Baby Boy Pierce Has Arrived

You read that right - we got ourselves a son!!!

So, to fully cover the birth of our baby we have to start with Thursday. First off, I decided to do a full day of "soft foods" to avoid any, let's say bowel issues during labor (I know they are common, but if I could avoid it, I wanted to). This ended up being a HUGE mistake and made me feel extremely nauseas so by dinner I decided I should eat something more solid (I just did Ramen Noodles since it's more soupy and still pretty soft). I knew I was on the induction schedule for Friday and my previous experiences said they'd call Thursday to give me a time to go in to be induced. I waited in anticipation SO anxiously all day for that call. Finally around 2:30 I got the call, but instead of them giving me a time, they said I'd get a call on Friday (today) about an hour and a half before I have to go in. They said they could call me as early as 5 AM so I should keep my phone on during the night just in case. This was very different than before, but I just figured we'd have my mom come stay over Thursday night and we'd just get as prepped as we could that night so that we'd be as ready as possible. I wanted to go to bed early on Thursday so I could say I got a lot of good sleep before things changed in a big way, but my mom didn't get to our house till around 8 so we chatted for a bit and then I knew I had to shower and get the hospital bag packed. I didn't end up going to bed till closer to 11...whoops haha.

All night I tossed and turned just expecting my phone to ring, but also trying not to look at the clock so I didn't really know what time it was. I did look at one point and it was about 5:15 so I kept thinking "my phone could ring ANY second...don't get into too deep a sleep" and so I was basically up from then on. At 6 it finally rang, only they didn't give us the 90 minute warning, they asked if we could be there by 6:45. STRESS! I wanted to eat cereal, do my makeup, fix my hair, get the final stuff packed into the bag, SO much. It was a mad dash to get ready, eat something, and leave within 15 minute.       

We got to the hospital right on time (thankfully) and got all checked in. We were set up in a room, on a bed, hooked up to the monitors by 7:20. They checked my cervix and said it was still only a 3, but it was good enough. They did mention my cervix was VERY high up so it was harder to check things (and a lot more painful than I remembered from previous births), but as I progressed the baby should move further down and it should be okay. They asked if I wanted my epidural before they broke my water, but I told them no. They asked if I wanted to start any pitocin, and I told them no. I really wanted to get as close to my experience with Lucy as possible. I told them I'd want to have my water broken and see what my body does after that and have Pitocin be a completely last thing to try. They got the lovely hook out to break my water and HOLY MOLY did that ish hurt! It felt like a piercing feeling and it was the most uncomfortable part. Unfortunately, after a few attempts it just wasn't working (the bag was too high and too tough, which REALLY made it fun) so they grabbed this thing that was more of a pin prick to get it started. They got it pricked, but they mentioned the hole would be very tiny so I should get up and walk to see if the hole would open up more. I stood up and watched the heart rate and contraction monitor while kind of waddling back and forth in place, on my feet. After a few minutes of that I felt some dripping and realized it worked and I could sit back on the bed. 

I started feeling contractions and when they came to check on me I went from a 4 to a 5. The contractions were feeling pretty strong so when they asked if I wanted to do my epidural, I told them yes, but I wanted to make sure that I was progressing quickly enough (I know an epidural can slow things down once you get it and I didn't want to do that, but I also didn't want to risk not having one like I almost did with Lucy's birth). My midwife assured me I was doing good and it should be good timing. This was around 9:45 AM. 

I was a bit nervous about the epidural since my one with Cara was a bit rough. I didn't really feel it with Gwen by the time I had my C-Section and with Lucy I had a spinal instead. However, this time it worked really, really well. My anesthesiologist's name was Clint and I want to send him some sort of "thank you for numbing my lady bits so well" bouquet haha. Unfortunately, I think it did start to slow my labor down. They said I was dilating well enough, but the baby just wasn't dropping like it needed to. They recommended a low dose of Pitocin to help things along. I really wanted to do this without that and they said they didn't want to push it on me, but based on how things are it would be MUCH longer if we kept waiting. This was around 11 and I was getting so anxious to start pushing I told them I was okay with it and to get it started. They came in and told me they start at a level 1, then move to a 2, then a 4 and a 6 and so on, every half an hour. They also decided to get the peanut ball out to help things along. As we waited on that it seemed my labor may have slowed down. My contractions when from every 2-3 minutes to every 6-8 minutes and were way lower in intensity, according to the monitor (before I was going from a 30 to 100, after it was going from a 0 to a 40). I was nervous it was going to take way too long to get this baby out of me.

I got to the 2 level of Pitocin and the midwife came in asking if I felt any pressure down there or urge to push. I told her no, but I also couldn't feel my contractions. She said she'd wait a bit (but didn't check me, which I thought was odd) and left. Around 11:30 they flipped me over to the other side and we got moved up to the 6 level of Pitocin. They checked me and said I was about a 7 and baby was much lower so we were looking good. After about 20 minutes the baby fell off the heart monitor so the nurses came in trying to find the heart rate. After about 10 minutes of not finding anything suddenly my midwife and 3 or 4 other people (I honestly lost count so there might have been more) rushed in and started saying something about making sure the baby respiratory specialist was nearby. They checked me and said I was at about a 9.5 cm and that I needed to start pushing. They also gave me oxygen, which I thought was weird, because the only times I needed that with the other labors was when my blood pressure dropped and it hadn't done that at this point. I felt there was some sort of urgency going on, but no one told me why or what was going on. I wasn't worried about the baby since I could feel movements while they searched for the heart rate, but apparently they weren't wanting to risk it. They told me to just start pushing once I felt a contraction (they took the contraction monitor off too so they had to go off of my feelings). I definitely was feeling contractions at this point so when they said I should start pushing I told Larry to push my epidural button. Before, when I pushed it, I could feel the cold running down my back, but I didn't this time so I suddenly though "oh no, I'm probably going to be feeling this!" 

This was getting kind of scary, but I just focused on my pushing during each contraction. I swear it felt like once I was done pushing another contraction was starting or the other one wasn't finished so it was pretty painful and intense. I also work well with encouraging words, but they kept saying things like "Jodi, push! Come on, your baby needs you to push! Think of your baby! Just push!" I couldn't tell if I was pushing right or not with that. Luckily Larry kept saying "you're doing great, the baby is coming. Just keep doing that" which was SO much more helpful. With each push I could literally feel my body opening up and pushing the baby out. It wasn't painful, just a very weird feeling of knowing exactly how much of the baby was out of me. Finally after about 10-15 minutes of pushing I literally felt the baby slide right out and they laid them on my chest.I couldn't see any gender parts and no one said anything as they cleaned me up. I remember saying "what are you?" a few times, but apparently no one heard me. Finally a nurse in the back said "well? Boy or girl?" and I said "I don't know, I can't see" The midwife said out loud "It's a BOY!" 

At 1:01 PM Pierce Rahl Bradsby was born!

I cried the biggest tears ever in so much happiness. I probably would've done the same with a girl, to be honest, it's just such an amazing moment to hear and finally know. I also though "Wow! We did it! We made us a boy!! I get to see what it's like to have a son!" It was probably the single happiest moment of my life! I remember asking Larry "well, should we do Pierce or Archer?" for his name. Larry said he liked Archer better and I knew instantly I really actually wanted Pierce so I just said "really?" and he said "honestly, I like both, as long as we can do Rahl for the middle name." and that's how he got his name haha.

Unfortunately, his coloring wasn't the greatest when he was born. He was very pale so they had to make him cry a bunch to get him to pink up. They also put this hand monitor on him to keep track of his oxygen. They said they wanted the number above 90 and it stayed that way, luckily, but they still weren't sure how to feel since he stayed pale. We decided to do some skin to skin (my absolute favorite part of newborn days) and after a while of that his skin was looking so much better and they felt they could take the monitor off.

We got to the recovery room and immediately ordered food (another favorite part of childbirth for me. I LOVE hospital food haha). We've done a lot of snuggling, skin to skin, sending out messages about the gender, and he's taken to nursing pretty well so far.

So far we've noticed he makes a lot of little sounds. Almost like little mews, in his sleep. They are the cutest sounds. He also cries in his sleep a lot, but only for a second and then he's all good. I'm seriously so in love with this baby. I can't tell if it means more that we got a boy or if it's because he's our last, but I'm just over the moon with my family and cannot wait to have the girls come visit and meet him for the first time.