Griffin's Birth Story

I need to write this down to remember (not that laboring and delivering a baby is easy to forget).....

I woke up at 3:00ish on Thursday morning with my first contraction during this pregnancy. The same thing happened with my first pregnancy, the first contraction was the day I delivered. It was just a minor contraction, but I knew what it was. Ryan awoke also and I told him that today was the day, I just knew it. We stayed awake the rest of the morning, not really intentionally, but just talking and talking.

Throughout the morning, I had one contraction every hour, almost on the hour. Obviously, they were not consistent or timeable, so I knew that I couldn't do anything about it. Ryan insisted I call the dr. and talk to the nurse, but what did she tell me? They have to be consistent i.e. every 5 minutes, lasting at least 50 seconds, for about an hour. She also told me to rest and relax. Well, I have a 3 year old to take care of, so that wasn't going to happen.

We continued on with our day. Walked to the park (how on EARTH did I walk to the park, in retrospect I should have drove) and played. Went to gymnastics. Stopped for lunch because I wasn't feeling like making it. Came home. All the while, still having ONE contraction each hour. They were pretty strong ones though, taking my breath away and having to stop whatever it was I was doing. Ava was so cute when it would happen, she would say, "Does your tummy hurt again, mommy?" However, it was kind of strange to labor in front of her. Ryan asked if he should go ahead and start his leave, but I told him not to because what was he going to do? I couldn't even do anything about it.

So our day went on and then came the evening, about 5:00ish. We had planned on getting Ava a big sister present that night while she and daddy went to grab a bite to eat, I was going to head to Wal-Mart to pick up something for her. Well, right when they left, I had a contraction. I got in the car anyway to go to Wal-Mart, had a contraction. They were about 10 minutes apart. Fluke, I thought. Get to Wal-Mart, have another contraction in the parking lot. I came back down to reality and realized I probably shouldn't go into Wal-Mart on the chance that my water should break or I have more contractions. I leave the Wal-Mart parking lot, have another. Wow, they have to be less than 10 minutes apart at this point. I was in too much of a fog to time them at this point, but had been all day otherwise. Get home, have another. When Ava and Ryan get home, I tell him he probably should call his parents to come get Ava, that we should head to the hospital.

Scratch that. Contractions are coming on strong now, about every 6 minutes or so. Tell his parents just to meet us at the hospital.

We get everything loaded and head to the hospital. At this point I have no idea how far apart the contractions are or the duration of the contraction or for how long I've had them. I just know that I am in labor and it's coming fast! I called Dr. Trostel and alerted him to contact the hospital. In the most sincere and honest way I could muster, I asked him to tell the nurses to have the epidural waiting. He laughed. I didn't. I was serious. My biggest concern was that I was going to be too far along to get the epidural. Gasp!

It was about 6:45 when we got to the hospital. Great. Just in time for shift change. Gigi and Poppy pulled up just as we did and we did a quick Ava exchange. I was settled into my room at a little after 7:00 pm. The anesthesiologist was there and had me hooked up in no time. She was awesome and no nonsense. They checked me at 7:09 and I was 6 cm. dilated. At 7:35 I was 8 cm. and at 7:45 I was 9 cm. Thank goodness the epidural kicked in and slowed things down. I was NOT ready to have a baby in the state of mind I was in. I needed to calm down and feel like myself again. Nothing like some drugs to help with that.

So once everything slowed down, I was ready for this baby. At 9:15ish I felt some pain and sure enough it was time to push. They set everything up and had me do a practice push while we waited for the dr. I LOVED, LOVED, LOVED my nurse. She was so sweet and helpful. She was a Megan too AND we have the same birthday! Anyway, I did a practice push and she said, Whoa! Stop! You've got it! Dr. Trostel came in, I did one push with him and Griffin Davis was born at 9:36 pm. It all happened so fast that I was in shock that I just had a baby in two pushes. He cried and cried immediately (little did I know there was more of that to come).

They put him on my chest and as I was told, it was love at first sight. My first thoughts were that he didn't look like either of us. After having an exact clone of her father, I was expecting another child to look like one of us. Griffin must be a good hybrid because he still doesn't look like either one of us exactly. That threw me for a loop.

They weighed him, 7lbs. 7 oz, measured him, 19 inches, and cleaned him up. He was perfect and healthy, scoring an 8 and 9 on the Apgar tests. He roomed in with us both nights, going to the nursery for a few hours to get tests done (or whatever they do in there, lol). We were both so thrilled to have this baby boy and so much in love.