July- Another Bundle of Boy!

I forgot to post this. I had it done a week or so after the event... oh well, chalk it up to mommy brain.

 Here he is! Our newest addition to the crew! Caden Gray Shirley. He was born about a week early (due date july 27) on July 18 at 4:22pm. He measured 8lb. 3oz. and 20 in. long.

Here is the birth story. If you wonder why I put these stories in, I write these down mostly for my own record, and because I like birth stories.

My pregnancy, in general, had been a little more comfortable than my previous one or two (maybe because I had been riding a bike 4 miles 5 days a week for the entire school year to take Liam to preschool). In spite of that I was still very restless. I was ready and hoping my baby would come early. 

I had been having stronger (but not painful) contractions on and off for the past few days. They would come regularly (every 10 minutes) for an hour or so and then die off for anywhere between half an hour and nearly a whole day before coming back again. 

Tuesday night I did our weekly shopping trip at Walmart and later that night my contractions came back a little stronger and continued happening frequently through out the night (I didn't bother timing them though) but I was always able to go back to sleep if I relieved my bladder. They continued through the morning (still not painful, just very firm) while Nate got ready for work. 

I was a little concerned about letting him go to work because if things continued and escalated quickly (see Ronan's birth story) it would take him 20 minutes to get back from work and then we would have to take the boys to someone's house and then drive 30 minutes to the hospital and I swear you have to walk for  10 minutes just to get to the maternity ward after you park. My fear was that by the time I knew that I was in labor for sure I wouldn't necessarily have an hour to spare.

So, even though I didn't really feel like I was in labor (compared to my last experience, it could have been just Braxton Hicks contractions or false labor), I decided I should call my doctor's office before Nate left for work and see what the nurse thought. I told the nurse about my contractions and explained my last birth experience and she recommended that I go to the hospital to be checked.

So Nate called in to work saying he wouldn't be coming in and we got the boys ready to go. It was nice to be able to get ready in such a laid back fashion! We took the boys to my visiting teacher's house, she had young twin girls for them to play with, then we went to the hospital. 

We arrived at about 10:30 am. It was strange to just walk in to the hospital while I felt completely normal in spite of the contractions. They took me to a little room and did an internal exam (4cm dilated) and monitored my contractions for about an hour. They decided to admit me and augment my contractions with pitocin. The reason for that was actually because there were variables in the baby's heart rate during some of my contractions, so to be safe they thought it would be a good idea to have him come out that day. My nurse was a really sweet woman from the UK (I loved listening to the accent!) we later found out that she had been a midwife there, though she wasn't certified to be a midwife in the US (you'll see that this comes in handy later).

 They started the pitocin at 11:30 am and I decided to ride out the contractions for a while and see if I could handle -or should I say if I wanted to handle- my contractions on pitocin. Mostly I didn't want to get it if I didn't really need it yet, so hopefully baby wouldn't get as much of the drugs in his little system. I went for about an hour or two. I could still handle contractions okay at that point but I knew that it was getting worse more quickly now, so I asked for the epidural. When the drugs kicked in I could still feel when my belly was hard but it didn't hurt any more. A little later my midwife checked me and broke my water; I was 5cm. I probably would have been a little upset about my progress if I had still been dealing with my contractions at that time, but I wasn't, so I had more patience. 

My midwife decided to go back to the office and asked that the nurses send for her when I got to 9cm. I'm not sure of exact timing but after a few checks it seemed that I was dilating 2cm each hour. It was probably about 4pm my nurse checked and she said I was 8cm but she could stretch me to a 9 so they decided to call my midwife. They started getting set up and she checked me again 5 or 10 minutes later. The baby's head was already in the birth canal and I couldn't even tell! My nurse stayed really cool, the other nurse in the room looked a little more frazzled that the baby was coming with out the midwife there. They quickly slipped on gloves and my nurse handled the birth like a pro (which she was). The baby's head started crowning and the other nurse and Nathan both helped me sit up a bit more and hold my legs which were very numb. I was able to watch his head coming out, which was cool and very surreal! I hadn't been able to watch my babies head come out before. He was all wrapped up in his cord around his shoulders and body, which explained the variables in his heart rate. After he turned, my nurse asked me to push to get his shoulders out. So the only pushing I did was 2 pushes for his shoulders and then he was out. They placed him on my tummy and dried him off. My midwife came in as the nurse delivered the placenta! They postponed measuring and weighing him until after his first feeding. So, I got to hold him for almost an hour and a half; then I let Nathan have his turn before they came to measure him.

We didn't have his name finalized until the next day(we had a top 5 list) when Nate brought the boys to come and meet their new brother. We brought Caden home from the hospital around 10pm the day after he was born.