Our birthing story

I decided that since Wesley is already 2 months old I'd better write about this now before I start forgetting all of the details!

It was a little after midnight on December 20, 2010 when Ryan and I were sitting in bed reading our scriptures. We normally wouldn't go to bed so late but we had some friends coming into town that were going to spend the night and we were waiting for them to arrive. It was around 12:15am when all of the sudden we heard a loud POP! Ryan looked over at me and said "what was that?'' I was definitely confused but responded "I'm not sure but it came from inside of me!" I seriously thought the baby hit his head really hard or something, I was so weirded out to be honest. About 10 seconds later I felt liquid coming out of me, which for some odd reason I thought was blood and I started freaking out. I finally put two and two together and realized that my water had broke. I think I was in shock because all I could do was stand there. Ryan jumped out of bed and was like "I'm not ready for this." Well, neither was I! I was only 34 weeks and 6 days along.....I was supposed to have 5 more weeks to prepare. Ryan told me to call the midwife so I did and she suggested that I should probably go to the hospital.

Well, a couple minutes later my friend Katie calls me and says "we're here!" She got quite the surprise when I informed her that my water had broken and that I was standing in the bathroom drenched. I was very glad that she and her husband were with us at that time because they were able to keep us calm and help us pack our things. We had just moved 2 weeks prior and we were not expecting a baby.

When I got to the hospital about an hour later I was only dialated to a 1 so thought it was going to be a very long night. Ryan and I had been attending a Hypnobirthing class to prepare us for labor and birth and my plan was to deliver completely naturally. Well, it was about 6:45am and I had already been using all of the techniques that I had learned and also spent some time in the birthing tub and I had reached my limit. I needed some drugs! I was dialated to a 5 at that point but could not handle the pain any longer. I think it was hard for me to really relax and focus on my breathing because I wasn't prepared for this to happen yet. I got an epidural and 2 hours later, at 8:40, I was dialated to a 10 and my cervix was fully effaced.

The midwife had planned on moving me to the operating room for delivery because the NICU (newborn intensive care unit) wanted to be able to take Wesley right away. But because his oxygen levels were not doing well and I dialated so quickly the whole NICU team ended up coming to my room. There were literally about 12-15 people in the room while I was pushing, and by the way, I was pushing his head out for over an hour!

While all of this was going on, I had no idea that my mom had bought a plane ticket in the middle of the night and was on her way. She walked into the room about 15 minutes before Wesley was born, it was perfect!

Wesley was born at 10:08am, Monday December 20, 2010. He weighed 5lbs 11oz and was 20 inches long. So even though he was born so early he was still a pretty good sized baby.

He was in the Intensive Care Unit for 12 days, which seriously felt like an eternity. It was very hard seeing him with all of the IV's and cords that here hooked to him, but I knew it was for his benefit. His lungs were not fully developed when he was born, he had Respiratory distress syndrome. We were finally able to bring him home on new year's day, but he remained on the oxygen until about 3 weeks ago.

Wesley is a very good baby. He only cries when he is hungry, so we definitely lucked out there! He is now a whopping 10 lbs 1 oz and still growing. We love our little boy and love being parents, we have learned so much already!