Beckham's Birth Story

First of all, I can't believe that I am actually writing this post. I really thought that my belly would just keep growing forever until one day I would just float away and *poof* be gone. This is probably the reason why I had a panic attack when my water broke.

Let's backup to Sunday, March 23. I had been having contractions all of saturday night and early sunday morning and they got bad enough at one point that I could no longer sleep through them. But I thought nothing of it because they came and went in no particular pattern. Plus, I still had two and a half weeks until my due date. When I woke up Sunday morning I was still having contractions but they were very mild and felt more like a menstural cramp so I wrote them off as Braxton hicks. By the time Travis woke up they started to become a little more consistent and painful. We started timing them, but again, they had no consistent pattern. We decided to take it easy and do some things to see if this was real labor or not. For breakfast, Travis made me a smoothie with a tablespoon of castor oil mixed in. Some people swear by this stuff and other people are just left with sad and horrific stories of diarrhea and severe intestinal cramps. Within 45 minutes of drinking my smoothie I ran to the bathroom and cleared out my system. I was {and still am} in disbelief that a tablespoon of something could clear out a person so quickly! I definitely thought I was one of the sad few who was left with nothing more than a poop baby.

By the afternoon my contractions were so random that I was sure it was false labor. Travis and I spent the day relaxing and watching Greys Anatomy and just enjoying the peace and quiet that a Sunday usually brings. Even though I was sure my contractions weren't going anywhere I still wanted to jump start this labor process. I was so tired of being pregnant! And I was determined to not go one day over my due date. That being said, Travis and I took advantage of the sunny weather and went for a walk outside. We walked for about 30 minutes and then returned home. I borrowed a yoga ball from my mom and started bouncing on it for a little while, but gave up whenever my back started to hurt. I ended up back on my comfy new couch, snuggled up to Travis and watching more Greys. As the evening progressed, I started having contractions again. This time they were real and defined. I could feel my entire tummy tighten with each one and then soften. But they still weren't painful at all. So on we went with our Greys marathon. At one point Meredith said something funny {I just love her} and I giggled a little, then whoosh! I abruptly stopped giggling and ran to the bathroom. I felt like I peed, but it was too much to be a giggle pee {Girls you know what I'm talking about right?} So I sat on the toilet and that's when all hell broke loose. The rest of my water broke and I started yelling for Travis. Both of us just kept saying "what do we do." Over and over. " you're sure you're not peeing?" Is what Travis kept asking me and at some points I honestly had NO clue! It's the weirdest feeling. Then once I was sure that my water did in fact break, I started crying. For some reason, I realized at that moment that I was about to be a mother and I realized just what that really meant. I was about to raise another human being. I was about to be completely responsible for a LIFE. Growing up, I was never goo goo ga ga over other people's children. I was never the type of girl that would freak out when I saw a cute baby or ask to hold another person's child. Sure, I thought they were cute, but that's about as far as it went for me. I thought I would eventually have children, but I didn't know when and I wasn't overly anxious to do so. I'm not trying to sound insensitive, but that's just the way it was. That being said, when Travis and I had the "baby talk" and decided to start our family it was a huge deal for me. Not only was I committing my life to Travis, but I was going to be responsible for creating and providing for another human life. It isn't something that I take lightly. So when I started hyperventilating and crying, having a flood of emotions run over me, Travis was there telling me that we are in this together. It isn't just me. He told me I wouldn't be doing this alone and that we are both responsible for this life. We are both going to be parents. Whatever panic he was feeling at that moment, it didn't show. He was just looking at me with only calmness coming from his eyes and a huge smile on his face.

After he calmed me down, he was running around like a chicken with his head cut off trying to pack the last minute items that were not in our hospital bag. I was yelling at him from the toilet {because who knew there was SO much water up in there?} telling him what else we needed to bring. After he got us all packed, he took the car seat out to the car and got it installed. By that time, I knew I needed to get up and get dressed, but I didn't have any way of putting on pants without them getting completely soaked. That's when I looked down at my feet and decided that a sock would have to do the trick. I threw on some sweat pants and waddled my way out to the car. By the time we got to the hospital {which was only 5 minutes away} I was already soaking wet. I waddled, yet again, into the hospital and up to the birthing center. By the time we got there, I was starting to hyperventilate a little bit. They took us back to an examination room and gave me this amazing pair of underwear that made me so happy I forgot what was happening. Then the nurse examined me and decided to admit us even though I was hardly dilated. Since my water broke there is a higher risk of infection for the baby, so we spent the night at the hospital.

I had so many monitors and IV's hooked up to me that sleeping was a difficult task. They started me on some labor inducing meds, but I wasn't feeling the pain of contractions for a few hours. 

Sometime early on Monday morning {March 24th} my contractions started to become a little uncomfortable. Within an hour or two, they had me rolling around on a yoga ball and doing my breathing exercises. Since my water had broken so early, the doctor said that I could get my epidural at any time, but that it would slow down the labor process, so it would be good to wait until I was dilated to a 3 or 4. Since I knew from the get go that I wanted an epi, I stuck it out for a few hours until it was confirmed that my labor was progressing. To be honest, I was actually more scared to have the epidural than I was to give birth! I saw multiple epidurals done and they looked very scary and very painful. But the worst part of it was the local anesthetic. After that, I hardly felt a thing! For the rest of the day I was literally floating on cotton candy clouds and sliding down skittle covered rainbows. Those drugs were GOOD!

At around 11am I started feeling some pressure and asked the nurse to check me again. She said I was at an 8/9 and this baby was coming soon! I was really excited because I thought the hard part was over. I had waited 9 whole months for this child. I had gained weight, gotten stretch marks, had horrible acne, and constantly smelled like crap {not exaggerating}. Then I had endured a few hours of contractions and played the waiting game. The hard part was definitely over in my mind. 

At around 11:30-11:45am I started doing some practice pushes to get the baby down into position. In my naive little mind, I guessed that the baby would be born around noon. Noon came and went, as did my energy and confidence. By 1pm I was still pushing. The nurse was doing everything she could to help Beckham get past my pelvic muscles, but he wouldn't budge. At that point she asked me "do you workout? Because your pelvic muscles are really strong!" I just started laughing. So because I took care of my body, my baby was getting stuck?! I pushed for another hour to no avail. By this point I was really frustrated and started to panic. I had worked so hard to bring this baby into the world and I wasn't going to give up, but I didn't want the hospital staff to give up on me. I knew I could do it, but I wasn't sure if they knew that I could do it. Finally, the Doctor came in to consult with me. He said that I had three options. Option #1 was to keep pushing, option #2 was to have him vacuumed out, and option #3 was a c-section. If the vacuum didn't work then he would have to be born by c-section. I chose option #2 and that's when things got a little crazy. This led, yet again, to another little panic attack that resulted in wearing an oxygen mask and asking {yelling} at Travis to breath slowly with me to calm me down. At this point, some random nurse entered the room and told me I couldn't cry because I had to be strong. All I wanted at that moment was for my baby to come out so I could punch her in the face. Had I not been strong this entire time?    

Finally, the Doctor arrived with all of his equipment to get this show on the road. When I first met him, I was a little scared of him because he was very serious looking and didn't smile much. But while I was giving birth I couldn't have loved him more. He was very motivating and kept saying things like "get angry Lindsay!" and "give me a big poop!" haha! I know that's super gross, but it totally helped and I thought it was hilarious. 

At one point I asked for a mirror because I really wanted to watch Beckham being born {no, blood and guts don't bother me}. So, when I asked, the doctor immediately said "NO!" and I knew that whatever was going on down there was not very pretty. 

After two hours of pushing and a total of 14 hours of labor, Beckham Scott Helm was finally born at 2:37pm on March 24, 2014. He weighed in at 7lbs 13 oz and was 20 inches long. Did I mention he was 2 1/2 weeks early? {He would've been HUGE if I carried full term} 

As soon as he was born, I completely lost it and started balling my eyes out. I did it! We did it! All three of us made it through!  

When I held him for the first time, he was obviously crying {birth is traumatic for everyone} so I snuggled him up close and nuzzled his little nose with mine and it calmed him down. I think it also confused him. That moment was the first time we saw one of his many infamous facial expressions.

A fresh new spirit entered the world and we are so over joyed! 

Thank you for outpour of love, thoughts and prayers! We are so in love with our baby boy! 

Love,

Lindsay