her know. When we got there, they checked me and I was about a 3. Since they couldn't admit me until I was at least a 4, they told me to stay an hour and they would recheck me. During that hour however, my birth waves had really slowed down. They only came about 1 ever 12 minutes. So after the hour passed I hadn't made any progress at all. They told me to go home and not come back until the contractions were 2-4 minutes apart, or were significantly stronger.

So we made the walk of shame back to the car, and let everyone at home know they were releasing us. But I was still pretty sure I was in the first stages of actual labor, so we decided to stay in the area and go see a movie and stay at a hotel so that we wouldn't have to go home and immediately come back. During the night my birth waves almost completely died off though, so in the morning we just went home. Charlie was very patient with me and very sweet about the whole thing. At home I lay down to rest and watch some Alias, and the waves sped up and strengthened quite a bit, but stayed put at around 7 minutes apart. Although they were consistently pretty strong, we kept waiting for them to get a little closer together so that we wouldn't end up going to the hospital and coming right back home again. After several hours of this I wanted to change tactics so I got up to start a bath. The walk over to the bath tub, and waiting for it to fill up, I had a few waves that were about a minute apart, but as soon as I sat down on the edge of the tub, they spaced out again. After getting in the tub, I had one wave that was seven apart and the next one was a two. Then I started to feel some pressure, so I got out and went to the toilet and the next contraction (one minute later) broke my water. We grabbed some clothes and ran to the car, but the waves stayed at about 1 minute apart and before we even left Spanish Fork, I was feeling the urge to push. We stopped at the Spanish Fork Clinic and Charlie ran in to see if they could possibly deliver a baby. As you can expect, he said the women looked quite shocked at the question, so he just said never mind and we started out of town. We pulled off the freeway again Provo, but then got back on again since getting to American Fork Hospital at that point seemed about as likely as getting to Provo Hospital considering the long drive through town. At this point I was sort of crying/yelling. Charlie tried to calm me but he was quite freaked out himself. On my part, it was less fear than it was my only way to deal the sudden onset of such strong and close birthing waves. It just felt better to yell. But at about 1/2 mile from the Pleasant Grove exit I told Charlie I was pushing and so he stopped and he had the presence of mind (through the scary situation of having a screaming wife and knowing he was going to have to deliver his baby) to call 911 and calmly let them know the situation. They connected him with a closeby emergency vehicle and talked him through what he should do. By the time the ambulance arrived, the head was all the way out. The EMT sort of pushed Charlie out of the way and then got me to push the baby the rest of the way out. Then he smoothly cleaned up the baby a little and suctioned out the baby's mouth and nose and cut the cord. He tried to deliver the placenta as well, but Charlie told him it usually took a while before my placenta came out, so they thankfully just left it and lifted me up onto the stretcher and into the ambulance where I got to hold and feed the baby while Charlie followed a long behind in our car. When we got to the hospital Fae and Mom were there waiting already. We went into Labor and Delivery and the midwife came and delivered the placenta and sewed me up and stuff. Our beautiful smart little dude took right to breastfeeding. And the EMTs stuck around for a minute for pictures and congratulations. They were (rightly so) quite proud thier part in the birth. One EMT said he got a little teary eyed.

Charlie's sister, Meli, recently had her baby in the backseat of her car as well, in the parking lot of the hospital. Afterwards, she seemed like the only one who was calm about it. Her mom who was there, and her husband both seemed a little traumatized. I always wondered about that, but now I understand a little better. As far as my part of bringing the baby into the world, it wasn't much different than it would have been in the hospital. The Birth waves in the car weren't very pleasant I can tell you, so there probably would have been less screaming in a place where I would have been able to focus, but other than that, everything I did would have been about the same no matter where I was. Charlie's part was drastically different however. He was wise and level headed about the whole thing, but he was also traumatized by having his wife screaming and having all the weight of the decisions rest on him. Our other two kids Charlie caught when they were coming as well, but they were in a very controlled and germ free environment, with a midwife over his shoulder talking him through it. He admitted that he came away from this birth emotionally exhausted  I'm very proud of him and what he did. He made it possible for me to feel safe and confident in a situation which otherwise might have been very scary for me, or made the labor even harder. He also helped me not to tear very badly either. Great job hubby! The EMTs were great too. I was worried about giving everyone on the freeway a show, but they were very careful to keep me modest, and they were quite efficient and charming. So, not exactly like I had hoped for and my birth plan went out the window, but we feel great and the baby is doing great and Charlie will hopefully recover soon. :) I feel very blessed to be married to such a man. And blessed that the baby seems to be fine despite the unsanitary conditions. Heavenly father was certainly watching out for us.