This little man decided to enter the world 9 days after his due date. I think he would have stayed a lot longer had I not been induced.
I had an ultrasound and doctor appointment the Friday before his birth to check to make sure he had enough amniotic fluid. We found out that Cade had way more fluid than he was supposed to, but the doctor wasn't concerned at all. My doctor and I talked about being induced if I didn't go into labor over the weekend. I was still sitting at 2 cm and 50% effaced. My doctor wanted me to come in on Wednesday, October 3, but I was really hoping for Monday. So she called down to the birthing center to see what worked for them. They ended up being booked for Tuesday and Wednesday so the birthing center set up a time for me to come in on Monday morning at 5:30 am.
The weekend came and went with no baby. So Sunday night we dropped off Garrison and Josiah with some people from our church and heading home to prepare to wake up at 4 am to get ready for our newest addition.
Monday morning Thomas and I left at 5 am. It was such a weird feeling to be heading to the hospital knowing we were going to have a baby, but not being in labor. I felt guilty that I was sort of choosing when my baby was going to be born. I felt like I should have waited and let him come on his own. Ultimately, I knew that God was in control even with an induction.
We got up to the birthing center and got all settled in to our nice big luxury suite with a private bathroom. THANK YOU! After asking me a million questions I was finally hooked up to all the machines. I needed to have some fluid into my system before they could start the pitocin.
I was actually really scared to get the pitocin. Many people had told me not to be induced and my mom (who had visited the weekend before I went in to have Cade) told me about her experience with pitocin. She said it was extremely painful as soon as it started and the contractions were one on top the other with no breaks in between. I did not want that experience at all.
At about 6:30 am they started the pitocin and I felt no contractions for the first 2 1/2 hours. My nurse was wonderful. She told me how they start the pitocin out light and gradually up the dosage as my body needed. She came into my room and adjusted the dosage 4 times before I started to feeling anything. I also needed to lay on my left side the whole time because Cade was not reacting good to any other position. My nurse tried having me lay on my back and right side, but each time I did Cade would stop progressing.
At 9 o'clock my doctor came in and broke my water. I was really hoping (as well as Thomas and my nurse) that I would get an epidural before they broke my water, but my doctor wanted to get things rolling. I was 4 cm when she broke my water.
Then my contractions really started picking up, but the nice thing was I was able to stay ahead of them and concentrate when the contraction came. I just held Thomas' hand and focused.
At 10:45 the epidural man came in with the wonderful drug. As he was giving me the instructions on what he was going to do he says, "You know they tell me you're in labor, but I can't tell with how wonderful you're doing." It's so nice to hear that you're doing good from people who see this everyday. I had quite a few contractions during the procedure of getting the epidural and since you can't move at all all I could do was squeeze my fingers. Thomas said he looked down at me (he was standing in front of me holding my shoulders because I had to lean so far forward they didn't want me falling over) and noticed that my fingers were white from squeezing them so hard.
At 11:45 the resident came in and checked me. I was at a 7. At 12:10 my doctor came in and checked me and said, "you're ready." My nurse got everything ready and then told me to push a few times as he was still a little high up. I pushed once and then started to push again when she told me to stop because he was out a little.
My doctor, the resident and all the nurses came in and with one push, a huge breath and another push Cade Ryan was born at 12:36 pm weighing in at 8 lbs. 15.6 oz and 21.2 inches long. My doctor was really glad that she was finally able to deliver one of our babies. She wasn't on call when Garrison was born. With Josiah she missed his birth by 20 minutes as she was at a different clinic and was trying to come as fast as she could. My doctor actually had a family photo session to go to at 1, but stuck around to deliver Cade.
While the doctor was cleaning up Cade she mentioned how heavy he felt and she guessed he was 9 lbs. When he finally got on the scale and was only .4 oz away from 9 lbs. she said we should tell everyone he was 9 lbs because he was so close anyway. :)
Garrison and Josiah LOVE their little brother. Garrison is always hugging and kissing him and telling us how much he loves Cade. We are so blessed to have 3 little boys. I told Thomas the other day that I could totally have another one... maybe it'll be a girl. That would end our family nicely. But for now we are LOVING Cade and our wonderful family of 5.
