A Brady Story

I know Brady is 6 weeks old now but I wanted to write up his birth story for me and for anyone who cares. Brady's due date was June 25th but as we came into June I was feeling like he might come sooner. I kind of had a feeling. I had a Dr's appointment on June 5th and I was dilated 2 1/2. I had been having false labor contractions for the last few weeks as well. My friend Sarah got me a pre-natal massage as a present and I had that on Wednesday the 6th in the evening. That night around 10pm I started noticing that I was having contractions at pretty regular intervals. I started timing them and they were around 10 minutes apart but the contraction itself was only about 30 seconds long. They stayed like that for two hours and I asked Ike if he thought we should go to the Hospital. We both decided to call the Hospital and see what a nurse said. The nurse advised us to stay home until my contractions were about a minute long and they were coming every 5 minutes. So we kept waiting at home. I took a bath and put some lavender essential oil in it. I think that helped keep me very calm and also worked as a form of pain relief. I really was not feeling pain as much as I was feeling pressure and tightness. Finally around 4am when my contractions were hovering between 5 and seven minutes apart we decided to take Jackson to a neighbors house and then drive to the Hospital. We live 25-30 minutes from Albion, where I was delivering. It took us about an hour to get the car loaded up and get Jackson dropped off then to the Hospital. I am glad we decided to leave when we did because by the time we parked and pulled up my contractions were 2 minutes apart and lasting a little over a minute. They checked me and I was at a 6 but still not feeling much pain. Discomfort, yes. P reassure, yes. But not a lot of pain. Ike and I played cards for a while and I walked the halls. Between 7am and 8am I went from a 6 to a 10. It wasn't really until I was around a 9 that I started to really feel the contractions. My water still had not broken on it's own so My Dr. broke it and that helped move things along a little. I had Ike push on either side of my hips every time I had a contraction and that helped a lot. So around 8:30am I was fully dilated and fully effaced but Brady was at a -2 position still. My Dr. suggested that I start pushing to see if we could get Brady's head to slide under my pubic bone and then more into the birth canal. So we started pushing. Up until this point I can honestly say that my pain level was not that bad. On a scale of 1-10, I was probably around a 6. I wasn't screaming or anything. I was able to breath my way through my contractions and it I felt OK. But once I started pushing my pain tripled. I think what made it painful was that I did not feel like I HAD to push. Brady was still so high up that I wasn't feeling any pressure to push. So for 35 minutes I pushed and it hurt. But then finally Brady slipped under my pubic bone and moved down and BAM! I finally felt the URGE to push and in two pushes he was out. One push for the head and one for the rest of his body. He was a beast. Everyone was surprised at how big he was because he was technically two and a half weeks early. The nurses were convinced that his due date was wrong. Me dilated to a 9 (note the fingers) and still feeling good. Birthing balls= AWESOME. Remember the ultrasound picture we had of Brady? Definitely the same baby! In the end I was in labor about 11 hours with the last 40 minutes pushing. I went through the entire delivery naturally and I did not need an episiotomy(HALLELUJAH!!!!)Over all my recovery with this birth was 100 times better than my recovery with Jackson. I tore a little with Brady but with Jackson I tore a lot (picture hamburger meat...or don't. ewww) and I had an episiotomy. Most important thing: COULD HAVE NOT DONE THIS WITHOUT IKE!!! He was my number 1 cheerleader the entire time and I don't think I could have had Brady the way I did without him. He is amazing and I love him soooo much.