Ray's Birth Story

For a first-time mom, I definitely had it easy. My whole pregnancy went without incident, with no morning sickness, and nothing really strange or disturbing to mar it.

I was due on Aug 1, and since we had just moved a few months earlier, I was planning to stay at my parents' house the week before my due date, to be an hour's drive closer to the hospital where I was to deliver.

On July 23rd, my husband and I were at home and he had gone to bed at about 9 p.m. He runs a golf course and gets up very early. At about 9:30 p.m., I was watching TV and got up to go to the bathroom. I had just entered the bathroom when my water broke. Those who tell you it's not a gush like on TV are not always right! I thought that I had just not made it to the bathroom on time, but with the second and smaller gush, I realized that it was my water that had just broken. I went to ask Dave if he had enjoyed his nap because we had to go to the hospital. I had the bag for the baby all ready, but I wasn't packed so I let Dave wake up a little and got that ready and braided my hair since it was still wet from the shower I'd had earlier.

Once we got on the road, we made excellent time, arriving at the hospital 45 minutes after we left home. I don't know how we didn't get pulled over. My mom, whom I had called from the road, beat us there by about 25 minutes. I still hadn't had any contractions at this point, so I was feeling fine. We got checked in to the hospital and I had my pick of the birthing rooms since we were the only ones there at the time. Dave and I went to sleep and mom went out to the waiting room as by then she was wide awake.

I slept until around 3:30 a.m. when the contractions became too strong to ignore any longer. The nurse came in and saw that I was awake, so she checked and said that I was already 7 cm. dilated! I was so excited and it wasn't that painful yet.

Then the contractions started coming really quickly, closer and closer together. We were sure that we were going to have the baby by 8 a.m. or so, but then he got stubborn. He turned 'sunny side up' and got stuck. This is when it actually started to get painful as all of the pain and pressure went to my back.

I was given morphine in an IV to help with the pain, but it really just made me feel like I had been drinking. Finally they told me that I was ready to deliver, but he was still stuck so they were going to wait a bit to see if he turned, otherwise I may have to have a C-section. I was pretty upset because I didn't want one and all I wanted to do was push, but they told me not to and gave me gas to breathe when I had a contraction, to help take the pain away. They decided that they were going to take me into the OR for the delivery, so they gave me an epidural, which I didn't want. I was pretty spaced by this point, but I started laughing when they took me into the OR and asked me to help scoot onto the other bed.

Anyone who's had an epidural knows that you really have no control over your lower half and I found it quite funny to try.

They went in with forceps, and found that Ray had turned all by himself. It only took a few pushes to get him delivered. I had to ask after a couple of minutes if it was a girl or a boy. I was convinced we were having a girl and was really surprised to hear it was not. He was so beautiful and my husband, who was in with me the entire time, carried him down to the nursery while they finished with me.

I was surprised that it wasn't really all that bad. I can't wait to do it again (but I will)!