Samuel's Birth Story

I was pregnant with my third child so I knew what to expect, or so I thought. My first two babies were born past 41 weeks and had been big, but they had been born without any intervention. When 40 weeks came and went with this pregnancy, I knew my obstetrician was eager to induce but he stood by my wishes, knowing I wanted my baby to come when he was ready.

Friday morning came and I just didn't feel right. I had been anxious all morning and I told my husband I thought something was wrong. I didn't know what and I didn't want to even think about anything happening, but my husband said he felt the same way. We paged our doctor who agreed to meet us Sunday morning at the hospital. After I hung up, my doctor called me back and said we shouldn't wait that long and said he would meet us Saturday morning instead. It was Friday afternoon, and Saturday still felt very far away.

We got to the hospital around 6:00 a.m. on Saturday. I had been having mild contractions for the last five days, so I was not surprised when the doctor told me I was in labor and already at four cms.

The doctor broke my water at 7:00 a.m., and there wasn't much but what was there was thick, green meconium. He started an IV and inserted an internal monitor. I wasn't able to move around and this upset me because I hadn't wanted any interventions. My doctor told me I had six hours to get my baby out vaginally. If I had expected a long labor this would have scared me, but I wasn't worried. My first child had been born within six hours, and my second within four so I was sure my third would be two hours.

The contractions intensified immediately and I was very uncomfortable being confined to the bed. My labor was fast and furious–I went from being hot, to being cold, to being ready to push.

At 8:30 a.m., I told my husband the baby was coming. The doctor didn't want me to push until a neonatal doctor arrived and that scared me. My baby was coming and my body was pushing him out no matter what the hospital staff, doctors or I wanted. Even my husband said it was coming so fast that it scared him.

My son, Samuel, arrived at 9:01 a.m. We were not able to hold him right away and he had to have meconium suctioned from his lungs, but he was fine. He weighed eight pounds, thirteen ounces, and was my smallest baby. His brothers called him Baby Samuel for months.

Today at 10 months old, he is trying really hard to walk, crawl, and scream to keep up with the big boys. No matter what happens, I will always trust my intuition when it comes to him and he will always be my Baby Samuel, the smallest and the youngest.