Friday, August 26, 2011

So blessed

Still too out of it to complete the birth story, but just had come on here and post the lyrics to one of Zeke's favorite lullabies. I am just overwhelmed this morning by all that He has done for me, both here in this life, fulfilling my deepest dream in making me a mother; and in the life to come, where this life's dreams will seem but a dim flickering shadow of a shadow of a joy. Take a minute and praise Him with me.

To Christ the Lord let every tongue
Its noblest tribute bring
When He’s the subject of the song
Who can refuse to sing?
Survey the beauties of His face
And on His glories dwell
Think of the wonder of His grace
And all His triumphs tell

Majestic sweetness sits enthroned
Upon His awful brow
His head with radiant glories crowned
His lips with grace overflow
No mortal can with Him compare
Among the sons of men
Fairer He is than all the fair
That fill the Heavenly train

He saw me plunged in deep distress
He fled to my relief
For me He bore the shameful cross
And carried all my grief
His hand a thousand blessings pours
Upon my guilty head
His presence gilds my darkest hours
And guards my sleeping bed

To Him I owe my life and breath
And all the joys I have
He makes me triumph over death
And saves me from the grave
To Heaven the place of His abode
He brings my weary feet
Shows me the glories of my God
And makes my joy complete

Since from His bounty I receive
Such proofs of love divine
Had I a thousand hearts to give
Lord, they should all be Thine
A thousand men could not compose
A worthy song to bring
Yet Your love is a melody
Our hearts can’t help but sing!

Friday, August 19, 2011

Part I: My side of the story

So my adorable husband hacked my blog and beat me to the punch with the whole birth story thing. Every spare moment I've had for the past two weeks has been spent napping, not blogging. But, I'm waiting for maintenance to come fix our air conditioning and the bebe is fast asleep, so now is as good a time as any. Please excuse all of the bad grammar etc that is sure to follow. Zeke took half my brain with him when he exited the premises.

I'm writing this mostly for myself, so I don't forget. And for other women out there who want to have a natural childbirth in a hospital setting. It really helped me to read other stories when making my birth plan and I hope that this can help someone feel more confident that it CAN be done.

WARNING: May contain TMI for some of you that actually know me, so if you don't want to hear about my mucus plug and bulging bag of waters, stop now. lol.

Monday August 1st, I had braxton hicks contractions every five minutes. We started to get excited. But they didn't hurt, so i figured it was just a warm up.

Tuesday the 2nd, I felt like I was having a meltdown. Totally an emotional basket case, feeling needy and exhausted. Looking back on it, I think it was a sign of impending labor. Hormones much?

Wednesday I started to lose my mucus plug. Gross I know. I spent the whole morning googling "mucus plug" and "bloody show" and every article told me the same thing: "It could be soon! Or it could be another two weeks!" So not helpful internet...

Thursday I woke up. Contracting. Painful contractions. It basically felt like period cramps that came and went every ten minutes. Definitely different than braxton hicks. So I drove BeefyGeek to work and can home and did everything Bradley says to do (we did the Bradley "Husband-Coached childbirth" classes as my husband already mentioned). He says to walk, eat, drink, shower, and nap... and see if your contractions go away, if they don't... pack your bags! The only thing I couldn't successfully do was nap. I was way too intense and excited to sleep. I also did all of our laundry, cleaned the bathroom and vacuumed. Last minute nesting I suppose. I then watched The Delivery episode of The Office. It seemed appropriate.

Mid-morning I started timing my contractions. Sure enough they were getting more regular and closer together, slowly but surely. By the time I went to pick up the hubby from work, they were about 7 minutes apart. I showed Jon the paper with my contractions recorded on it. His jaw dropped. "So you think he's coming this weekend?" I laughed and said, "Babe, I think we'll be going to the hospital TONIGHT." I don't think he believed me.

All this time, Jon was the only person to know something was happening (oh, and our Bradley instructor :-) I dreaded being "that first time mom" who has a million false alarms, so I didn't want to tell anyone until we were sure. On the way home from the office, we pulled up next to my sister in law at a red light, and I was terrified that she would ask if we were seeing any action, so I monopolized the quick conversion and then yelled at Jon to DRIVE! Lol.

My body must have been waiting for my coach, because as soon as he got home, I relaxed and my contractions got closer together really quickly. By around eight they were 5 minutes apart for one hour lasting a minute each, which if when you call... so I called. The midwife on call (Caitlyn, the youngest of the midwives) told me to wait until they are so intense the I can't make the call, and then have my husband call. So we watched some shows.

For your info, DO NOT watch something funny while in labor. Laughing during a contraction is NO JOKE. No pun intended. So Parks and Rec got replaced by Prison Break (our latest Netflix obsession) and we hung out until like eleven, when I told Jon he should get some sleep.

He slept for like an hour while I tried to relax through the contractions by myself. Laying down hurt terribly, so I got in the shower and the relief was wonderful. BUT I eventually had to get out and when I did, I couldn't control my moaning anymore and it woke Jon up and he decided it was time to call again. (I was strep B positive and couldn't wait too long to get there since I need two doses of anti-biotics at least four hours apart.)

Caitlyn told us to come on down. So we left our apartment at around 1230 am.

Tuesday, August 9, 2011

EEK part I

Ezekiel Edwin K - born 8/5/11 at 8:56am.

Howdy blogosphere. This is not Amy. This is Jon A.K.A Beefygeek (maybe 3 years ago) A.K.A The Sound Dude and the most recent and my favorite, dad. :)

Amy and Zeke are doing awesome. We are home. I took a week off of work to take care of them and commandeer Amy's blog, unbeknownst to her. Shh... I want this to be a surprise to her.

So it's Thursday and I work in Tech Support. It's not a great job but it pays the bills and fills bellys. (Bellies?) The car I usually take had a slight exhaust malfunction and sounds like a rocket ship so Amy's been driving me to work.

-Man, this blog stuff is harder than I though.-

Amy comes to pick me up and hands me a piece of paper. It's a mess of times, minutes and brackets. I look at her and she has a HUGE smile on her face. Her contractions aren't consistent yet but they are regular.

Game time.

Before I go on with the shenanigans and tomfoolery, I'll go off on a rabbit trail and say that I am a Bradley dad. For those of you who aren't sure what that is, it's a... I guess...method? used in which the father is present during birth and the main coach for the wife. The tagline (if it were a movie) is Husband Coached Natural Childbirth.

So while Hollywood dictates that would-be fathers should be useless, catatonic sperm donors or raving-lunatics-who-forget-the-keys-yelling-at-anyone-within-earshot-to-get-some-hot-water, the Bradley instruction we got was kicking in.

Okay, rabbit trail over. Back to it.

I was excited and not just because I'd have a week off to spend with Amy but because... I have a legit reason for not showing up to work on Friday.

My brain is still in tech support mode. "What about all those appointments for Friday I just scheduled with clients?" WHO CARES!? YOUR WIFE IS HAVING A BABY!

I asked Amy if she thought he'd be coming sometime this weekend. Her jaw dropped slightly and said, "I think he's going to be here tonight."

We get home (the nice thing about work is that it's a 10 minute commute if their is a snow storm, 5 minute commute otherwise) and I ask Amy if she got stuff off our checklist. She shows me the bags she's already packed with all our stuff. Man, my wife is GOOD.

After calling the midwife, we labor at home for a few more hours, watching episodes of Prison Break on Netflix (people have been telling me to watch this show for 6 years. Well.. here it is Brian, you're right, the show is incredible). The contractions get a little more intense each time and I can tell Amy is astounded by how powerful they are.

After finding out that (spoiler warning) Lincoln Burroughs is actually NOT going to get executed 9 episodes into season one, we decide to try and get some sleep.

I'm woken up by Amy telling me that her contractions are fairly intense and she's crying. I scramble for a second, waking up from a prison break dream of my own and call the midwife, telling her that I think it's show time.

We drive to the hospital and arrive around 1am. Amy's contractions have slowed down and we find out she's only 4cm dilated. Close, but not enough for us to be admitted yet. We stay in the triage room that's filled with the womp womp womp of other fetal heart beat monitors.

Labor walk around the halls for an hour to 6 cm and we get admitted!

While we are laboring, we hear a male voice from one of the rooms saying "Help! Help!" and then this shrieking of a woman saying "I HAVE TO PUSH! SOMEONE HELP ME! HELP ME!"

The nursing station empties and paperwork halted as the turquoise shirts and Caitlyn book it into the room with the woman screaming. As soon as Caitlyn gets in she yells "YOU CAN DO THIS!" over the yells and moans of the woman.

Oh. My. Goodness. It sounded like a horror movie.

I have a feeling we looked amazing, huddled together like a pair of lost puppies in the middle of the now empty maternity ward hallway

We look at each other, wide eyed, jaws probably slightly dropped and slowly tip toed the other way.

At one time while we were labor walking, Amy heard on the PA that someone was requesting an Epidural. Amy started crying saying she didn't want an epidural. We both agree she was probably in transition at this point.

The jig is up, Amy just woke up and passed by the computer while I was getting laundry so the surprise is over. Anyways, look for part II in the near future.