Birth

Well, let's start from the beginning. (I wish that I would have sat down to write the birth story sooner than this, but I have been a little busy trying to figure out my new life.) I am a Type 1 diabetic with a history of pregnancy loss so I was monitored very closely throughout my pregnancy. Because of the diabetes my doctor's thought that they might want to induce me early term around 37 weeks or so. So on Thursday April 5th at 37 weeks I was really anxious to have a baby. At 8:45 am after we updated our Facebook status to something like "we might be parents in 24 hours!" we went in to the hospital for our scheduled amniocentesis.

An amniocentesis is a minor procedure that the doctor does to extract some amniotic fluid. This is done doing an ultrasound while inserting a needle into the womb and extracting amniotic fluid. The doctor then sends the fluid down to the lab to check the level of surfactant in the baby's lungs. Surfactant is a substance that keeps the baby's lungs from collapsing after that first breath out of the womb. ~ ok, I think I have reached my educational quota for this post  ~

While we were waiting for the results of the amniocentesis my husband and I went to have my bi-weekly stress test. The doctor came in maybe 30 minutes into the test to tell us that the test results only came back as a 13. I have no idea what the number means, I only know that we needed a 28 to start the induction. My husband updated our status to "not having a baby today". I was pretty upset, but I would not give up, I knew we were going to have him today.

The stress test wasn't going well. They noticed that his heart kept decelerating, because it was happening so regularly they decided to move us to labor and delivery and continue monitoring his heart. At 4:00 they decided to induce and at 5:00 they started the oxytocin. Our status was then "ok, I know we told everyone it wasn't going to be today, but ..."

Our family members and friends started showing up after we were all settled in. Most of the people with us in labor and delivery live in Utah but my sweet sister in law is a doula and she came to Utah from Oregon to help me through labor. She really was able to reduce the pain that I experienced. She also happens to be a gifted photographer and took many of the photos in this post. I am so grateful to her for being so supportive and for caring so much.

My husband and his mom playing ticket to ride while they wait.

With help from my sister in law and my husband I was able to tolerate the pain pretty well. When I progressed to 6 cm I was at my pain threshold and I decided to ask for an epidural. Receiving an epidural really is comical. It takes longer than the few minutes you have between contractions so not only are you expected to hold still while they stick a needle into your spine but you also need to hold still through at least one contraction. I am getting uncomfortable just thinking about it.

After they finished the epidural and I was no longer able to feel (or move) the lower half of my body, things progressed even more quickly. At around 2:30 am on April 6th it was time to push. Our friends and family had helped us through so much while we were trying to have a baby the last 4 years, we really felt that they were just as invested as we were in this baby. We invited everyone to stay and ended up having like nine members of our family in the delivery room with us to welcome our son. Our bundle of joy was born at 2:53 am. What an amazing feeling! We finally got to meet our son. We could not stop smiling and crying and laughing. It was a sweet mixture of happiness, relief, and exhaustion.

I got to spend a few minutes holding him and then my husband took him down to the NICU because, as expected, he was having trouble breathing. After he felt like the baby was stable he snapped a few photos and came back up to be with me.

When he came back up he told me that he wanted to name the baby Collin Reid. I guess one of the nurses in the NICU had commented that he was the reddest baby she had ever seen. Dan loves that he is part Irish and decided that Collin needed a super Irish name.

. . . and a star is born.