Though Denver was born on Monday, his birth story really begins on Thursday the week before. Thursday afternoon, I went in for my normal 39 week check up at my OBGYN, however, I was told she was stuck at a delivery and there was another doctor for me to see. This was the first time I had ever been seen by anyone other than my normal doctor and it was not a pleasant experience. This doctor promptly informed me that my doctor should have already made me schedule a c-section because my baby's head wasn't engaged and as a first time mom, if it hadn't happened by then, it simply wasn't going to...
Needless to say, I was absolutely devastated to hear this as I had been hoping and planning for an all-natural birth. I made the decision to make another appointment with my usual doctor for the following morning to get her opinion. Prior to this, we had never even discussed a c-section as I was having a very normal and healthy pregnancy and my doctor had no reason to think a c-section would be necessary unless in an emergency situation.
Thursday night I got about 3 hours of sleep because I was so upset about the possibility of a c-section and had so much anxiety over the appointment I had that afternoon.
Friday morning came and I had a wonderful appointment with my OBGYN where she apologized for the previous doctor's comments and reassured me that even though the baby wasn't engaged, scheduling a c-section was not something we were ready to do. We decided to move forward with a membrane sweep to see if that would get things going and encourage the baby to start moving down and preparing for birth.
Friday night, Dakota and I took a long walk up to a little Italian restaurant and enjoyed what would end up being our last date night before becoming a family of three! On our way home, I started having some irregular contractions that gave us hope that Denver would be making an appearance sometime soon. Little did we know, this was only the start of what would be considered very long and very exhausting prodromal labor. AKA when you have consistent contractions but you are not considered to be in "active labor."
My contractions continued to get stronger and more frequent throughout the night, resulting in another night of only 3 hours of sleep. Come Saturday morning, the contractions were still there but they were slowing down and becoming less intense so we spent all day trying to rest and just waiting for the "real deal" to begin.
At this point, I was physically exhausted from having barely slept in the past 48 hours and mentally exhausted from realizing this could go on for DAYS with no real progression. By Saturday night, I was trying to get some sort rest but the contractions were becoming too much to get through while laying down so I ended up waking up every 5-7 minutes to walk through my contraction and then trying to sleep in between them.
Sunday morning, I was so mentally distraught that I was STILL having contractions (that were not going away) but baby time seemed SO far away. We decided to head into labor and delivery to see where I was and to make sure everything still looked good with Denver. The nurse informed us I was only dilated to 3cm and had us walk the hospital for 2 hours to see if that would help things progress. Unfortunately, it didn't and we were told we could stay and start pitocin or go home and wait it out.
Still hoping for a natural birth, we decided to leave the hospital. I didn't want to go home and spend another day just waiting for labor to kick in so instead, Dakota and I headed to the mall to walk around some more and see a movie. We even got pedicures in hopes of kick starting labor ;). During the movie, my contractions had picked up again and I would have to stand up and breathe through them every 3-5 minutes. About 45 minutes into the movie, I decided I wanted to go home, check on the dogs, and head back to the hospital. At this point, I was ready to consider starting pitocin rather than go through another sleepless night with no baby in sight.
We arrived at the hospital around 4:30pm on Sunday and immediately got settled into our room. The nurse informed us that I was now dilated to 5cm so we were excited that some progress had been made! Within an hour or so, the contractions really picked up and become much harder than they had previously been. I continued to labor through them with Dakota's help and finally asked to be checked again around 11pm. Unfortunately, I was still at 5cm. This was absolutely devastating because it meant that we still had quite a ways to go before Denver was being born, the contractions were already painful and becoming very hard to get through, and I was about to have another night of little to no sleep.
After a little meltdown ensued, Dakota and I decided it would be best for me to get an epidural so I could get some rest that night and to start pitocin in the morning if I still wasn't progressing. This was such a difficult decision for me because I truly wanted to have our baby without any drugs. I really had to swallow my pride, let go of feeling like a failure, and be okay with our birth taking a different route. Once the epidural kicked in, I immediately knew I made the right decision and I was able to sleep and rest through the entire night.
At 7am on Monday morning, I was still at 5cm so we decided to begin pitocin. Within 4 hours, I was dilated to 10cm and ready to begin pushing. I had hoped and prayed I would be one of those women that could push for only 10 minutes and the baby would just pop out... However, I am not one of those women. I ended up pushing for two and a half hours and at 2:56pm our beautiful 8lb 10oz, 21 inches long baby boy was born.
I honestly couldn't have done it without my incredible husband. There were many times that I was screaming that I couldn't do it and I was too tired to keep pushing but he encouraged me and assured me that I could and I was doing it. Delivery was by far the absolute hardest thing I have ever done in my entire life but seeing that sweet baby boy made it so worth it.
We want to thank every single person who has reached out to congratulate us! It means to much to us and your kind words touch our hearts.
Now onto the baby spam!
Denver, we couldn't love you more!
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