After months of anticipation, Harrison is here! I keep looking at him and thinking, oh my gosh you were just inside of me. How is that possible?
The whole process of him coming here is truly incredible to me. How a person's body can go through all of that, involuntarily, and produce a human being is a testament to me of Heavenly Father's love and power. We were so blessed with everything that happened with Harrison. It all worked out perfectly, well with a few snags, but mostly perfect.
I had my permanent substitute start on Monday the 19th whether he had come or not. Turns out since I'll be on maternity leave til the end of the school year, I'll be missing several meetings. To make up my meetings, I had to do some observations that morning. So I went into the school, on my due date, and observed a couple teachers. Since 5am that morning I had been having some mild contractions like an hour or so apart. I thought...is this labor? I had one other sign of labor that morning that made me think he would definitely be coming this week sometime.
I left my observations early because MAN was I uncomfortable. Sitting 9 months pregnant in those stupid metal school chairs is lame. But I got done what the school district required of me. Then I had a doc appt at 2:45. At my appointment, ol' Dr. Judd said, "well good news your cervix has changed, I can induce you on Thursday." Having the end in sight was encouraging, but I was thinking, am I gonna have these tummy aches (contractions) until then?
So thinking we had more time, David and I went to tour the hospital and pre-register. I felt silly at first...touring labor and delivery. Do people really do that? But it got us so excited! Plus I was grateful we did later.
We came home, I made dinner and berry cobbler for dessert. We played banana grams with my mom, twin brother and his wife. Pretty normal night. Almost as soon as I got ready for bed and laid down, the contractions got stronger. I kept thinking, everyone I know of goes through most of their labor at night. What's the deal? Mom says it's because of the moon. I don't know if I believe her.
I kept watching my clock as they got closer and closer. I REALLY tried to sleep, but no use. Eventually around 2am I thought I couldn't take it anymore. I woke David and he jumped out the bed and got all our things into the car. We started driving to the hospital, but then I thought...what if they turn us away? Plus once in the car my contractions seemed to suddenly slow down. We decided to go back home and wait until we were really for sure.
So David gave me his phone to watch my contractions and use the lap setting on his stopwatch. He went back to sleep while I huffed and puffed my way through. Each time I pressed the lap button, I thought they were getting further apart. It kept saying 1, then 2, then 3, then 4, etc. I got all the way to 16 laps but dummy me didn't realize that 16 laps did not mean 16 minutes between contractions. I'm retarded. Luckily my mom was upstairs listening to me and was timing them as well. She peeked over the stairs and said, hey guys I think you should go to the hospital, they're 2 minutes apart. I'm glad she knew what she was doing.
We got to the hospital smoothly, not without stopping on the sidewalk for a contraction or two. I was the only one to come in so they got with me right away. The nurse checked me and said "You're definitely in labor, you're at 6cm!" Holy cow didn't I just see Dr. Judd a few hours ago?! Unfortunately because the anesthesiologist was busy with other patients, I didn't get an epidural until an hour and a half later. Ugh. When he gave it to me, he poked something that jolted my right leg out like a giant funny bone attack in my leg. My right leg suddenly got very heavy while my left felt pretty normal.
Thankfully he fixed it, I was afraid I'd only be numb on one side of my body. Once the medicine set in, things felt dreamy. I was finally able to sleep, sort of. I drifted in and out for a while. David never really slept since the couch/bed thing they had was rock hard and I kept asking for ice chips.
I have to say, David was and is amazing through all this. He is such a wonderful dad and has taken excellent care of me. He never complained and even though he was exhausted, kept wanting to do more for me.
I had progressed to 7cm an hour or so later, but after that it stalled for a few hours. Harrison also was posterior so the nurse tried to turn him a little herself. They decided to give me some pitocin as well try to move him and maybe help me progress. It worked, later Harrison was facing the right way and we were making progress.
Then at around 11:30 the nurse said I was fully dilated and would be able to push once Dr. Judd came! Yay! Dr. Judd's showed up around 12:5o, checked me, and said..."well Harrison decided to turn posterior again. So you can either stay pregnant for 2 more weeks or we can use the forceps on him. What do you say?" Dr. Judd is not a serious man. He made jokes through the entire delivery. I'm grateful we had him. He has the lowest c-section rate in Utah. So rather the c-section me, he used some good old fashioned elbow grease.
What a bizarre feeling to be numb but be able to tell what's going on! David held my right leg (which fell off the stirrups) and loved every minute of it. The nurses kept asking if he was ok, cause I know it wasn't pretty, but he would have done it himself if they would have let him!
So I pushed, doc pulled with the forceps, pushed some more, thought my eyes were gonna pop out, pushed some more, doc cut me to make some more room, and then finally his head comes out! It was strange him being part in me and all the many nurses and doctor talking to the baby since his face was up looking at everyone...
A couple more pushes and he was out! I cried. Partly because I felt elated it was over, and then overwhelmed with feelings of love for this little guy we were meeting. They were going to do the "skin to skin" but took him to get him to cry more. Nurses checked him while doc sewed me up, still making jokes. Eventually the nurses got concerned. His oxygen levels were low and he had "nostril flaring." They were worried since I had just gotten over my "walking pneumonia."
He was taken to the NICU to further monitoring. They let me hold him for about 2 seconds to take a picture before whisking him away. Earlier when we were at home, David gave me a blessing. He had blessed me with peace and trust in the Lord. When they took him to the NICU, all my motherly instincts were to worry. But I felt peace. I knew he would be ok. 4 hours later, he was out of the NICU and into our recovery room with us. He had recovered and was breathing well.
He is beautiful and we can't stop staring at him. I can't imagine him being bigger. He's so tiny and most of his newborn clothes are too big! We love him and are so grateful to have a healthy little boy. oh my gosh we're parents.
