birth story

[[This was initially posted on my old blog on wordpress.com, but i could never figure out how to make photos look good on there, so i'm giving this new blog address a try. i thought i would post my birth story for whoever is interested in reading (or rereading) it...]]

So after thinking that this newest little guy would NEVER make his appearance (maybe he was in a race with Aedan to see who could be more overdue??), Rhys Gabriel Patrick Bennett finally decided to get into gear and come into the world at 9:44 p.m. Thursday, 8/9.

I went to visit the midwife Thursday at 11 a.m., and when she examined me she said I was 4 centimeters dilated. I really had no idea that I could be so far along and not be in labor, but what do I know, right? So by the time I left her office, I was feeling pretty effective contractions…but still knowing I wasn’t quite in labor, just that it was imminent.

I got home and told Rick that I thought we should have his parents come over to watch the kids–just in case. I finally decided at 4 p.m. that we should start heading toward the hospital. I still at that point didn’t feel like I was in active labor, but the contractions actually felt uncomfortable as opposed to the Braxton-Hicks ones, which just tighten. All the way to the hospital I worried that by the time we got there, everything would have stopped and I would be embarrassed–here I am, mother of two, showing up to the hospital with a false alarm! I should know what I’m doing by now right?

By the time we got settled into a labor room, it was about 4:30, and I began active labor a little after that I think, around 5:00 or 5:30. The hospital left MUCH to be desired; for those of you who live in Tampa and know about Tampa General, well then you probably understand what I’m talking about. But Rick & I both agree that our experience with the midwife was really amazing. She was encouraging, she gave great tips, she actually took the time to coach me a little, which really wasn’t expected in a hospital setting like that.

She showed me how to use a birthing ball–even though I didn’t use any pain medication with Aedan’s birth, I pretty much laid in the bed for the duration of the labor. So this time I was more active–in fact, there were several times Rick had to step out of the room to answer his phone or give our friends directions to where I was so he could get a snack (we hadn’t thought to bring dinner with us), and I was proud of myself for even being able to handle some of those contractions on my own without him even being there!

I did keep thinking and worrying that things were going more slowly than they had with either Gillian or Aedan, so I was worried my labor would end up lasting much longer. But by the time the contractions really became unbearable, there were only about 4 or 5 of those, and then my body said PUSH! The funniest part (if there can be anything funny) about the pushing process is that the hospital was beyond capacity in the labor and delivery area on that particular day, so my midwife said, “If you can push this baby out fast, you can get a better room!” (This ended up not being true, unfortunately, but that’s a story for another day…)

I really think I was so motivated to push and really have the whole thing be over because as any of you know who have had a baby at that point it just hurts like crap. And I pushed with Aedan for 3 hours–so I did NOT want that to happen again! I couldn’t tell how long the pushing process was–but afterward, I heard the midwife ask the nurse to add up “the minutes” and the nurse said “TWELVE.” So then the midwife came over to me and held up her hand to indicate that I should give her a high five because I had only pushed for 12 minutes! I couldn’t believe it. I guess that’s what happens as you have more and more babies! (By the way, this is our LAST baby, so I won’t have to worry about going through that again and seeing if I can beat my own record…)

I began bugging the nurses right away to let me go home, and I guess I was so obnoxious that they made an exception and released us at 8 p.m. Friday night. I was SO glad, because I had been put in a room with someone else–and, as you can imagine, it is NOT fun to share a room/bathroom with someone after you have had a baby. It really sucks, to be honest. My first roommate left her TV on the entire night and also snored louder than my grandma does. The second roommate (thank goodness she came about 2 hours before I was discharged) had an entourage of people with her and had had a C-section, which the entire family wanted to recount in detail–I thought I was going to be sick, but I couldn’t help but hear everything because we were only separated by a curtain.

The only bummer about coming home Friday night is that on Saturday morning our A/C went out in our house. I still think I’d rather suffer in the heat than be stuck in that semi-private room in the hospital though. (And our A/C was fixed this morning, hallelujah!).

He’s really very mellow, much like Aedan was. And he seems so tiny. To this point, I have really thought of Aedan as my baby, and as this little tiny 4 year old. But now I look at him and he seems so huge compared with Rhys.

Thanks again to everyone who has been thinking of us and praying for us during this time. Babies are amazing, aren’t they? For good photos, go to our family photo blog at http://bennettpics.blogspot.com/