Birth Story

On the evening of Friday July 27, 2012 Matt & I stayed up late watching movies and eating pizza. We slept in on the morning of Saturday July 28, 2012 and I did not wake until nearly 11:30am. When I woke up and stood from the bed I felt a small gush, I was like hmm I wonder what that was and hurried to the bathroom. I noticed that my underwear was soaked & I realized it had to have been my water breaking. I called out to Matt that I thought my water had just broken. Things went into a blur after that moment. I called the hospital & spoke to a triage nurse at labor and delivery, she said to definitely come in. We quickly got dressed, grabbed our bags and headed out the door. We arrived to the hospital and waited for what seemed like forever for them to get me admitted into the triage to get checked out. It was about 12:15pm by that time.I left a lovely urine sample and was taken to a little room in the triage unit to be checked to see if I was dilating & if my cervix was opening or not. I was very nervous at this time and so was Matt. When I was checked I was 80% effaced and dilated to a 2. I was surprised as I had only had an appointment that Monday and was making no progress & had just had the special ultrasound to check Archer's growth 2 days before.

I stayed in the small room at the triage for a short time before I was taken to a room in labor & delivery. Suite 7 to be exact. They gave me the option to start pitocin or to walk the halls for an hour to get things moving, I chose to walk the halls. I was dehydrated so I had an IV attached then went walking the halls. Matt's mom showed up and went walking with us. I actually ended up walking two different times for an hour each, eventually the doctor decided that I was no progressing fast enough on my own, so they had to start pitocin. I should mention now, that my regular doctor was away on vacation which was disappointing, but I had already prepared myself for the fact that she probably wouldn't do the delivery, since doctors are so busy.

After the pitocin I did start to progress more quickly, but man it felt like forever. I was not allowed to eat or drink during labor or delivery, I was starving, my stomach was growling like crazy even when I was pushing. I had not eaten since 11pm Friday night, and did not end up getting to eat until late Sunday evening.I am sure I had mentioned on the board that I did NOT want an epidural or to be catheterized. I managed to wait about 13 hours before giving in to the pain, Matt and his mom had been begging me to take the epidural as they were worried I would wear myself out from fighting the pain before it was time to push. I started to worry about wearing out too, so I took the epidural. All I can say about it was at least it helped with the pain, now I wish something would help with the pain in my back from it lol. After about 13.5 hours of labor it was time to begin pushing. When I heard this I became terrified but I was excited and glad that it meant an end was in sight. Besides I was tired of being on display lol. My mom left the room then as she does not do well in medical situations where blood might occur. Matt and I decided to let his overly excited mom stay in the room for the delivery.

A super nice nurse named Maggie coached me through the pushing while Matt and his mom were up by my shoulders talking to me & trying to give me support, mentally and physically as the pushing required me to get into a position that I couldn't get into myself since I couldn't feel or move my lower half (that was an odd feeling). This went on for about 30 minutes until the nurse decided it was time to call the Dr. in. Soon the room filled with 3 nurses and the doctor. The doctor was a nice lady named Dr. Johnson. She sat on the foot of the bed and did a bunch of tmi stuff that doctors do. They kept coaching me to push as Matt was watching intently to see Archer coming out, I felt like the pushing was never going to end but suddenly I saw something shoot across the foot of the bed then I saw arms & legs flailing and heard crying. It took me a minute to realize that he was actually here, I was ready to keep pushing, because I had become used to the routine.

They handed Archer to me as I had asked them to do. I couldn't stop looking at him, but soon he was whisked away to get cleaned up and weighed while the Dr. fixed me up. We had to stay in the hospital 5 days because of a fever I was running, that they still don't know the cause of. But we are super glad to be home.

Archer Hayes Stafford was born July 29, 2012 at 3:44am. He weighed 5lbs 9oz and was 18 inches long.

Please feel free to ask any questions, I am sure I have left something out.