Our baby boy had a due date of August 12th, so we were a bit surprised when my water broke on July 31st.
Let me back up a bit.. Sometime in early July I had this overwhelming feeling that I was going to have the baby. There was no physical reasons to feel this way, but emotionally I felt like I would go into labor sometime between July 30th and August 5th. My doctor was out of town till July 30th and my mom was scheduled to land in Austin on August 4th. I felt that one of those reasons would make me feel more relaxed, causing my body to go into labor. I had been seeing my doctor on a weekly basis since July 15th when I was 36 weeks. Every week on a Wednesday, we were checking my cervix to see if I was progressing. For 3 weeks I wasn’t showing any changes. I was dilated maybe a fingertip, 50% effaced but not really having any contractions or anything like that. I saw my doctor on July 30th and he joked that he was on call that weekend but that he would see me in a week.
On the evening of Thursday July 30th, we cooked a spicy dinner, went for a walk, I drank my labor prep tea, took evening primerose oil, and rubbed some clary sage essential oil on my inner ankles. We went to bed and I slept like normal. Friday morning Josh got up before me to start his work day. I sorta slept in and woke up feeling like I had wet my pants. I got up, went to the bathroom, changed and immediately felt like I needed to change again. I wrapped myself in a towel and went to find Josh. He said good morning to me and I said to him “do you want to have a baby today”! I told him I was pretty sure my water broke and he basically got in the car right then and there! Luckily all of our bags were packed and I had checklists ready to make sure we didn’t miss anything. But I still took my sweet time getting ready. We left the house an hour later and arrived to the hospital 30 minutes later. We casually walked in to get everything checked out and let’s just say things escalated quickly.
They took me back, had me put on a gown, strapped a monitor to my belly and started different tests: Covid-19, testing the liquid to see if it really was my water that had broke. We snapped a few pictures and were laughing. Everything was lighthearted and we were so excited. We had a feeling it was going to be a long time since I still wasn’t having any contractions. Within about 10 minutes, the monitor showed that the baby’s heart rate had dropped. We rolled me to my side and it went back up. The nurse left the room for my test results and suddenly 4 nurses and all 3 doctors came rushing in. The baby’s heart rate had dropped super low and they were scrambling to get me prepped for an emergency c-section. I was trying to stay calm but I was so scared. They flipped me on all fours trying to regulate his heart rate which seemed to help so they had me stay there. They threw an IV in my arm while I was in that position and I honestly don’t even remember what else they were doing to me. One of the doctors got right in my face to calm me down. She said I was in the best place for this to happen and they just wanted to be extra cautions and get the baby out ASAP. She told me that they were most likely going to have to sedate me during the c-section since there was no time for a spinal tap. This broke my heart but I just wanted my baby to be okay.
My doctor (who is the best, btw) spoke to Josh letting him know everything was going to be okay. He told me that the baby was looking better but he still wanted to do a c-section to get the baby out without and distress. Josh and I were walking back to the OR a few minutes later. We had walked into the Hospital all chill and an hour later we were walking in to have a C-section. It was nuts. About 30 minutes later, our baby boy was in my arms. Mama and baby were safe. We thank God for watching over both of us that day.
Holden James Ward was born at 11:40am on July 31st, 2020. He weighed 7 lbs 5.4oz, and was 20 inches long.
Our world was forever changed.
We went into the hospital Friday morning and walked out with our healthy baby boy on Monday afternoon. Due to covid we couldn’t have an visitors but it was honestly really nice to get the time in the hospital with just the three of us. There is so much that goes into having a baby and learning how to be a mama. Throw in recovering from a C-section and sheesh, I can’t imagine trying to “entertain” in the hospital room. My boobs were out 99% of the time, I had on super sexy mesh underwear, I could barely get up to pee and I brushed my teeth in a bowl from my hospital bed. I was exhausted, overwhelmed and at the same time, so in love with this tiny human that was part me and part the man I love. What a strange thing to love someone so much that you literally just met. Then they hand you the baby and send you on your merry way home. The whole thing is honestly mind blowing. But we did it! We can’t thank the nurses and doctors enough for taking such great care of all of us. Minus the scare and not living out our “birth plan”, we couldn’t have asked for a better experience in the hospital.
