Depending on how you
look at it, the birth of Shark Bait was either extremely long and
drawn out or beyond fast and furious.
His story begins
unofficially on Wednesday June 8th which was day one of my
5 days of pre-labour contractions. From Wednesday until Sunday, I
lived life in one block of seemingly pointless contractions after
another. Sunday morning's bout of contractions was by far the worst-
they started at 2:50am and continued to occur consistently, ranging
from 7-10 minutes apart, until 9:30am when they stopped completely
and without warning. My best friend KJ, who had flown in for the
birth, laid with me and timed them from 3:50 until about 5:30 when we
decided to call Bruce home from work as we were finally convinced
that the contractions might actually lead to a baby. Obviously we
were less than thrilled when they came to their sudden stop.
After some umming
and ahhing about whether I really wanted to go to church after being
up most of the night contracting, I decided that I could sit
miserably at church just as easily as at home, so I got myself
dressed and ready, complete with 5 inch stilettos and a face that
just dared people to cross me. Bruce, half joking but mostly serious,
warned everyone we came in contact with to “do not look at Claire
in the eye”. By this point, I had gone 5 nights with little to no
sleep and I was over it. But, I survived church without causing
anyone harm, and even managed to enjoy the messages shared during the
meeting. After Sacrament Meeting ended, KJ and I left to go home so I
could relax.
Around 4:45, just
before the rest of the family would be getting home, we got off the
couch and started to make dinner. That's when the contractions
started back up yet again. I worked through the contractions to
finish up dinner and eat with the family, then we got out Disney
Scene It for a little family game time. Throughout the game the
contractions intensified just enough that I was now bouncing on the
birthing ball to stay comfortable. KJ was timing them religiously and
we got to a point where they were anywhere from 5 to 10 minutes
apart. At this point, I decided that we should probably go ahead and
get to the hospital. I was worried because with Man Cub, my
contractions were never consistent or close together until just
minutes before he was born. I arrived at the hospital to have Man Cub
with contractions still ranging from 10-15 minutes apart and I was
dilated to a six. I had him less than 2.5 hours later. I felt that
with this baby, we should err on the side of caution and not wait too
long to go in. I may have joked about giving birth in the car, but I
really had no intention of that ever happening. We called my father
in law to come pick up Man Cub, loaded the girls and all our hospital
stuff into the car and headed out.
Despite nice,
consistent contractions the entire time we were playing Scene It, I
didn't have one contraction the entire drive to the hospital. I
started to doubt myself. We got to triage around 8:15 and when they
checked me at 8:45, I was dilated to a 3. Over the next 45 minutes I
had maybe 2 contractions, neither of which was anything to get
excited about and when they checked me again at 9:30, I hadn't
progressed one bit. I asked to be sent home as I had no intention of
hanging out in a hospital when I obviously wasn't in active labour. I
figured I was in for yet another night like the 4 previous…
contractions that would keep me from sleeping, but never become the
real deal.
My birth
photographer had met us at the hospital as she too remembered how
quickly things had moved when Man Cub was born. She told me to follow
her home and pick up a few essential oils that she had on hand that
are suppose to encourage labour. I insisted that we pick Man Cub up
from my father in law's house as Man Cub had recently gotten into the
habit of coming into our room in the middle of the night, searching
for me. I didn't want to miss out on a night of cuddling my baby
before he was promoted to big brother, so we got him then headed
home. It was about 11pm by the time we were back at our house and had
all the kiddos tucked into their beds. Bruce, KJ and I settled in on
the couch to watch a few episodes of Modern Family and wouldn't you
know it, those pesky contractions started up again. And they were
coming every 10 minutes. And they were stronger than ever before and
accompanied by some seriously awesome back labour.
I
texted my great friend Nicole, a baby nurse at the hospital I was
going to deliver at, and asked her how I was ever going to be able to
tell when to go back in. I felt like I'd made bad decision after bad
decision trying to figure out if I was actually in labour or not,
from calling Bruce home from work early Sunday morning to rushing to
the hospital Sunday night and then insisting on picking up my little
Man Cub from Grandpa's house when we headed home from triage. I told
Bruce and KJ that I was no longer willing to make decisions and that
if they thought I should go back to the hospital, I would go, but
that I was not going to be the one to make that call.
Bruce immediately
went into sergeant mode and took control. He and KJ timed my
contractions and rubbed my back with a massager while I swayed back
and forth while leaning on my birthing ball. At 12:30 my contractions
had definitely changed in intensity and were coming every 7-10
minutes. Around 1, KJ started saying she felt like we should go to
the hospital but Bruce said to wait through a few more contractions.
I tried to remain as calm as possible while thinking that the rate
this had been going for the past five days, I was never going to
actually have a baby. At 1:30 I had a super contraction- 2 minutes
long and extremely strong. Bruce decided we didn't have a moment to
lose and before I knew it, we had made arrangements to drop Man Cub
off at a friend's house rather than waiting for my father in law to
get up to our neck of the woods, KJ had thrown all our stuff and my
sleeping children into the car and by 1:43 we were on the road. Bruce
ran two red lights and at 1:50 we arrived at Barb and Blas's house to
deliver our sleepy and excited Man Cub to them. (He loves Blas and
was so excited to go to Blas's house, even if it was the middle of
the night)
We were in front of
Barb and Blas's house less than 2 minutes before we were on our way
to the hospital and my contractions were still coming strong and
hard. I was starting to feel pressure and the thought of pushing had
crossed my mind a time or two. I was panicking because I was so
scared my birth photographer was going to miss the whole thing…
somehow that, not the very real possibility of me giving birth in the
car, was my main concern. When we were just a few minutes away from
the hospital, KJ grabbed my phone and called Nicole who happened to
have gotten called into work around midnight. She warned Nicole that
we were about 3 minutes out and that I was feeling “pushy”.
We pulled into the
hospital around 2:05. It took me about five minutes to get into the
hospital as I had another huge contraction in the parking lot. I
leaned up against a light post and did my best to not push while
Sunshine ran to the ER entrance and grabbed a wheel chair. Bruce
rushed me inside the ER where we looked around unsure of what to do.
There was no one at the front desk and a room full of people waiting
to be seen, but we really did not have time to spare. Bruce ran into
a room where a hospital employee was taking someone's information and
insisted that she had to get us up to the labour and delivery unit as
I was contracting every minute and a half to two minutes. Bruce raced
my wheelchair through the halls while the ER employee followed as
quickly as she was able and got us upstairs.
We got to triage
where I immediately asked to use the restroom. While I was peeing,
Bruce told the triage nurse that if I was still at a 3 or 4, she
might as well run down the hall before shouting that back at me
because I might hurt her. He was obviously joking with her (there was
no way I could still be at a 3 or 4!) but I think that gave the
triage nurse the wrong idea. She seemed to be moving really slowly,
taking my information and trying to get me hooked up to monitors when
I had a nice, big contraction that got some attention. She quickly
checked me and announced that I was at a nine. Bruce texted KJ the
news at 2:21 and the nurse (Cheryl) ran my gurney to the delivery
room that Nicole had prepped for me when KJ called her just before 2.
At 2:23am, Beebs, Sunshine, KJ and my birth photographer Mary all ran
into the delivery room while the nurses helped me move from the
gurney to the delivery bed in between contractions. I felt an immense
amount of pressure, which I made sure everyone knew about, and Cheryl
called for a doctor, any doctor, to get in there stat. There wasn't
time to get my doctor or midwife to the hospital. There wasn't even
time to get an ER doc up there. Luckily, there happened to a random
doctor a few rooms over delivering one of his patients and he ran in
just as my water broke. Just in time to catch the head as I pushed
for the first time. One more push and our baby had arrived. The baby
was quickly laid on my tummy and I begged for Bruce to tell me if it
was a boy or a girl. He excitedly announced that we had another son…
our little Shark Bait had arrived..
Shark Bait was born
at 2:29am, about 15 minutes after we got to labour and delivery and
just 8 minutes after I was checked in triage. He took his sweet,
precious time getting to the active labour portion of arriving, but
once he decided it was time to come, things sped up in a big way!
My absolute favourite thing about Shark Bait's birth is that the delivery room was filled with love and support. Of course Bruce was there, and he was wonderful, as always. Both girls were also there to witness the baby's arrival with my very best friend KJ as their chaperone. My birth photographer Mary ran in just in time to snap 4 or 5 photos before he came out. She then documented his first hour or so of life. The stars and planets aligned and my best Arizona friend Nicole ended up being called in to work as a transition nurse that night, meaning she was Shark Bait's first nurse. She took great care of him and even involved my girls in measuring him, taking his foot prints and listening to his heartbeat, making the experience even more special for both of them.
And the bonus of Shark Bait's super fast arrival- despite being a VBAC which means I am suppose to be hooked up to all kinds of monitors and have a heplock, I was able to have the most natural, non-invasive birth of all my children. I didn't even need oxygen this time around. No IV, no monitoring, nothing. It was absolutely perfect.
If you'd like to view Shark Bait's complete birth video, send me an email to claireandcrewblog@gmail.com and I'd be happy to give you the password!
Shark Bait's Birth from
Officerswife33 on
Vimeo.
