Bryson's birth Story

10 pm Thursday June 27th: We checked into the hospital and did the half hour "tell me ever single incident in your life" admission questionnaire. I asked the nurse what you do when somebody comes in in very active labor. Since I've always been induced I have all the time in the world to answer this stuff, but I'm pretty sure they aren't going to appreciate you asking their whole family's medical history while trying to push out a baby. Apparently they just ask you after you have the baby, which seems counterproductive to me since you've already had the baby so it's to late to stop blood clots if you have a history of that after giving birth. I think they should send you the questionnaire before you go in so you can fill it out and return at your leisure. But I digress....

11pm FINALLY finish the questions and get the first dose of Cytotek. It's a little drink that just tastes like water but is supposed to make you crampy and dilate more throughout the night so I could start the pitocin in the morning. Oh and you take it every 2 hours. Lovely. Doesn't that sound like how I want to spend the night before giving birth? I did it with Kendall, so I knew what was coming and asked for the ambien to get some sleep.

11:30 pm my sweet British nurse finally leaves after checking me and says I'm still at a "loose 3 and 50-60% effaced" Side note: she was really cute and said things really funny " I'm going to just pop this on" and asked if I had taken my "VIT-a-MENs" but she was not so gentle. Arjay and I nicknamed her "knuckles".

1am and 3 am woken up to take the doses and contracted for half an hour after each dose before going back to sleep.

4;30am woke up and was not going back to sleep. Laid there in the dark and had a profound moment of calm that everything would be fine and how blessed I was to go thru labor again. Sounds like I needed a one way ticket to crazy town, but honestly I had been so miserable and had a hard pregnancy that I just thought" geez I don't have to be pregnant tonight when I try to sleep. Wahoo!" Also it hit me that you really only get to do this whole labor and birth thing a couple times in your entire life and some women never do and how blessed I was to get to give birth to my son.

5:30am Nurse comes in and starts my IV. I seriously hate that part, I had hypothryoidism in high school and have had my blood drawn more times than I can count, but I've only had IV's the 3 times I've had a baby and it seriously wigs me out.I sit there and do deep breathing and give my poor nurses death stares as they do it.

6 am She starts my pitocin after checking my and saying i'm "almost a 4 but more effaced" Do the nurses seriously think we don't know when they are just making crap up to make you feel better when the honest truth would be " nothing changed" ;)

7:30 am my sweet doctor comes in to break my water. I have been having very regular contractions but when she checks she just says loose 4. I love Dr Hutchison, she and I have bonded over running. She actually signed up for a half marathon after I told her I was still running when pregnant ( at least she told me that why she did it and I like to imagine I am capable of inspiring people). So she sits there and talks to me for a  few minutes because we're friends like that and says that her husband has a sick patient and they might not get to leave for their 2 week vacation the next day. LAME! That is the reason I was there to be induced. Of course I was sorry for her, but also for me. ( she did end up going luckily and I didn't feel like I got induced for nothing)

8 am My new nurse ( who is super peppy and we later discovered was in fact a cheerleader) sees very regular contractions and asks if I would like an epidural. I said I don't know, can I be on the tentative list. It was a very busy morning so she got us at the top of the list right after the c section.

8-10am She keeps coming and asking if I want the epidural and I keep pushing it back and letting other women get jump ahead of me even though I'm starting to have super painful contractions. She was awesome and sat down and was like" ok do you think you really want one or not? Because if you're going to have one then you shouldn't put yourself thru any more pain because you're going to make it stop anyways. If not, that's great but we need to get you up and doing things." And my dear husband who knows me so well says" You're not being a wimp if you get one. I know you think you are, but you're not. Everyone does labor how they need to do it." See I've had it in my head somehow that I was not as much of a woman, or not strong enough, or something if I didn't do a labor without an epidural. The problem is, we mommies get together and always have to swap "war stories" as I call them and sometimes I feel like "geez she is way stronger then me, I'm such a pansy, why didn't I do that". But I remember having this discussion with one friend who said " the pioneers had babies out on the plains" But I thought "well that's why I wasn't a pioneer, the Lord only gives you what you can handle and so he put me in the modern medicine time." She waxed poetic for a while about how if they could do it we could too and if we didn't we were just vain and selfish. To that I said" they also didn't have electricity, but don't you think if they had an option to make life and labor easier on themselves they would have?" See the truth, I've come to realize, is that you don't get higher level "Mommy badges"  based on how long or painful or how much pain meds you use. In the end, we all get the same "badge", a  beautiful baby.  Going thru labor is really the perfect start for being a mom, you do what it best for you and your kids. It might not be what works for other moms and you might shudder at the thought of how they do it, but you just do the best you can  and the Lord makes up the difference. All that is just my opinionated way of saying

10:15-10:45am Got my epidural. Funny note on the epidrual ( that's not something you hear every day). Before the anesthesiologist came in, my nurse warned me that he was not very talkative but the best anesthesiologist there. ArJay's second cousin was a nurse next door and also came in to warn me not to be offended if he didn't talk much, she'd nicknamed him "Mr. Congeniality" but was awesome at him job. He came in and sure enough got right to business and only talked to me in medical terms, no chit chat. Well as he's putting it in and I made a face and squeezed ArJay's hand ArJay says" hey your hair still looks really great babe, you should take pictures". The anesthesiologist just looks up at ArJay a gives him a thumbs up and says " good answer" . It was the only thing he said not epidural related for the 30 minutes he was in there.

11:30 am I have gone all numb and had my catheter and everything so the nurse goes to check me. Another funny side note: my nurse had a nursing student there shadowing her. The poor student was so worried, she sprayed the cold spray up my leg to see where I felt it and you would have thought she was performing heart surgery. I was like honey, I can't feel any of that no need to be delicate. Pus she was watching all kinds of stuff that I would have been super embarrassed about the first baby, I guess there's no shame by #3 huh? Anyways, I am at a 5, 90%, and negative 1 station. That's how far the baby's head is down, next is zero but you need to be at plus 1 or 2 to push, this is important to note for later.

 Noon I call the nurse back in because I am starting to feel lots of back pressure . She checks I am at a 7

12:05 in the few minutes it takes her to collect the paper printout and tell the student what she's doing, I start feel EXTREME pressure by my pubic bone and start getting the shakes.  She checks again and I'm a 9. Literally in 5 minutes from 7 to 9.  But I'm still at negative one.

12:10 she checks again, I'm a 10 but still negative one. She has me try to push, but he's not moving, so she says I'm going to have to labor down. Awesome.

12:10-12:50 It's all kinda a blur. Horrible pain by my pubic bone because I am at a 10 and want to push with every contraction but it's not doing anything so I don't and just ride them out. really glad I had the epidural, because I can't even imagine what kind of pain that would have been without it.

1 pm my doctor comes and says I'm plus one, let's start pushing. Turns out he was face up ( they are supposed to be face down) and stuck behind my pubic bone( hence the reason he wasn't coming down) and his heart rate was dropping so she used the vacuum just a little to move him down, then took it off and let me push him out myself. His heart rate had dropped because he had his umbilical cord wrapped around his shoulder. Apparently, he didn't get teh memo of how to be born, he did everything opposite.

1:08 pm Bryson McCormick Gamble is born weighing 8 lb 6 oz and 20 inches long. HE is the same size that Kendall was, except he was 2 days early and Kendall was 2 days late. He has a TON of black hair, which is crazy to us since both our other babies were bald and Alianna is a blond and Kendall is a true redhead. He actually looks like ArJay, neither of the other kids did. Arjay jokes that at least he's sure this one is his. He took right to nursing and seriously probably nursed for the first hour of his life. Poor ArJay didn't get to hold him until he was an hour and a half.

Because I was GBS positive we had to stay in the hospital for 48 hours. Probably would have been ok with that with baby #1, but by #3 I was ready to just go home and stop getting woken up to check vitals and everything. Even the nurses kept coming in to give me the " advice" they have to give to leave and saying, "I'm sure you know this" and " If you haven't figured this out by now"

The other funny thing was I had just pushed the button for my medicine to shoot thru my epidural right before I started pushing, so it took a LONG time to wear off after he was born. They had to manhandle me into the wheelchair to go upstairs and manhandle me back out into the bed upstairs because me legs were useless. The funny part was that my tiny little nurse was trying to pick me up when she probably weighed 100 lbs soaking wet and I...um don't. Especially since I just had a baby. ArJay kinda had to push her out of the way upstairs and pick me up to put me in bed upstairs so I didn't get dropped. Nothing like seeing the strain on a spouse's face to make you for as big as an elephant:)

SO far, he has been my easiest baby. He only wakes up twice a night to eat and loves to snuggle. The four of us( ArJay, Alianna, Kendall, and I) are usually fighting over who gets to hold. him.

It looks like he's saying " i'm watching you"

See the bump on his head, that's from being stuck on my pelvic bone

HE was a little cold so he had to lay under the warmer, he thought that was heaven

The warmer, ArJay said he was  in his first tanning bed

ON their way to see us

Seeing him for the first time

seriously mom, I've already burped

holding him for the first time

She LOOOOVVEEESS him

Kendall's turn

kisses

smothered with love

loves!

Uncle Mitch's turn

Proud Grandpa

Kendall's present for becoming the big brother

Alianna's present for being the big sister again

Ah technology, sending him the pics at birth

Mother and Son

"popa"( ArJay's dad) turn to hold him

Grandma's turn

Family of 5!

Seriously so much hair, 24 hours old and sporting a mohawk

We are a happy family.