It’s hard to believe, but my youngest will be a year old tomorrow. I’ve done this three other times, yet I’m always blown away at how quickly a year can pass. Especially with the way nine months can drag by!

In honor of my sweet boy’s birthday, and because I tend to be a birth junkie, I’m sharing his birth story, written shortly after his birth, when it was all still fresh. Is it sad that I had already forgotten so many of the details?

This is a birth story, and as such it contains many birth details (like dilation), so if that’s something you’d rather not read, skip this post It’s also much longer than our standard posts, but we are talking about the birth of a new human and one of the most significant events a woman can go through, so it was hard to be brief.

For some history, this was my fourth labor without an epidural, and my third completely drug-free.

Nehemiah’s Birth Story

Nehemiah officially joined our family Monday morning, January 24, 2011 at 6:13am.

I started having Braxton-Hicks contractions in November. I was having quite a few of them a day, along with lots of pressure. I’ve never experienced Braxton-Hicks in any of my other pregnancies, so it kind of freaked me out, and I really thought there was no way Nehemiah was going to stay put until January (my due date was January 25th). My doctor checked me around 34 weeks, and I wasn’t showing any cervical change, so I breathed a sigh of relief.

Around the middle of December, my Braxton-Hicks pretty much stopped. I was thrilled at first, since I had gotten so nervous about him coming early. They thought I was going into labor with Isaiah (my third) at 36 weeks and stopped it, so I didn’t think it was out of the realm of possibility that he would come really early.

At not quite 35 weeks I had an ultrasound. Baby was measuring in the 88th percentile, with a projected weight of over 5lbs. I had also been measuring two weeks ahead for awhile. I didn’t let it worry me. “Those weight estimates are so unreliable!” I laughed to myself. But the doctor did say based on Isaiah’s weight (8lbs 11oz), the ultrasound estimate, and my measurements, if I went to term, I would probably be looking at a nine pounder.

I found myself starting to get anxious the further into January we got. My Braxton-Hicks were gone, but I was nesting like crazy, something I’ve never done before. We’re talking scrubbing floors on my hands and knees at 11pm nesting! I just felt sure, and so did everyone around me, that he was going to come early. I had my first cervical check at 37 weeks, and was bummed to find out I was only a fingertip dilated. With Isaiah I was 2 cm from 36 weeks on, so I knew it didn’t necessarily mean much, but it was still disappointing. At 38 weeks I was checked and I was the same, and found out I was group B positive. Another huge disappointment, since it meant an IV, and since I was really stressed about not having time to finish the antibiotics (it takes 4 hrs to get a full dose, and my last labor was only 4 hours total).

39 Weeks and 2 Days

I finally started having some cramping again during my 38th week, enough that I was significantly uncomfortable at times. At my 39 week appointment I had progressed to 2-3cm dilated, and at my request, my doctor stripped my membranes. I was so ready to have him by that appointment! That was Thursday, and my doctor was on call from Friday through Monday morning. I just KNEW I was going to have him that weekend!

But then by Sunday night, all that had happened was that I had lost some of my mucus plug, and my cramping was more intense. I went to bed Sunday night super stressed out and feeling like I was going to be pregnant forever and give birth to an elephant!

Jeniffer and I that Sunday night.

At 3:15am I woke up to go to the bathroom. I was uncomfortable, but that was nothing new. I laid back down, and Isaiah woke up crying (he was not and still is not sleeping through the night!). I went to his room and laid down next to the bed to try to get him to sleep. I had a few “cramps”, but I ignored them and told myself it was just stomach trouble. I got up and went to the bathroom again, and lost a lot of mucus. Again I just ignored it. Isaiah woke back up so I went back in with him. He was restless and having trouble getting back into a deep sleep, so I laid with him for awhile. I kept having “cramps”, and started thinking maybe I should time them, but I was trying to wait for Isaiah to get back to sleep. Finally I decided maybe I shouldn’t wait any more, and got up and put him in front of the tv. It was a little after 4 am. I woke David up and told him I thought maybe we should call his mom. I still wasn’t ready to let myself believe I was really in labor. I thought maybe I was just so desperate to be in labor that I was blowing the pains out of proportion. We called his mom and asked her to head over, and then I got in the shower. While I was in there, I had several contractions that were intense enough for me to hold the side of the shower and really pay attention, and I decided it might be safe to actually call them contractions

We left the house between 4:30 and 5. I never started timing my contractions, but I know that they were still very irregular. I would have several back to back, then nothing for awhile, then several. They also weren’t lasting a super long time yet, and I could still talk through them.

We got to the hospital, and they put me in OB receiving, where they just check you and confirm that you are in labor. They moved a bit faster with all that then they normally do, because my doctor had noted in my chart that I have fast labors. I was 5cm, and pretty effaced. The contractions started picking up and I was needing to breathe through them a bit. They moved me to a room, and started my IV (blah), and then went over my birth plan. My nurses were great, and very supportive. My nurse even made sure it was ok with me for her to get a bag of pitocin to have in the room just in case I hemorrhaged or something, since I had stated I didn’t want routine pit after delivery.

After all the annoying paperwork and everything (it boggles my mind that they expect you to answer a bunch of questions in the middle of labor!) the nurse asked if I wanted to be checked, and I said I did. I was about a 7. Then she dimmed the lights and left so that I could “do my thing.” By this point the contractions were definitely intense, and I needed to breathe through them and concentrate. I also started feeling sick to my stomach, but I never did throw up. After a few minutes, I felt a pop and a HUGE gush of my water breaking. Quite the experience! I paged the nurse and she came and checked me again. I was 8-9, with just a bit of cervix left.

With my other labors, I moved from a 7 to feeling the urge to push in just a few contractions. This time it took awhile, and I started feeling a little panicky. The contractions were really intense, and I started having a lot of back pain after my water broke. In my head I was screaming, “I can’t do this!!! Someone give me a shot of SOMETHING!!!” Haha! I didn’t say it out loud though.

Finally I felt the urge to push, and of course then I HAD to push! The doctor was right outside my room doing charts, so he got in there in a hurry, but they were still trying to get me to give him time to get his gloves on. I’ve typically been pretty quiet through my labors, but I’m not gonna lie, this time I hollered quite a bit while pushing! He was out in about four good pushes, and they put him right up on my chest while they waited for the cord to stop pulsing. It was the first time for me to experience having my baby skin to skin right way, despite me requesting it with my other births. He was gorgeous! I did start to worry after a minute, even though he was screaming, because he looked really purple. They took him to wipe him off and check him, and decided the purple was bruising from the rapid descent (he looked oxygen deprived for at least 2 days). Everyone kept remarking at how big he was, but I just thought he would be 8 or 9 lbs.

A few minutes after birth. You can see a bit of the bruising here, although it's not quite as obvious as it was in person.

I had a third degree tear, which took forever to get stitched up, but my doctor said it looked like it was from scar tissue – probably from my episiotomy with Makaylah, my smallest baby!

I was finally put back together and got to hold him again. We nursed right away. It took him a few minutes to figure it out, but then he latched on like a champ and sucked away! It was great, but also caused very painful after birth pains.

The most frustrating part of my experience was that hospital policy where I delivered states the baby has to go to the nursery for three hours of observation and warming. I had put in my birth plan that I wanted him in our room at all times, and that we would use skin to skin contact to regulate his body temperature. I did the same thing with Isaiah, at the same hospital. At that time we didn’t have a pediatrician, but no one raised any concerns about honoring our birth plan. This time I was told that since my pediatrician hadn’t signed off on it, it was up to the doctor on-call (who didn’t want to honor it). I had a pediatrician by this point, and it would have been no issue getting him to sign off on it, if I had known I needed too. They let us stay in recovery for two hours while they tried to reach my pediatrician, but they weren’t able too. I was very upset at letting him go to the nursery, but was so exhausted at that point that I couldn’t fight with them.

They don’t weigh the baby at my hospital until they get to the nursery, so we still didn’t know his weight when they took him. My labor nursery couldn’t wait to find out what he weighed and she came back and told us right away. 10 lbs 6 oz, 21.5 inches long!! He really was huge!

The only bad thing about his size was that it made us face even more intervention. They checked his blood sugar every hour for the first four hours, and even though all of those readings were beautiful, they insisted he have his sugar checked every three hours for the first 24 hrs. He also had to have blood cultures done because of me being Group B positive, but thankfully all of that came back fine.

I’m so thankful that I had a great OB this time who didn’t shove me into an induction – with my fast labors, being Group B positive, and the potential for such a large baby. Obviously, even though the thought had scared me, I was fully capable of birthing him!

Our first family picture, taken while we were still in the hospital.

I am so thankful for the past twelve months with this sweet, precious boy! His smile completely lights up everything around him, and I am so excited to continue to see the person he will become!