The birth of Garrison

The other day I was thinking about how I'm almost done with this pregnancy and how fast it seems to have gone. I remember being pregnant with Garrison and wishing he would come the beginning of December, which made for a very long month. Everyday I hoped it was the day he would arrive and then he ended up being a week late. God has a sense of humor. Anyway, I thought that I would share Garrison's birth with you as we wait for the story of our second one to arrive.

January 12, 2008...

It was a Saturday and Thomas had left early that morning, we're talking like 6 am, to go to a Men's Prayer breakfast at our church. I wasn't expecting to see him again until later that afternoon because he was planning on working all day Saturday so that he could take off Monday. Why did he need to take off Monday? Well Garrison's due date was January 6th and that day came and went with no action. I had a doctor's appointment scheduled for January 9th to get an ultrasound done to make sure that he was okay. During the ultrasound we found out that he was more then ready to come out. The lady doing to the ultrasound showed us that he was already loosing skin cells which you could see floating around on the screen. It was weird. When I saw my doctor after the ultrasound she had made an appointment for us to come in on Sunday, January 13 (my 26th birthday) to get set up to be induced the following morning. But God and Garrison had other plans...

I woke up Saturday morning at 7:30 with, what I thought was Braxton Hicks contractions because I'd been having them for over a month and wasn't expecting it to be anything else. I laid in bed and tried to fall back asleep, but by 8:00 I had noticed that there might be a pattern to the darn things. I got up and immediately started writing the time of each "pain" (since I didn't know that I was having actual contractions). After figuring out that I was having contractions about every 7 to 9 minutes I called my mom just to make sure. Thomas and I had taken all the birthing classes a few months prior and I was pretty confident that I was in labor, but I still wanted to call my mom. During my phone conversation with her I had to put the phone down so that I could concentrate on the contraction. When I got back on the phone she said, "Sarah you're in labor!" For some reason hearing that made me feel ok. I didn't want to be one of those ladies that doesn't know if she's in labor or not and ends up going to the hospital numerous times trying to figure it out. So I was glad that my mom, who had 4 children of her own, just told me, 'yes your instincts are right.'

By this time it was somewhere between 8:00 and 8:30 and I had yet to call Thomas, but couldn't. He was having a prayer breakfast and wouldn't be done until 9:00. So I went and took a shower and got ready for the day. Whatever "the day" was going to look like.

Shortly after 9:00 I called up Thomas and told him that at some point he needed to start heading home because I was in labor. Of course his reaction was I'll be right there, but I reassured him that he could run to the bank first and not rush coming home.

My sister, Joanna, lived with us at the time and helped me out with keeping track of contractions because they were starting to become more intense and I was having a hard time keeping track of the time. And at some point during all of this I called the hospital to ask if they wanted me to come in or continue to wait at home. They told me that as long as I could handle them I could stay at home where I was more comfortable. I had learned that during our birthing classes, but for some reason I needed that reassurance.

By 10:30 my contractions were coming about every 2 to 3 minutes so we thought it was best to head to the hospital. By about 11 I was in the hospital bed ready for whatever the day would send me. My wonderful nurse said that I was at a 4 and that she would be going to get the epidural man to relieve my pain. I remember looking at Thomas and both of us saying, "Already? Doesn't this process take hours and hours?" Guess not for us. It took the epidural guy a couple of hours to get to my room and before he showed up another nurse (not my original nurse) came in and broke my water. Let me tell you that next contraction was the worst pain I'd ever felt in my entire life. I remember squeezing Thomas hand so hard I thought I was going to break his fingers. I kept apologizing to him, but he didn't seem to care. Once my nurse came back in the room she was not happy to find out that they had already broke my water. She wanted to wait until I got the epidural before she was going to break it. When they broke my water they had also told us that Garrison had already had a bowel movement which meant that as soon as he came out they would need to run him over to the incubator and suction his nose and mouth before he took a deep breath and sucked all that icky stuff in. So he would not be placed on my stomach after birth, which I was ok with.

I'm not sure how long after my water was broke that the epidural man arrived. (I know I received the epidural sometime between 1 and 2 pm) He was a wonderful man, not because he was giving me the best drug around, but he was very calming and told me everything he was going to do and exactly what I was going to feel. After receiving the epidural I was in heaven. I started having contractions that were above the charts (which means they were super intense) and I couldn't feel a thing. Thomas was so amazed that I had gone from squeezing the crap out of his hand to laughing with him through contractions in a few short minutes.

After I received the epidural Thomas and I just talked about how crazy it was that we were having a baby and that we couldn't believe that it was happening so fast. We were expecting the day to drag on and on, but in reality it was flying and we weren't sure where the hours were going. It really felt like only minutes. It was weird.

At 3:30 my first nurses shift was over and she was so bummed that she was leaving when I was so close to delivering, but she said she would be back in the morning to see how things went. Oh, I forgot to mention that the nurses on the floor were having bets to see if I or another lady down the hall would deliver first. The other lady had arrived before me, but I was progressing faster. So all my nurses were banking on me delivery first, which I did, but that lady ended up having a
10 lb baby!

At 4 my second nurse came in, checked me and said we were ready to go. I couldn't believe that it was already time!! She was great! During pushes all three of us talked and watched the Packers football game. Yes, I had the football game on as I was having Garrison. I didn't care what was on tv just as long as it was on. One of my friends didn't have the tv on and she said that at one point she saw her reflection in the tv screen and didn't want to do that again. So I made sure that tv was on.

At 4:30 the nurse told me she was going to get the doctor and at 4:42 pm Garrison Brian Bush entered the world weighing 8 lbs 9.5 oz and was 20.2 inches long. (Everyone in the room couldn't believe that I had just delivered that big of a baby.) It was the greatest moment ever. When everything was said and done I ended up being in labor for 9 hours and only pushed for 42 minutes. Crazy!!

The first picture of Garrison