On Sunday at church I could not get comfortable. I am sure I was driving everyone crazy. I think I stood up and walked around every 5 - 10 minutes. After church we ate lunch with Zach's parents and took the kids to the Winnie the Pooh movie. I still could not get comfortable. This continued all through our evening although I was still convinced that it was not doing anything. I figured it was just end of pregnancy aches and pains.
On Monday morning at about 545 I got up to pee, as I walked back to bed my bladder was hurting. I was sure this was still residual from the bladder/kidney infection, but as soon as I settled into bed I started having waves of pain in my back and lower stomach. I pulled out my phone and started tracking them, they were coming 45 seconds long and a minute apart. They were intense and I really had to focus to get through them. After five of them I woke Zach up and told him we needed to get moving. He called Carolyn (our most awesome doula and friend), my mom, his parents (to come get the kids), and the midwife.
Zach started running around getting things together. Thankfully we had packed the bags. We had so much slow labor last time I figured we would have lots of time to do it, good thing Carolyn had told me a couple of times to get on it. By the time Zach's parents got there to get the kids, my mom and Carolyn arrived and I was ready to go. The contractions didn't let up at all. Once I was standing that was the only way I was comfortable. I tried to sit on the ball once while waiting for everyone but I shot right back up the second I hit the ball.
I think we all thought I would be laboring at home for a time but the second everyone arrived we were on our way back out the door. The drive was brutal. Sitting was not what I wanted to do. Thank God the Guide was not covered in bumps and potholes as it was when we made that drive for Ellie. When we arrived at the birthing center around 7 Anne (midwife ) and Jess (assistant Midwife) were already there all set up. Anne checked me and kind of nonchalantly said that things were looking good. When we asked how dilated I was, kind of expecting a 6 or 7, she laughed and said oh about a 10
What????? The only thing I could think was that everything was happening way too fast. The labor was so strong and it was all happening so fast. I continued on for another 2 hours that way until we decided to break the water, then he was born in half an hour. I am sure if we had broken the water as soon as we got there I probably would have only had 1.5 hours of labor. As it is labor started about 6am and he was born at 930.
He was much bigger than any of us had anticipated. He weighed in at 11lb7oz and was 22.5 inches long. My largest baby by a mere 3 lbs. No wonder everyone thought I was carrying twins.
Josiah was really grunty. At first we just thought he was a noisy baby. He grunted all through his first feeding and continually through the first couple of hours. The midwife started to get concerned about how much he was retracting and how labored his breathing was. We decided we had better take him into the hospital. He was checked into the nursery and put on oxygen, by that evening he was in an incubator with an IV in his tiny little hand. I was not permitted to nurse until the following afternoon and I was not even allowed to hold him until much later that night.
I loved my delivery at the birthing center and would definitely do it again. The experience was amazing in comparison to my other two. It was really hard though to move to the hospital 4 hours after giving birth not as a patient but as a parent of a patient. Thankfully they were able to find me a camp room (closet with a cot) to call home for the next two days. I stayed in the nursery as much as I could until someone sent me back to lay down. Zach covered most of the rest of the time with him. Needless to say we were both exhausted.
We were able to take him home on Wednesday afternoon after having gotten him to take a couple of good feedings. He had already lost 1lb though. Since then we have been working really hard to stabilize his weight and get him to start gaining weight. He got down to 9lb13.5oz. We have him slowly inching his way back up. We have been at 9lb 15oz for the last couple of days. He is such a sleepy baby that he has a hard time waking up to eat, which makes feedings take that much long, which makes him more tired and you can probably see how that can become a vicious circle.
Please pray that he wakes up a little more thoroughly to eat and that he starts to put his weight back on.
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