Carter Lee's Birth Story

I had been having contractions for weeks now, and by this point (2 days before my due date), I was sure I would have a March baby. Monday started out as usual. I didn't work on Sunday and decided half days were good for me until this baby came. I dropped B man off with his Nana around 1030 am and decided to just go ahead and go to work even though I wasn't expected until 2 pm. I figured since I slept the best I had slept in a long time the night before, no use in hanging around the house when I could go make money. I clocked in at noon and by 3 pm the contractions started up again. They weren't painful but noticeable. I thought I was doing the same thing I did a week before and was having false labor. By 8pm, I was scanning my patient who was also pregnant (1st trimester) that was having pelvic pain. I noticed our expressions and grimaces were the same. By the end of the exam I looked at my co-worker and said " I need to lay down".

I laid in one of our exam rooms for two hours, texting my mom and Mike. Trying to convince myself that this wasn't real. Going back and forth with the decision to call people down to the hospital this late at night. Finally, I made the decision that no matter what they said I wasn't able to drive home and needed either a pain killer or an sleep aide. So I walked down to L&D triage where the same nurse who saw me last week was there again. Now I really felt stupid for not knowing whether this was real or not. She said I was 3.5 cm dilated and could stretch me to 4 cm so that I could stay. I agreed and it really hurt. The contractions after that really started to hurt worse. Convinced this still wasn't it or that I had a long way to go, I told the nurse that I could walk the halls until my family showed up. Now, I said this because I thought I still needed to show progression before they would send me up to L&D. She looked at me and said "are you sure you just don't want your epidural?" I really was confused now and declined. She came back into the room about 8 min later and I said " I would take the epidural if it was still offered". So glad I did because the pain got really intense.

I made it up to my delivery room, the same room B was born in. At this point I am in a lot of pain and wondering where the hell my family was. I am sitting there on the side of the bed prepping for my epidural thinking, where is Mike? He is suppose to help hold me down for my epidural because I don't know if I can stay still for it. And just like that, God heard my cries and I didn't have a single contraction for 15 minutes. They were right on top of each other before. Just as the catheter went into my back my mom showed up and not long after that Mike came in. I joked and said they must of planned waiting to come until after the epidural, but maybe that wasn't a joke??.

Labor after that was pretty uneventful, except for me dropping my blood pressure a couple of times causing me to vomit and the window in my right hip that the epidural did not seem to get. That was a weird feeling because even though I could not feel my hip when I touched it, it was like the pain was deep in my bone coming out. The only time it felt better was when I was pushing and after delivery.

By 5 am my hip pain was horrendous and they checked me at 5:15 and said "time to push". The first push hurt my hip, but after that it felt better and 13 minutes later (not 4 hours this time), my precious, no name little boy was born. He looked nothing like B did (I don't even think he had a cone head) and I knew he weighed less then B too. When they pulled him out before Mike could say what it was, I looked down and thought for a split second I saw swollen labia, but it turned out to be scrotum. I always had a feeling this was going to be a little boy. He looked so perfect and I cried. I couldn't believe he was here already. This pregnancy went so fast (even though it always seems that way when you area pregnant) and I thought, I will never feel like this again and I was sad. The thought of a third baby crossed my mind and I still sometimes think I want another. Mike is for sure a no go on that idea.

I was exhausted after delivery and the last thing I wanted to do was nurse. I even thought that I wouldn't nurse at all this time, but once he was latched, something in me said "oh this feels so right, I do remember how much I enjoyed nursing".

Later that night the birth certificate lady came in to collect and we still had no name. It took us another 24 hours to figure it out. We were going back and forth between Carter, Levi, and Eli. I wanted to call the baby Leelee so I thought Levi would be good. Mike had always liked Carter or Eli. I didn't really like Eli and Mike had vetoed Levi so we went with Carter. Middle name came as a compromise because with Lee as a middle name (Mike's middle name as well) I could still call him Leelee if I wanted.

So there it is. The story of Carter Lee weighing in at 7 lbs 5 ounces and 20 inches long. Born on February 28th 2012, one day early and not a leap day baby. I am so blessed to have such a beautiful family. I feel so lucky to have a healthy baby boy. I am trying to soak up all his "newbornness" because I know how fast it goes.