The Blonde Superhero And Her Family: Alfred's Birth Story

I have not written about my new baby yet! My excuse is that it is hard to have two children, I have been busy with Winter Guard competition season, and I am insanely tired all the time. So here is me catching up on thins. Here is the birth story of my beautiful baby boy!

My family had a wonderful Christmas Day in Kaysville with my parents, siblings, and niece and nephew. Nigel was quite thrilled with it. For example, Christmas morning he woke up and we said, “Nigel, Santa came!” And Nigel shouted out, “SANTA IS HERE! WE GO SEE HIM! HURRY! HURRY!” To which I replied, “He isn’t here now… But he stopped by while we were asleep and left us presents!” Nigel then shouted, “WE GO SEE! HURRY! HURRY!” It was quite a fun holiday. Holidays are way more fun with children!

So the day after Christmas, a Friday, I went to my OBGYN and got my membranes stripped. It was still a week and a half to my due date, January 7^th, but I was running out of space and starting to have a hard time breathing due to lack of space for my diaphragm to push down. This happens toward the end of pregnancy. The day was long but nothing had happened. Nigel went to bed around 8 as usual and then I stayed up watching a movie with Ross. I stayed up until midnight so now we are to December 27^th.

A little after midnight I felt my first contraction this pregnancy. It hurt. And I decided I better get to bed right away so that I could get some sleep before the contractions got too close together. I had one more contraction about 20 minutes later in bed then fell asleep. I woke up a little after 2 am with contractions 10 minutes apart. I would doze between the contractions, but couldn’t really get back to sleep because those painful contractions would wake me up. I stayed in bed counting how far apart my contractions until 4 AM when they were about 5 minutes apart. I decided I had better get up and have some food because I would have to go to the hospital soon. I had some cinnamon toast and hot chocolate. It was heavenly. Then at 4:30 the contractions were 3 minutes apart so it was time to get off to the hospital soon.

At 4:45 I woke up Ross and said, “It’s time to call the Phillips to come over and stay with Nigel. We need to get to the hospital soon.” (The Phillips are our friends who live across the parking lot.) I went back to the kitchen and snacked around a bit while Ross called Scott. I called my parents so they could come up, (it would take them an hour), and watch Nigel all day. He headed over, but took a while because he was actually down in Hyrum. Oops. We didn’t realize they were helping their sister with her kids that weekend. Oh, well! He came and I was having contractions every 2-4 minutes, they weren’t very consistent, but were averaging 3 minutes. Which was lovely. And they were getting really painful really fast.

Scott arrived then Ross and I left for the hospital at 5:15 and when we got there I could barely walk because my contractions were getting so close together (2 minutes apart) so we got me a wheel chair when we walked in. They only had a wheelchair for really fat people, it was quite spacious. Anyway, they got me right in and I had to go to the bathroom. I had a super powerful contraction in there. Ouch! I got all dressed down into a gown and sat down. I was dilated to 5 cm. Woo hoo!

My contractions were getting quite excruciating, and I had told the nurse when we arrived I would be wanting an epidural. Around 7 am they got me my epidural. Which was great because I was crying through my contractions because they hurt so freaking bad. Epidurals are the most amazing invention in the world. Also, I am lucky in that I don’t need a huge dosage for my legs to get all numb. I could still move my legs pretty well even though I couldn’t feel the pain. I could feel the pressure a little bit, which was good for knowing when things were happening.

A doctor came and broke my water around 8 am and said it was really green. Meconium. That is the baby’s poop. Sometimes babies poop in the womb prior to being born and it gets all over. I was told that they would have to be really careful during delivery to make sure my boy wouldn’t inhale or swallow any of his poop. It can get really dangerous really fast if that happens. It scared me to think of that, but the nurse said they would have a respiratory therapist and a NICU nurse there during the delivery and they would take him right after he was born and suction out his nose and mouth a bunch to make sure he didn’t inhale anything or swallow anything. Woot.

Contractions got closer and closer together and soon it was 9:55 and time to push! The respiratory therapist and NICU nurse arrived and got their equipment ready. I was sure excited to meet this little boy of mine! I pushed really good, pushing 2 times with every contraction, which was happening every minute or more. Exhausting! But this did go better than the 2 hours of pushing I had to do for Nigel. This little dude made it around my pelvis really fast and at 10:05 the nurse said, “That went really fast! I need to call the doctor right away. Don’t push!” Great. So I had this little human head right in the birth canal and about to pop out putting a heck of a lot of pressure right on my rectum. And let me tell you, it was extremely uncomfortable. I didn’t feel pain thanks to my epidural, but the pressure was miserable. The doctor took a while getting up there. 10 freaking minutes of pressure. I was crying through contractions again because it was just so dang uncomfortable.

The doctor finally arrived at 10:15 and got all ready. I pushed four times in one contraction and the baby was out! The little angel was born at 10:19 am. Ross cut the cord and the little man was taken by the nurse and respiratory dude and suctioned a whole bunch. Poor baby was green! We called him Yoda for those first few minutes. So much poop in the womb that he was completely covered in it. Poor fellow! The placenta came out and it was stained green from all the meconium. Ew. My doctor said that it was really good that he came so early. When there is so much meconium in there it means that the baby was really stressed. Thank goodness he was out then!

The baby weighed 7 lbs and 6 oz. He was 19 inches long. A bit smaller than Nigel, but he sure was cute! Adorable little chubby cheeks already! He was beautiful! About 15 minutes after he was born, I got to hold my new little son. Ross and I had had a name all picked out, but it didn’t really seem fitting now that we saw him. I tried nursing the little man and he latched on right away. Another thing very much not like his brother. He was a perfect little man in the hospital and got to stay with me in my room the whole time.

It took us 9 hours to decide on a name. The name we chose is Alfred Carl Bateman. He is so perfect! He is 4months old now, and I love him so much! It is incredible to me how much I love both of my boys! They are so wonderful and I am so happy that I am a mom! Here are some pictures from the experience.