Carson's Birth Story

Writing this post on Mother's Day has me all kinds of emotional! I feel like I have received a blessing so much greater than anything I deserve -- I'm humbled, excited, scared. Sean has been my perfect helper the past few days, coaching me through labor, and seemingly instantly knowing when to step in and when to let me figure it out. Y'all -- seeing him hold our baby girl with such tender melts my heart!

Here's the story of how she came into this world:

On Wednesday the 8th I started having some discomfort. I knew it wasn't full blown labor, but decided to switch my appointment from Thursday to Wednesday just to get an update on progress. I was still dilated to a 2 and the monitor only showed some uterine spasms, not contractions. The doctor reminded me that if the contractions get to 3-5 min apart or I notice any other change to go to the ER at the womens hospital.

That night I had a few reasonably strong contractions with some bleeding, so I went to the ER to get checked out. The ER doctor wasn't very nice to me at all and I hadn't progressed any since the appointment earlier in the day. They sent me home -- lesson learned.

I fought contractions all day on Thursday (her due date). The intensity was definitely there (stopping to breathe through them), but they were spaced about 7-10 minutes apart. I really wanted to avoid another trip to the ER, so I went ahead to the clinic at 3pm to have my doctor check again since the contractions were so painful. Sean was at football practice, and I was sure she was going to send me home so I told him not to come. As soon as my doctor checked me, she said "are you ready to have baby?!" -- I had dilated to a 5 and she was pretty sure my water had already broken, so she admitted me directly to labor and delivery. Within the hour they had me checked in and Sean made it to the hospital.

Labor was getting real at this point -- contractions every few minutes, a few tears were shed while waiting on labwork so I could get the epidural. The epidural was placed at 5:30 and they started pitocin at 8:00 pm because I was still at a 5. I was feeling so great after the epidural!

At 10:00 pm I noticed more pressure and was at 8cm. By 11:15 I was at 10cm and ready to push. Since I had an epidural, they just rotated my position to help the baby come down a bit to make pushing easier. At 11:50 I started pushing and with some excellent coaching by Sean and our wonderful delivery nurse, Carson was born at 12:15am -- missing her due date by 15 minutes, fashionably late. :) She was a whopping 8lb, 10oz and 20" long. Both Sean and I were low 7lb babies, so we were certainly surprised by her weight!

One of the hardest things is that she didn't get to stay in my room for a couple of reasons. Her cord was caught during delivery, causing her some breathing distress early on. In addition, her collar bone broke during delivery, poor thing. Its apparently pretty common, but I just hate that it happened. They said it will heal nicely on its own, we are just keeping her sleeve pinned to the collar of her shirt to act as a mini sling for the first week or two. They wheeled me to the nursery around 3:30am and amazingly after some skin-to-skin with me all of her vitals improved and she was in our room by 5am!

Recovery has been pretty good so far -- for sure some soreness, but nothing out of the ordinary. Sean has been a champ at helping care for her so I can get some sleep. Last night from 11-2 was pretty rough, but she slept from 3-7:30 this am, giving both of us a nice stretch of sleep. We  have a lot to learn, but thankfully God offers a lot of grace, too.

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