It's a Boy!

Welcome to the world Cian Alexander!

Born 3 weeks early on Tuesday June 12th, 2012.  7 lbs 7 oz and 19 inches long!

I've never gone that early on my own before but this little guy had other plans!!  I woke up to a few contractions on Tuesday morning but they were like I had been having except a bit stronger and a few more than usual.  I thought nothing of it until I went to the bathroom and noticed some spotting.  I told Jer not to go too far because I thought something was happening.  I emailed his mom to let her know what was up and to be on stand by.  And then nothing happened all day except irregular contractions ranging anywhere from 9 minutes to 45 minutes apart.  The spotting went away.  I was starting to get discouraged that it was just a false alarm so I went and had a nap.  Again, like in the morning, I was woken up by contractions that were a bit stronger and a bit closer together than normal.  I was starting to get frustrated thinking my body was doing the fake out thing I've experienced so many times before with Braxton Hicks contractions (especially because I wasn't quite 37 weeks yet!) and so I came downstairs and sat on the exercise ball for about 40 minutes.  Jer was in the middle of making dinner while I was just sitting there and he needed to run to the grocery store to get lettuce and milk...I told him to go, that I wasn't going anywhere anytime soon.  At 6:35, I stood up from the ball to go to the bathroom and my water broke!!  That has NEVER happened to me before and WOW I didn't realize that it would be that much!  I ran upstairs and called Jer right away, he dropped what he was doing, called the baby's mom and dad and picked up our oldest son from his friends house so he could be here with the two younger ones until my mom got here (who I called right after I talked to Jer) and then came to get me.  I sat on the toilet for the most part until he got home because every time I got up there was so much water!!!  Jer helped me put the last minute things in my bag and our oldest threw some garbage bags on the front seat of our van and we were off to the hospital. 

Contractions were finally regular-ish and coming every 2-3 minutes.  We got to labour and delivery shortly after 7pm.  I was put in a case room and checked and found to be about 3-4 cm's dilated (just last Thursday my Dr. checked me and I was completely closed!) with what the nurse described as "copious amounts of water".  Jer texted mom and dad and let them know where we were at...they said they'd be here at 11 pm.  I was starting to think they weren't going to make it in time!

For the next couple hours I was hooked up to the monitors and was contracting away, praying for everything to go quickly, but not so quickly that mom and dad would miss the birth of their baby...that was a really hard happy medium to have!!!  Especially as the contractions got stronger!

Sometime after 9 pm (I can't remember the time really) they moved us over to the delivery room.  Getting up and walking really sucked!  Once we were in there, Jer continued with updates on facebook all the while trying to comfort me through the pain.  His sister came too and she also helped by rubbing my legs to give Jer a break.  I can see from Jer's updates on facebook that shortly before 10 I was 4-5 cm's dilated.  Mom and dad finally arrived at around 10:20 pm.  The nurse asked me around 10:30 what my pain was on a scale of 1-10...and I answered here with about an 8 or 9 and then with the next contraction I was screaming at her OK IT'S A TEN NOW!!!  With that answer, the nurse stepped out of the room to call the Dr. and at the end of the next contraction I felt that urge to push...I told Jer "GET THE NURSE!" so he ran out and did that...it was very chaotic to me after that.  I was in so much pain that I probably looked completely crazy and wide-eyed!  The nurse was telling me to blow as hard as I could because she wasn't gloved up yet and I really had no control over the pushing urge.  It hurt SO bad...this was my worst birth for pain, that's for sure!  I didn't have any pain medication at all so it was also my first completely natural childbirth.  No induction, no IV's and no pain meds.  Go me!  :D

From that first contraction where I needed to push it was probably about 3 minutes total until he was born.  It was SO fast (thank God!).  As soon as he was completely out I yelled "THANK GOD!!!" lol because the pain was over (mostly lol).  Dad announced that it was a boy and they took him over to the warmer to start checking him out.  Then the Dr. and nurses attended to me (I have hemorrhaged in the past so they gave me some meds to make sure I wouldn't do that again).  I had no tearing at all (huge surprise given how quickly he came) and everything was good from then on out!

I'm very proud of how this pregnancy and delivery went :)  I only gained 14 lbs in total and still he was completely healthy and weighed in well 3 weeks early!  Cian (pronounced key-an) is a beautiful little boy and his parents are just thrilled with him :)  We got to spend a bit of time rooming in together before I went home the next day (not even 24 hours in the hospital, I needed to rest in my own bed!!).

Today I feel like I've been hit by a truck a couple times but I suppose it could be worse!

And, I am now officially retired reproductively speaking.  After 7 pregnancies and 7 babies, 3 of my own and 4 for 3 other families, I'm finished.  It was a great ending to say the least!!  Now it's time to work on me, lose some weight and down the road maybe think about a tummy tuck to get rid of all the extra skin that has stretched out over the course of 14.5 years and 7 pregnancies!  I'm looking forward to this new phase in my life.  Now, my friends and family need to start having babies so I can revell in their pregnancies instead of my own!!!  :)

Happy Thursday!!