birth story

I can finally tell Josiah's birth story. For nine months I wondered what Josiah's birth would be like. Would it be similar to Garrison's or completely different? The birth is the one thing that makes me nervous during pregnancy. It's one of those things that you can't control no matter how hard you try.

It all started on Wednesday. I had a doctors appointment that day. (You'll remember that I was 3 centimeters dilated and my doctor thought that I would go into labor on my own. But we had scheduled an induction, just in case.)

After my appointment I had been having pains, but nothing that was consistent. I tried to get some sleep Wednesday night into Thursday morning, but it wasn't very easy. Somehow I managed to fall asleep for a little while. I woke-up at 4 am experiencing very consistent contractions. I began writing down the times and tried to fall back asleep, but it was pretty impossible to do.

I woke Thomas up around 6 am and told him that I was in labor and that we should probably start getting ready for the day. I went to take a shower while Thomas went and started getting Garrison ready for the day.

I called my sister at 6:30 and asked her if she could come over and spend the day with Garrison. Then we started packing. Yes, that's right. I hadn't packed yet. Luckily, I made lists of everything that I needed to bring so I wouldn't be scrambling trying to figure out if I got everything.

My sister, Joanna, showed up at 7:30 and Thomas and I headed to the hospital.

By 8:30 I was in my lovely gown and ready for Josiah to arrive. I met my nurse, who was the same nurse that helped deliver Garrison. That was such a relief for me because I was not a fan of the first nurse that came in. By this point I was having contractions about 5 minutes apart and I was at 4 centimeters.

Since I had group B strep my nurse needed to start me on antibiotics right away. I had to have the entire bag of antibiotics enptied before they could start the drip that you get normally during labor. And until I emptied half the bag of the drip I couldn't get an epidural. So until about 11 am I squeezed Thomas' hand as hard as I could during every contraction. The contractions were coming so close together and so intense that I was having a very hard time concentrating. All I could do was squeeze Thomas' hand and close my eyes.

At around 11 am the epidural lady came in and gave me the greatest drug ever. She also gave me the strongest dose of it and my legs became instantly heavy. To the point where I could hardly lift them. At the time of the epidural I was at 5 centimeters. The drug worked so well that I was able to take a small cat nap while Thomas made phone calls and looked stuff up on the internet.

At 12:15 my nurse and the resident came in and checked me. I was a 10!! It was so funny. Thomas and I were not ready for it to happen that fast so he was still on the internet. (I had gone from 5 centimeters to 10 in only an hour.) As soon as they said they were going to call the doctor Thomas started putting the computer away as fast as he could.

Mu nurse had told me that I probably wouldn't need to push that much with Josiah since with Garrison I only pushed for 42 minutes. While I got ready for the doctor to come my nurse told me that they were going to wait until the doctor came before I pushed at all because they were pretty sure that I would only be pushing a few times.

When the doctor came in and got all ready she told me to try and push on the next contraction. I was a little afraid because I couldn't feel anything and I was afraid that I wouldn't know if I was pushing or not. With the next contraction I pushed, feeling absolutely nothing. Everyone kept telling me that I was doing a good job, but I thought they were kidding because I didn't even know I was doing anything. Then we waited for the next contraction and on that one he came out. It was so fast!

When Garrison was born I wasn't able to have him put on my belly because he had pooped before he was delivered. Which meant that he would be have to go to the incubator and get his mouth and nose suctioned before he sucked up anything yucky. With Josiah he didn't poop so as soon as he was born they put him on my stomach. That was so weird. He was so slimy and the darkest purple ever. I didn't want to let him go because I felt like he was going to slip right onto the floor.

At 12:49 pm on September 24, 2009 we had our handsome little man, Josiah Thomas Bush. Here is the first picture of Josiah.