Now, for anybody familiar with Ashlynn's birth story, this one will seem rather tame. We ran zero red lights, made no illegal U-turns, made it to the hospital with time to spare, left no bathtubs running for hours, and didn't wind up living in hotel. I liked tame. Although room service was rather nice.
This pregnancy had been different from either Zeke or Ashlynn in that my body felt much more pregnant than it has in the past. Stairs became the bane of my days and I could only brave them with the assurance that my couch waited at the top. My legs became super restless. Twice I sat in movie theater with my legs wiggling and shifting like mad until I had to take off my shoes and massage my feet. Thankfully for other theater attendees, my feet aren't smelly. The restlessness was more inconvenient at night and took away many hours of sleep because anytime I woke up in the night (which the baby sitting on my bladder made all too often) there was a pretty good chance my legs would wig out and it would take a good two hours before my exhaustion would finally win the battle over restlessness. Trustin became my hero and gave me probably 4 or 5 feet and leg massages a week, no matter how tired he was. And the biggest pregnancy difference I noticed was that I had way way more Braxton Hicks contractions this pregnancy. I think that can likely be attributed to Zumba.
Whatever the reason, Trustin and I both predicted that this little man would be coming early. My due date was January 22nd. I predicted that Arett would be born on the 18th and Trustin predicted the 10th. Now I think that Arett most likely would have been born somewhere between our guesses had I not taken matters into my own hands.
The doctor that delivered Zeke was kind of crazy. We weren't crazy about her. The doctor that delivered Ashlynn seemed very nice and professional, but the first time I met him was as Ashlynn was coming into this world. So this time around, I was ready to have my baby delivered by a doctor that I liked and that was actually my doctor and I'd met at a time when I wasn't 20 seconds from delivery. We found a really great doctor. And then he said that he was going out of town on the 11th through the 19th. I could tell from the way my body was changing that there was no way that this baby would wait until the 20th to be born. So it was either get things movin' early, or have another anonymous doctor deliver him. I opted for early delivery. We knew from all our efforts with Zeke, that spicy food and foot massages wouldn't do anything. But zumba? Yes. It just might.
Tuesday night I looked up zumba routines on the internet and worked my tail off. Mild contractions started up, but soon stopped. On Wednesday I called up my sister Maika and asked for a private zumba lesson. She, like the amazing sister she is, pretended that it wasn't a bad time and we zumba-ed it up for 45 minutes in her living room. Again, plenty of contractions during the workout, but that night: nothing. I was running out of time. Thursday evening I asked the kids if they wanted to work out with me (N had been asking me to do a workout video with her a few days before, so I thought this was the perfect opportunity). We turned on McDonalds 15-Minute Cardio (yep, came free with a salad I bought once). 15 minutes of grapevining, jumping jacks, and kicking with all my energy later and I was pretty hopeful. McDonalds, you did it. You can now add "induces labor" to your marketing scheme. A few short hours later, by about 8:00 and I knew these contractions were the start of the real thing. They were still not bad at that point, but either intuition or hopeful optimism (as opposed to unhopeful optimism) said I was going to have a baby.
We hung out at home for a while feeling pretty good. But by around 9:30 I decided that we should go to hospital. My contractions still were not too bad at all, and had I not had the experience I had with Ashlynn I wouldn't have dreamed of going to the hospital already. But I had had my experience with Ashlynn's birth, and I was a bit paranoid of birth in the car (I even bought a vinyl pad for the car ride, just to be safe). So Trustin's mom came over to stay with the kids and in to the hospital we went, arriving at about 10:30. We went into triage and learned that labor was progressing exactly like it felt like it was: barely. Apparently this labor wasn't going to be like labor with Ashlynn had been. Ashlynn from start to finish was under three hours, so I had kind of been planning on this one being the same, and I was mistaken. I had been dilated to a 4+ earlier that day at my doctor's appointment and now they said I was almost a 5. I lay on the triage bed (which was extremely uncomfortable, I might add) for an hour and half. Basically no change.
The charge nurse was extremely nice. I kept apologizing because I felt stupid for coming into the hospital when even I didn't think my contractions were that bad. Better safe than sorry though, and the nurse agreed (or at least was kind enough to say so). She told us to go walk around the hospital for an hour and we'd see if there was any change, and if so they would keep me, if not they would probably send me home.
So from midnight to 1:20 Trustin and I trecked through Riverton Hospital. It is four stories and we went up and down the stairs, up and down the halls and again, and again, and again. Eventually contractions were bad enough that I was sitting on magazine holding end tables because I couldn't walk the extra three steps to get to the nearest chair. Surely something must be happening now, I thought. We went back to triage and they checked me and things had only progressed a little, but since my contractions were so much more painful and consistent they decided to admit me (wahoo!).
The took us to a delivery room and left us to labor through as we'd like. I had planned on going natural since that had been such an amazing experience with my previous birth. Sitting there on the hospital bed though I had a big realization. Going without an epidural when your entire labor is less than three hours and takes place in the middle of the afternoon is one thing. Going without an epidural when labor is progressing at a crawl, and it is the middle of the night, is another thing entirely. With Ashlynn, going natural was beautiful and amazing and I loved it (in a "this is excruciating" kind of way). But I don't handle exhaustion well. Neither does Trustin. By 2 in the morning, after our probably multiple mile walk, we were burnt out. Trustin has always done a great job coaching me through contractions and helping me focus on other things like walks on the beach or walking though a forest where the trees smell like chocolate, vanilla, and strawberry. He was just as amazing this time, but eventually the brain shuts down, even if the love and intent is there. As my ability to relax through contractions was collapsing under a stronger desire to be asleep or crying, Trustin's ability to think of relaxing things to say was down to repeating "Deep breath in the though the nose...and out the mouth." This was actually very helpful, but with the amount of pain my body was under and the amount of progress that pain wasn't causing I could tell it was going to be a long night.
It only took us about a two minute conversation for me to decide that an epidural was the way to go this time. The only reason, in my case, not to get an epidural would have been stubbornness, and I could tell that all that would come of such stubbornness would be bragging rights (which I am uninterested in) and a grumpy, exhausted, tear-stained mom there to greet my new baby. So I got a fabulous epidural and loved it.
I couldn't feel much pain with my contractions anymore, but I still didn't sleep much. There was that far too interesting computer showing my contractions and my little one's heart rate and I just had to keep checking that, wondering when my darling boy would be here. At about 5:30 my water broke the nurse checked me again and I was finally dilated to an 8. My doctor was notified and we suspected that it wouldn't be much longer. But bless that epidural, because it was. For whatever reason, my body froze at an 8 for another long 3 1/2 hours. The nurse would come back every twenty minutes or so and ask if I felt like things were changing and occasionally to check my cervix. Each time I had to shake my head. Nope, this little guy was in no hurry to move beyond an 8. Finally the nurse came in with a bag of Pitocin and said we'd call the doctor and just get things moving. However, about two minutes before she came in I started to think, hmm, something might be happening now, the contractions were hurting more and I could feel pressure. Sure enough, I was suddenly at a 10 and there was a head ready to come out.
My doctor came in right at that time and they coached me on pushing. At 9:22 a.m., 13 1/2 hours after my labor began, I pushed once and out slid my tiny adorable little angel. This was the first delivery where they've given me the baby before they took him to wash him up. He was screaming like mad (a healthy little lad), and in that way that you can't explain, I was instantly in love with the tiny purple sweetheart laying on my chest. Arett Hinckley Anderson was born.
I love you my little Arett. You are such a blessing and joy to our family already.
I had to include this photo to show you that he has eyes, even though they almost never appear. Arett is the sleepiest little guy ever!
