On May 5, 2015, around three o’clock in the afternoon (2
days after my due date), I started feeling some contractions. I didn’t think
much of it because I'd been having false labor regularly for weeks. The
contractions continued sporadically into the evening. Around seven o’clock they
became more regular and intense (again, something that’s been routinely
happening).
Zach had a council meeting to go to so my mom graciously
came to help put the girls to bed and stay with me. As the night progressed the
contractions became closer and more painful, but I still didn’t think it was
the real deal. My mom and I distracted ourselves by watching a t.v. Duggar
special on births (very fitting).
Zach came home around 10:45 p.m. (late council meeting!) and
as soon as he got into the house, I suddenly had a contraction much more
painful that brought me to tears. Even still, I didn’t believe it was the real
thing, so we said “goodbye” to my mom and started to head upstairs to try to
get some sleep. Only five minutes later I had another incredibly strong
contractions that brought me to my knees.
Just then, we saw the headlights of my mom’s car coming back
up our driveway. She had gone only five minutes down the road and instinctively
turned around and came back to our house. When we opened the door to greet
her, she told us that she really thought this was it and that we needed to go
to the hospital. At that point, I began to feel another intense contraction so we agreed! We grabbed our hospital bags and headed out.
We arrived and Zach dropped me off and I walked to triage while Zach parked the car. When they
checked me, they found I was eight centimeters dilated – yikes! The
contractions continued to come about every 3-4 minutes and they quickly moved
me upstairs to delivery. We got into the room and started praying that we would
have time to get an epidural. It felt like the contractions were coming right
on top of each other at this point. Thankfully, only a few minutes later we heard a friendly knock at the
door and I was thrilled to see it was the anesthesiologist. She quickly gave me
an epidural and…bliss, sweet relief!
At that point, we could have tried to have the baby, but
Zach and I asked if we could rest a bit and just enjoy the relief the epidural
gave. The doctor said that was fine, so we did. After a bit of rest I realized I
couldn’t hold off pushing anymore, so we called the nurses who called the doctor- it was time!
We said a prayer with our delivery team and after about seven minutes of
pushing, out came our beautiful baby boy, Silas James! He came into the world
at 3:44 am, weighing 8 lbs. 6 oz. and was 21 inches long. I got some skin-to-skin
time with him and we said a prayer of thanksgiving with our delivery team. We
were (and are!) exhausted, but overwhelmingly thankful to God for the gift of
this precious baby boy!
Skin to skin...
Here we are with our awesome delivery team. Blast from the past: I coached the nurse standing in front 10 years ago in softball.
