Wadesy Baby: Wade Family Co-Bloggin'

And only 2 weeks later, out of a hazy, sleepless fog, we rise once again to bring you the latest and greatest ~~Wadesy Baby~~ Pearson update we possibly can. And actually, rather than an update (he's doing great by the way) Gill and I thought we'd take a look back at the "day that was" by trying something never before done in Wade family history: Co-Blogging. Sort of a back-and-forth between me and the Mrs. so you can get a feel for both sides of the birthing experience (cause I KNOW you are interested in mine as well).

So…let's do this thing.

Stewart: So there I am sleeping soundly, mentally preparing in dream-world for another fascinating day in the advertising business, when I'm rudely awoken at 3:45am with the news that…

Gillean: I felt a trickle run down my leg, almost like I had wet the bed. I got up to go to the bathroom and based on all that I had been learning from my 5 week birthing class decided that it was not pee running down my leg, but amniotic fluid. That's right, my water had broken! I then woke Stewart up to tell him the news and he sleepily walked into the bathroom, and then came back out and told me to try and go back to sleep!

Stewart: The only reason I told you to go back to sleep was because that's literally all I could do at the moment. Although I wasn't sleeping - I was laying down after nearly passing out from the shock of the moment. As soon as I saw Gill in the bathroom telling me what happened, a wave of panic washed over me and I had to get back in bed. I was NOT going to faint today. Of course, we weren't laying down for too long.

Gillean: I actually did try and go back to sleep for a little while, but it was a little hard to relax with the thought that we would be having a baby that day! After a few more minutes in bed I felt a sudden gush of water- now there was no doubt that my water had indeed broken, and with that gush began contractions. As a side note, I had always thought that when people say, "my water broke" it is sort of one big gush of fluid, and then it's over. This, however, is not true. After this gush the rest of the morning was followed by other large gushes that would come on without any warning. I was very unprepared for this, so the only thing I could think of to do was to use some of the diapers we had purchased in preparation for Pearson to catch the water. I was feeling pretty shocked at this point in the morning. We had just hung out with some of our friends the night before and it seemed everyone was in agreement that Wadesy was going to stay put for another week. You see, Stewart's mom had just flown up to Indiana to be with her mom who had broken her hip a few days before and our dear friends Jake and Lesley had just left the day before on a week long trip to Hawaii.

Stewart: Apparently Wadesy didn't much care about any of that. He was sick and tired of that cramped womb and wanted some Stewart time. Am I right? So around 5:00am, we gave our wonderful Doula, Talitha Phillips, a call to see what our plan of action should be. She reassured Gill about everything that was happening, and told us to hold off on calling the doctor because they'd tell you to go ahead and go to the hospital. And since Gill and I are now mother earth lovin' all-natural Californians, we wanted to labor at home for as long as possible. Of course, we wanted to be safe as well, and we finally caved at 8:30 and called Dr. Crookes' office.

Gillean: Yes, laboring at home was a concept Stewart and I had become very comfortable with, but we had many friends and family calling and texting us that they were very concerned we were not headed to the hospital. I never would have really thought of myself as a kind of au natural "earth mother," but I suppose I do have a little earth mother in me.

Stewart: A little?!? Don't let her fool you - Gill is 100% hippie at this point. But anyways, after placing the call, we stalled a little longer before heading out on the fabled drive to the hospital. But before we got there, we had to make a stop. At Ralph's. For…cookies?!

Gillean: I had been told that the nurses will really take the time to look at your birth plan if you bring cookies or some type of treat they can enjoy while on the job. We didn't have cookies at our house so I felt it was necessary to stop and get something at the store on our way to the hospital! It was a quick stop, and then we were on our way to St. John's. We pulled into the valet entrance at the ER and were greeted by some friendly orderly who wheeled me to labor and delivery!

Stewart: And as they ran, I tried to keep up while carrying just a few things. (I realize it doesn't look like much, but the birthing ball was difficult to handle, and I had a backpack on that isn't quite noticeable.)

Gillean: We pulled into our room and met our British nurse Collette who promptly hooked me up to a monitor and said at this point my contractions were about 3-4 minutes apart. Collette also said she was not going to check me to see how dilated I was since my water had already broken. This was a little annoying, as I was sort of curious how much more we had to go. After a few minutes on the monitor Collette agreed to unhook me and allowed Stewart and I to go walk the halls of the hospital. Our walk did not last too long as my contractions were beginning to get pretty intense. This is where time sort of all starts running together for me.

Stewart: Not for me. I knew exactly what time it was, how strong and how far apart the contractions were, and when exactly Talitha was showing up (which happened to be at 11:27). And it was a huge relief seeing her – the contractions were getting worse and Gill was having trouble with the monitors strapped to her.

Gillean: Collette finally agreed to check me soon after that and said I was dilated to a 6!

Stewart: We were expecting a 3 or 4, so this was pretty good news. We also were expecting a 20+ hour labor, so good news all around!

Gillean: Around 12:00, things were getting really painful, and Collette came in again and said I had 30 minutes to decide if I wanted to get an epidural or else I would need to wait until 2:00pm to get one. She went on to explain that the anesthesiologist was going to be tied up in a C-section and would not be available to administer the epidural between 12:30 and 2:00. This was quite unsettling for me and I remember watching the second hand of the clock inch closer and closer to 12:30 as my contractions seemed to get more and more intense. Right around 12:30 I was not sure I could take too much more, and Talitha really encouraged me saying that I had already made it through the most difficult part of labor. I'm not sure if that was right or not, but I bought it and decided I would let the 12:30 come and go and just try my luck at having Pearson without any meds.

Stewart: Of course, Gill didn't actually TELL anyone that she decided against the epidural. We all just kind of assumed she was going for it when 12:30 passed us all by. I considered making sure she was up for it again, but I had a feeling she knew exactly what time it was.

Gillean: Yes. Yes I did.

Stewart: Speaking of time, at 12:45, Dr. Crookes (our OB) showed up for the first time. She checked Gill again, and lo and behold, she was at a 9! Things were moving way faster than we thought…which was great…and scary.

Gillean: Sometime around 1:15 it seemed like something shifted in my body and all of a sudden I felt the strong urge to push. Unfortunately Dr. Crookes had gone back to her office or to lunch or something so instead of pushing Collette made me pretend to blow out birthday candles.

Stewart: This was one of those moments where I would have done anything to help Gill. She was in obvious pain, and was adorable trying to blow out the candles. I did the best I could to help her breathe and let her rest on my shoulders, but outside of that the only thing I could do was pray for her…which I did, constantly.

Gillean: This lasted a few minutes longer when I made it known that I could no longer blow out candles any longer and I was ready to push. Unfortunately, Dr. Crookes was nowhere to be found.

Stewart: Enter Dr. Bliss – ironically, Lesley Roberts' old OB who couldn't make it to HER delivery. Gill was in a semi-compromising position when we were introduced to her. Awk…ward. Well, not really. There was no time to feel awkward. Gill just started pushing. What did it feel like, anyways? You know, to push a human out of you?

Gillean: It is a pretty weird sort of a scary feeling because once you start pushing it sort of feels like you can't really stop. The craziest thing was hearing you tell me you could see Pearson's head and then all of a sudden I felt the little guy shoot out of me and be plopped up on my chest. What a beautiful sound his little, or not so little cry was!

Stewart: Yes. It was the craziest thing I've ever seen in my life. I'd say watching Gill push was a Crazy Level 1. Seeing the head pop out was a Crazy Level 3. And watching him literally shoot out of you was a Crazy Level 97. I've never seen, experienced, witnessed anything like it. Like Gill said, Dr. Crookes pretty immediately plopped young Pearson onto her chest for some quality skin to skin time, and he cried and cried … and then stopped. Just like we heard he would, he seemed to recognize his mom and immediately nuzzled up to her and calmed down. I'd say that was something like a Crazy Level 27.

Gillean: And with our new son, all was right in the world.