Ryker Gage Tieman
07.29.2013
2:02pm
7lbs 7oz
20in
Time for the birth story people, and yah it's probably gonna be a long one so if you'd rather skip all the reading, I posted a slide show of all the incredible photos my sister in law took for me to document the labor & delivery...they are at the bottom of this post :) I'll throw in a few of my very favorites along the way for those of you sticking around to read :)
A little background info first: since probably between my 28 and 30 week appointments I had been feeling a lot of contractions. By a lot I mean, way more than the 'call your doctor if you have more than 4 in an hour'...They didn't feel like braxton hicks contractions that i've had in the past, I did have some of those but these were mildly painful and they felt like contractions that you get in the very early stages of labor. My doctor mentioned that I may have an 'irritable uterus' this time around...irratating? yes! Well because of this I was getting cervical checks at nearly every appointment and more guidelines to take things easy at home. I always felt like I would be having this baby earlier than 40 weeks, but making it to full term was the goal :) at my 36 week appointment I was only dilated to 2cm, no change since the week before actually and my contractions were getting a little worse but nothing that quite warranted a call to the doc or any L&D trips. On Sunday night I did experience what felt like mildly painful menstrual cramps that would not go away! I couldn't even try to time them or count them like I normally would when I had a contraction. This went on for probably an hour and a half...after finally taking a shower they were gone, so I decided to hold off and call my doctor in the morning.
2:00 am: I wake up and think that I need to use the bathroom for the 12th time, but this time I noticed I was pretty wet. 'Oh crap, I just peed myself' was my first thought, when my water broke with Tenley it was a GUSH and I didn't feel any of this...I just woke up feeling wet and a little silly. I also didn't think that it would possibly be my water breaking because I hadn't even made it to 37 weeks yet. Still I made the trip to the bathroom and thought, I'll lay down for a while and then stand up...if anything comes out then I'll know my water broke. I didn't even wait to stand up because as I was laying back down I felt more start to trickle out, 'Oh crap, my water broke' was my next thought! I have to say I was slightly freaked out, 1: because i still had a while to be pregnant, and 2: because after my water broke with Tenley things progressed very quickly! I woke Jared up and immediately he called his Mom to come stay with the kids and finished putting the rest of my stuff in the hospital bag. Got in the car, called my mom, texted my sisters, and off we went! It takes about 40 minutes to get to the hospital from our house but I know we got there much much faster..Jared was speeding! Can't say I blame him considering how quickly I went last time around...luckily tho I guess things were just fine and we didn't need to hurry at all.
(meeting her little brother for the very first time...absolutely precious)
We got to the hospital and all registered/checked in, which wasn't too bad of an experience at all actually...I was worried since the last go around was awful! Our nurse was actually really nice and pretty funny. By now you'd think I would be having regular and stronger contractions but they were still very mild and sporadic. The nurse asked if I would be getting an Epidural and all of the sudden my months of planning an all natural labor/delivery were banging on the door! I told her I would not be getting any kind of medication and said one last little prayer in my head that I could do it...more background info: my previous experiences with getting an epidural have been bad, if not borderline terrible. Dont' get me wrong, the drugs work for me, but they work a little too well for me. I can't feel any body part below my chest, or any sensation in those areas at ALL! It makes for a difficult pushing phase since I can't feel whats going on, and I've hated the recovery process and not being able to use my body for a few hours. Both my previous labors slowed down after receiving the epidural and by slow down i mean pretty much stop...it sucks! So when I found out I was pregnant this time I decided the best way to test my theory of Epidurals making labor harder/longer for me was not to get any, easy enough right :)
Once in the birthing suite I was able to just relax and try to get a little shut eye...my contractions were still pretty inconsistent, and I was only measuring at 4cm dilated. It was a little weird actually, I'd have a contraction, then 10 mins another one, then 5 mins another, then 12 mins another...I think you get the point. It felt like not much was really happening. We got a new nurse at shift change, Gina, and she was a rockstar, I loved her! She asked Jared if he wanted to help deliver the baby and he was totally on board with the idea! My doctor also came by to check on me and kind of explained to Jared what he would be doing exactly, he is the best doctor in the world by the way :) So we talked about my thoughts on how I was progressing. Basically he said I could continue doing what I was doing and wait it out for a while, or if I wanted to I could get pitocin to speed the contractions up. Since I was going drug free I was honestly a little worried about getting pit so I just decided to see how things went on their own. Dr. Bryan left to go to the office and said he would come back about lunch time to see how I was doing again. By now I had also gotten a couple more visitors, my Mom showed up and then my sister in law Erin, who took the pictures. It was so nice and distracting to have more people there to chat with or just listen to talk. Erin was super funny and excited the whole time, so she was especially entertaining :)
(best daddy in the world)
Things started to progress a little more just before lunch. Contractions were worse but not terrible, and they were still a little sporadic, though not as random. The birthing ball basically made my contractions stop all together, so I just stood up most of the time. Well my support team got hungry so they left to go get some lunch, and I decided to walk around the halls with Jared. We walked for about a half hour and the contractions really picked up! I couldn't walk through them anymore and just braced myself on the handrails. Jared was such a great support through everything, he did a lot of back rubbing and counter pressure on my low back during each contraction. We went back to the room so I could pee and the nurse could check on the baby, all looked good so I decided to go walking a bit more. Again they got more painful and much more consistent. I probably only walked another 20 mins or so because I was getting so worn out from the contractions, I really want to sit down for a while. By now my Mom and Erin had gotten back and Jared got to eat some food. My doctor came back and now I was at 6cm. We chatted for a while, he gave Jared a hard time for eating in front of me, and then he decided he would be going back to the office, but just wanted me to make sure I called him as soon as things got worse so he could come back.
(a big brother again and SO very excited)
Well things got worse, a lot worse, really fast! The pain was getting pretty intense i'd have to say! The nurse could tell things were seriously progressing so she checked me and I was still at 6cm?! WHA?! I remember feeling so defeated emotionally, and physically. In my head i was screaming! I couldn't imagine going through all this much longer and I had no idea how long it would take me to finish progressing. The contractions were really close together and accompanied with a ton of pressure, my body would literally just shake during each one. Sometime during all of this the nurse had called Dr. Bryan and he showed up pretty quickly. He walked in the door, looked at Jared and asked why he wasn't geared up, lol. So Jared quickly put on his gown, hat, and face mask, all ready to catch the baby :) Things got crazy pretty fast, all the sudden they had the bed prepped and my feet up in stirrups so i could start pushing. I was a little confused since they had just said I was only 6cm, but honestly the pain was all I could wrap my head around. Then the Dr. said push, so I pushed, and holy mama that was crazy! It was a very different kind of pain than the contraction, but it was nice to push with the pressure instead of just breathing through it. I kept thinking to myself, 'holy crap, i am tearing, I know I am tearing!" I think I pushed twice and then they asked me to stop so they could unwrap the cord from the baby's neck, then another push and out came the baby! Jared pretty much guided the head and shoulders and put him on his fore arm then set the baby on me. I kept waiting for someone to tell me if it was a girl or boy but all Dr. Bryan said was 'well, what is it?'...lol, I couldn't really see, but Jared finally said 'It's a boy!"
I don't know if it was the relief of no more pain or just the emotion of having a sweet baby on my chest but I felt extremely emotional. I'm pretty sure I shed a few tears, it was such a perfect sweet moment holding that new little boy and him just staring up at me. I was in heaven, I was finally getting to meet this little mystery baby that occupied my belly for 9 months and I could have laid there with him forever!
It's amazing to me how wonderful my recovery has been, nope I didn't even tear :) I was up and walking around immediately and I felt so great! I didn't need pain meds afterwards, and the first time I went to the bathroom I came out and told Jared, "I can't believe I just had a baby, there's no way!" It has been such a blessing being able to move around and feel like myself again so quickly! especially with having 2 other kids at home! It was by far the most painful and one of the hardest things i've done, but it was so incredibly worth it and I would SO do it again!! I definitely could not have done it without the support of my amazing husband, or my mom really. They were both such great helpers!
Ryker has been such a great baby so far (i'm sure i'll do a separate post all about him later) We love having him and it feels so good to have our family 5!!! I feel so incredibly blessed!
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