He's Just Punctual. (Very Wordy)

I know we are a month out but life gets amazingly busy and lets not even start with trying to find my groove... it's lost and may be forever. That is just how it goes I guess. Especially for those of us that had just found our groove! :) Maxwell Gene is here and I wanted to write a little bit of it down because lets face it I don't remember much of Leland's birth story, although I may post what I remember another day just so I have it!

Let me start by saying I started Braxton Hicks contractions at 28 weeks so I thought I was going to be a pro at this whole labor thing. I mean I never got to prove it with Leland since I only labored for 20 hours and it was mild, and then I went in for a c section. (10 of those hours I was sleeping with the help of some fabulous medicine, so not hard at all.) On top of the "fake" contractions "conditioning my body" I lost my mucus plug 5 weeks before Max was due. That said I felt so dumb as I told everyone I was sure I would have this baby any day SO not only was I disappointed but it seemed everyone else was too! I should also note we induced with Leland, so I had NO idea what to expect with labor and didn't want to be "that" mom who showed up to the hospital sure she was in labor only to be sent home. I would be embarrassed by that, because lets just say I have issues.

So my Mom came a week before my due date, because of a lot of different reasons, but the main one was I was struggling with daily life, let me tell you for those who come early or get induced its amazing how uncomfortable you get in just a weeks time. I for one was amazed at the difference between 39 weeks and 40!

So Tuesday the 27th I was willing to try anything to get this baby here. A lady in our ward swore by Castor Oil... I swear I will never touch the stuff again. Although it was nice to not have to worry about having a bowel movement while pushing, never again I say. We also tried some other things but that's just a TMI so moving on. Nothing happened. I felt out of sorts but the contractions just weren't happening. Around 2:30 on the 28Th, my actual due date, I woke up feeling terrible. Long wordy story short from 2:30 to 4:45 I paced my bathroom as the contractions got more and more painful I finally decided I would wake Brian up and just let him know I thought it was time to go, but I wanted to shower, but wanted someone else awake just in case anything went down. (hey I had just read a friends birth story where she had her baby in her bathroom....)

The shower was uneventful, I know you are all breathing a sigh of relief... But the contractions were coming closer together and were much more painful than before so I went to wake up Mom before getting ready myself. She was a nervous ball of energy excited to meet grand baby number 15. Brian the poor soul was not awake enough to deal with it all and instead of turning onto the right road to take Leland to Amy's he auto piloted towards the hospital. I was mid contraction trying to breath and not berate him, I only slightly succeeded at both mind you, but we got to the hospital after dropping Leland off in record time. Side note if your car has no shocks/ struts the ride is much worse than normal when you are in pain. :)

We got to the hospital around 5:45, got into a room around 6 and got all checked out and I was surprised to learn I was still only dilated to a 1, my first indicator that my body was taking its dear sweet time! I was certain they would send me home, I was also certain that in a few hours the pain would be more than I could handle without drugs. Doing a vbac means I was for sure getting an epidural, just in case we had to do an emergency c section, and I don't do well with pain, so regardless of how much better it is for the mother or the baby I was getting one! It was nice to use that as an excuse though...

My best friend Hope came up after she got done at work around 4ish in the afternoon to do birth photography for us. I am glad I had someone I loved and who loved me back to do that as it is SO personal and so incredibly humbling to have someone in the room who isn't blood or helped you get in the situation ;) I am glad to have the pictures even though I think I look terrible in them all. Let me just say the day progressed slowly water was broken at 10 am, I had the most fantastic nurse named Liz she reminded me of my dear friend Rosie, and when she left at 7pm she hugged us all and asked us to bring the baby by sometime since she was off the next 3 days. by 8 or 9 that night I was at my limit, I was a teary mess, I do not do well with endurance with no sure end in sight. Like if they had said, you will have this baby by midnight, I could have handled that so much better but the waiting was making things so much harder. I talked, scratch that, I cried while my Dad talked to me, trying to encourage me from California that I could do it, I felt better after having talked to him but still wanted a blessing. My greatest fear was that something wasn't going to go right or I was going to "fail" at my vbac attempt and have to have a section anyway after all that. So Hope's brother Ben came up and he and Brian blessed me and after that things seemed to pick up.

It was amazing to me that at 10pm when they said we were ready to start pushing how awake and ready I was to tackle that portion of the delivery. I had renewed purpose and the tears stopped, well mostly. They say its just pressure that you are feeling but even with an epidural pressure "hurts" especially when you are running on low epidural and need a "booster" but choose not to because you don't want to wait another 4 hours to walk. Pushing took 21 minutes, granted it felt like forever, but it wasn't. My nurse Jennifer, or was it Jessica... whatever kept telling me to give her all I had and I finally told her I was and to stop asking for it. That got laughs from some of the people in the room, but so did my repeated use of the word FLIP... Brian assured the nurses I was "editing" because my mom was there, which made all of them laugh. And there you have it. If you want the story of the afterbirth you will have to ask my Mom, she loves to tell the story... and so does my doctor. Fun times!

Maxwell Gene Hamilton born at 10:21 (or was it 10:12, I can't remember :)) 9 pounds 1 ounce 21 inches long. He just wanted to make sure he came when he was expected and join the small percentage of babies actually born on their due dates.

P.S. at some point during the day my epidural came unhooked and the medicine was going all over the floor. The only way we caught it was that I was suddenly in more pain than I wanted to be.... Do I get a discount on the epidural??? :)