John Mark's Birth Day

Brandon has been longing for a fishing kayak for a long time. Well after much looking, he found the perfect used one on Craigslist. So last Sunday, John, Kara, Brandon, and I headed over to Chace Lake with the fishing kayak and 3 dogs in tow. Our dogs have been a bit neglected lately, so our "walk" was more than a little vigorous. Since walking is supposed to help start labor, this was fine with me. When we got home I thought my water was leaking. This might have been wishful thinking, but I called the doctor on call and he decided we needed to come in. Turns out, I was not in labor yet, but they wanted to keep us over night. We decided since we live so close to home, we would take our chances and head back home. I didn't work Monday, but I did go on Tuesday. I spent the day with my maternity leave sub and answering to everyone's questions about why I STILL wasn't in labor. Wednesday we went to our regular appointment where she informed me that we would need to be induced the following day (blood pressure up, baby measuring large, and 5 cm dilated with a bag of water that was ready to break). While this was the news I had been so desperately ready to hear, it all became real - that life as I knew it was about to change forever and there was no stopping it.

Thursday morning I woke up ready to go. Fresh makeup and hair, charged mobile devices, and my well packed hospital bag. We headed to labor and delivery at 6:30. We felt like we were leaving for Mexico for our wedding...you know that feeling where you feel like your the only ones up and going because her getting an early start on a vacation. We headed to the labor and delivery desk where we met Colleen - our nurse for the next few hours. Colleen was a sweet southern momma probably in her mid-forties. I liked her accent and cheerful, friendly attitude.

After getting set up, my doctor came in at 8 a.m. to break my water and put an internal monitor on John Mark (who was moving so much they couldn't get a good reading on him externally). I've never really minded being a patient, but I'll say that I did not enjoy this part and I'm sure the Colleen and Dr. Heidi were thinking that this was going to be a long morning if I didn't toughen up.

Pretty soon I started having contractions. While I later found out that according to the monitor these were pretty mild, I did not enjoy them at all. Because I was already so dilated, they gave me an epidural almost immediately and after that I felt pretty good. Brandon and I had come prepared to wait all day on our little bundle. After all, the doctor said that I would dilate 1 cm per hour which would mean 5 hours at the least that we would have to wait before we began pushing. Like I said, we had come with fully charged devices and told our family members to prepare for a long day. This being said, we were fairly surprised when Colleen suggested I sit up and "push a little" to get the baby into the birth canal. Little did I know that after I sat up there would be no more laying down during this labor. When Colleen checked me again I was already 8 cm dilated, so at 9 a.m. Brandon called Kara and Mom and told them they better hurry because John Mark would likely be there sooner than later.

Very soon after that call, we began to push. I had read that labor was called labor because it is in fact hard work. However, I knew that I'd be having an epidural so I wasn't really sure how that would really be in real life. Turns out that epidural or not, labor is, in fact, hard work. Colleen would have me push three times for 10 seconds each during my contractions. Because the contractions were coming so hard and fast there wasn't much time to rest in between. While I originally liked our nurse, she was fast becoming my not-so-favorite person...she was now Drill Sergeant Colleen. On my first few trial pushes, she informed me that if I was going to push like "that" then we would be here "all day." She would coach me through a push and give me a look like "you're gonna have to do better than that." I know that this was her personality and that she didn't know it would annoy me so much, but I need more positivity than that! I'd tell Brandon in between pushes how I needed him to be my cheerleader and be more positive, which he was already doing, but I was really trying to send Colleen a message. Finally after some good pushes she caught on and started cheering for me with Brandon.

Even though her attitude improved, mine did not. About 30 minutes in, I told them that I could just not do this and that we better go ahead and plan for a C-section. She found this pretty funny since most women (especially with their first babies) have 16 hour+ labors. She told me that if I kept it up he'd be here in 3-4 hours. This, I thought, I simply could not do. It was about 10:30 when I begged for the C-section, so I asked her, "If I push my absolute hardest and do my absolute best when is the soonest that he could possibly be here?" She cocked her head to the side and said, "If you really push hard, he could be here by 11:30-12:00." I glanced at the clock and decided that if they really weren't going to let me have a break or have a C-section then I'd really have to buckle down. Pretty soon, I was a pushing champ and I heard the nurse call the doctor. By the time Doctor Heidi arrived, she barely had time to put on her scrubs and gloves before I was going to push him out on my own. Sure enough, John Mark was born at 11:09 a.m. Take that, Colleen!

It's all kind of hazy after that. I remember being so elated that labor was over that I was almost as excited about that as I was about meeting my baby. However, when they threw that warm, wet, purple baby on my chest I completely forgot about the labor. For the second time in my life, I fell in love.

I feel like this blog hasn't really captured the true emotions of the day, but keep in mind I'm a little sleep deprived and writing this has been challenging. Rest assured that it was the most special day of our lives thus far and that we love our son more than we ever knew we would! Hopefully a picture is worth a thousand words and from this one below you can get the idea :)