With Ada being early we really had expectations of another early or at least on time baby, but he thought 4 days late was the way to go...
Anyway birth story below, definitely TMI so read at your own risk :)
On Saturday night I started having a tiny bit of blood, and slightly more intense Braxton Hicks contractions, but nothing major. On Sunday night and Monday I had really bad hip/groin pain on the right side. I had it periodically during pregnancy but never for this long. Basically if I was standing or moving quickly, and the baby decided to move in a certain way, it was really painful, pinched nerve/severe muscle cramp feeling. Since it correlated with his movements, I was hopeful it would go away after birth, but I was stressed it would cause issues during labor.
Anyway after not a great day on Monday, I went to bed and maybe dozed for a few minutes before my first contraction at 10:53pm. I checked the clock to get a rough estimate of spacing. I think my sac broke at that point too, though just a tear as I pretty much trickled all night (no gush). They weren't really close together, but intense enough that I woke up Ty at 11:30. As with Ada, my contractions were sporadic. ~6 minutes apart, with the occasional double length one. I took a Zofran and managed to keep down fluid, unlike with Ada. Yay for advance preparation. I think that part would have gone the same for me (nausea during contractions) since I felt it but managed to control with the Zofran. Given the intensity we called the OB (Damon Cobb - I picked him as I heard he is one of the 2 San Diego OBs who are pro-natural birth) just before 1am and he just said we could come get checked if we wanted. So Ty packed up the car, my mom moved down to the couch to be able to hear Ada, and we were on our way to Pomerado Hospital at 1:30ish. After pulling off the highway I had a contraction with urge to push. But we were most of the way there... one more in the car, 1 in the parking lot, walked through the ER. (In retrospect maybe should have stopped for a wheelchair...). Between the ER and the elevators to L&D, I had 2 more contractions and I dropped to my hands and knees to get through them. Ty was unsure what to do at this point (go get help, keep slowly working our way to the elevators, or deliver the baby himself in the hallway), but I didn't want him to leave me alone. So we made it up to L&D at ~2am, I wrote my initials on who knows what form (might have accidentally given away the baby) and told them I had felt the urge to push. Dad note: We were then assigned the closest delivery room to the desk, since the look on Rachel's face said that it was the perfect room (location, location, location).
We got set up under monitors, they checked me and said I was a 5-6 cm and very thinned. That was horrible to hear because they wanted me to not push and I felt like I had so far to go! (Ada was born ~5 hours after I was measured at 8 cm). They put me on my left side to slow things down and I struggled to get through contractions without pushing (which in my opinion is near impossible - you can maybe cut back intensity but to completely not push?). Between contractions they were attempting to set up a saline lock. That never made it in.
[Side note, after getting home I heard the story that when my grandma was birthing my mom, the doctor wasn't there yet so they tied her legs together. I can no longer complain about being told not to push.]
Back to it, the OB made it in and saved the day, he checked me and said let's have a baby, go ahead and push, and said it would probably be 2-3 pushes. He was right if I remember, it was 3 contractions worth of pushing and the baby was out. The staff was really great about getting him straight to my chest for some bonding time.
Remarkably different experience than with Ada. Slow and gentle and steady with her, and fast and intense with him. Not sure which I'd choose...
Dad's notes:
Rachel was amazing through the whole process. She handled some really intense contractions in less than ideal circumstances (in a car...in the hallway). After the delivery she somehow found the energy to start the slow and difficult process of breastfeeding. I was almost literally passing out and I didn't even do any of the hard work. She stayed up for hours after patiently working with Seth to get him used to the new world he had been brought into.
We were so lucky to have Rachel's parents out here to help us out. They were great in helping us get ready for the baby and ease some of the stress on us during the whole process. Not to mention, if they hadn't been here we would have had to drop Ada off in the middle of the night at a friends house, and there is a very good chance we would have had a far more interesting story about a roadside, daddy mediated delivery (hopefully, that would have still had a happy ending).
So far, Seth has been a great baby. All his vitals are fine, he is sleeping and feeding as well as can be expected, and he is insanely cute (coming from a completely unbiased observer)...I mean handsome. Ada has also been pretty good so far at coping with the little intruder in her life. I think she is going to be great with him once she fully understands what gentle means.
Ada meets her brother
2.5 days old
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