hello again! it has been way too long since i’ve posted. i guess i was busy finishing up my school year teaching and being 9 months pregnant to find the time and energy (mainly this one haha) to sit down and write. but today is the day! i had a baby 5 weeks ago and would love to share my birth story with you. hold on. it’s about to be a long one.
june 3rd was the last day of the school year with my 3rd graders and june 4th was the day to clean out my classroom and pack everything up. this day also happened to be baby westad’s due date (remember, we didn’t know the gender). i woke up and had “period-like” cramps all day. not horrible- just constant. around 11am, my classroom was completely empty! little did i know, just 24 hours later, i would be holding our little baby in my arms.
later on after leaving my classroom, my cramps continued and seemed to be a bit “come and go” like contractions so i began tracking them, but looking back they weren’t actual contractions. i did have a bit of bloody show which gave me some hope though. i went to lunch and a pool party that evening. the day came and went. still no baby.
around 11:45pm, i woke up to extreme pain. now i understand when people say that you know when you know, meaning i didn’t know what a contraction felt like, and i still wouldn’t be able to describe it, but when i woke up, i knew it was it. i didn’t wake up trevor yet because i wanted to be absolutely certain. i ended up falling asleep and waking again with another intense contraction. they were still about 25 minutes apart. around 1am, i asked trevor if i should call the health line. although it hadn’t been 2 hours and they were too far apart still, i was still having that constant cramping in between contractions.
around 1:30am, the health line told me to go in to check out that cramping- to make sure everything was okay. but, she called my hospital and they were actually full. she proceeded to tell me i had 3 other choices of hospitals to go to and told me her personal favorite. i officially woke trevor up, and we left for the hospital. it’s crazy because as soon as trevor and i were leaving, my contractions started to come every 3 minutes! 25 minutes apart to 3 minutes apart…
because it was not the hospital we originally planned to deliver at, trevor and i had to fill out paperwork in the lobby before i could be seen. eventually we got seen in triage. i was only at a 3cm. i thought they were going to send me home. but instead, they had me hooked up for 1 hour to watch baby’s activity and see if my body progressed. during this hour, contractions really started to get intense and they were all in my back. after one hour, i was dilated to a 4cm, and they admitted us! we met the midwife and got brought to the room our little one would join us in just a few hours. it was currently around 4:15am.
i decided i wanted the epidural because the back pain was just getting worse and worse. contractions were inconsistent, some being extremely close together and very intense. before i could get the epidural, i was told i needed a bag of fluids. the nurse could not get my iv in though. after 2 shots of novocain and no success, she called in an iv specialist who took about 45 minutes to make her way to our room. that specialist got the iv in right away.
my water broke naturally around 6am and that’s when they gave me the epidural. about 45 minutes later, we came to the conclusion that it did not work. the pain was so intense, not lightening up one bit. so, they called in the person who gives the epidural (who took about 45 minutes to be able to come) to replace it. the doctor later told me that my body was progressing too quickly for the epidural to work. this time, it did work. praise Jesus!! i was at about 8cm dilated when it began to kick in, and let me tell you, i felt amazing! trevor and i both got about an hour nap in since we had had pretty much no sleep.
around 8:55am, they told me i was fully dilated and the head was right there. they had me on my left side for one more hour with this big peanut shaped thing between my legs to see if baby would come farther down the canal on their own before i push.
around 10:15am, we began practice pushes which turned into full on delivery! this was extremely peaceful. the lights were dimmed, and i felt so at ease. pushing was actually super fun. at one point, trevor and i got to feel the baby’s head. my midwife said she was so glad i took her up on that offer because most women don’t want to. it felt super cool. trevor was amazing during the entire process: holding my knees up, getting me water in between contractions, etc. i surprisingly loved it all!
then, at 11:06am, our baby was born. we had planned that trevor would announce the gender to me, so he looked at the baby, then looked up at me, and said, “it’s a boy.” i was shocked but it felt so right at the same time. trevor cut the cord, and then they laid him on my chest. it was incredible.
he weighed in at 10 pounds 1 ounce and 21 inches long! he also had a full head of brown hair. the nurses and everyone was so impressed that i only pushed for 45 minutes and had a 10 pound baby for my first pregnancy!
hudson bjorn wested. our son.
so in love.
tia marie
tia marie 