Bridger's Birth Story

***I apologize for the length of this post. Skim the written part if you don't want to know the details or if you just want to see pictures. Also, thank you Dad for taking these wonderful pictures. They are wonderful & I am so thankful we have them. Bridger will be one day too, or maybe just his future wife :)***

Bridger's birth story began just after 2 am on his due date. I woke up to another annoying need to run to the bathroom in the middle of the night. I realized within seconds that this was not the average bathroom trip which got me out of bed very quickly because I did not want to have to buy a new mattress. I quickly ran waddled to the bathroom with my knees together, hopping over the dog who was sleeping in the middle of the hallway, and making it to the bathroom before the gush. 

After this, attempts to go back to bed were futile. I had prepped Tate that we were NOT rushing to the hospital unless I was actually having regular contractions, and that he was not allowed to freak out if I woke him up in the middle of the night. He did great staying calm, so much so that he was able to go right back to sleep. Following a shower, sleeping was still not possible to I stayed up doing laundry and dishes working on getting my contractions going. I texted my Dad around 4 am (because he is generally up at this ridiculous time of the day) to let them know that I was in labor.  We also needed them to come up to help us out because we had a house inspection scheduled for 9 am that we were not sure Tate would be able to make it to. Around 6 I finally called the hospital to check to see when to come in. Due to needing a few rounds of antibiotics before delivery, they asked me to come in even though contractions were not strong yet & not very consistent.

Last bump picture before leaving for the hospital. Exactly 40 weeks & very happy to be done with the bump!

After eating breakfast and waking the family, Tate & I drove 20 minutes up to drop F at school, and 30 minutes back downtown fighting traffic & construction to get to the hospital that is less than 2 miles from our house. We also stopped to get Tate breakfast & I may or may not have had a second breakfast of a sausage biscuit. Note to all pregnant Moms out there- McDonalds before giving birth is NOT a good idea. I tasted sausage biscuit again & again through the entire labor & it was not yummy. It will be a while before I have one of those again!

We arrived at the hospital around 8:15 and started the check in process. I am pretty sure they did not believe me that my water broke because of how calm we were & what good spirits I was in. My parents arrived at 8:45 and my Mom switched with Tate to hang out with me while Tate & my Dad ran to the house we were under contract on for its scheduled inspection. 

The check in process at the hospital is long and they really don't believe you when you come waddling in calmly saying your water broke. After they reassured me that my water did in fact break (duh!) we got settled into a room for the duration. Early labor was very easy and I was able to finish my last few notes that I needed to get done before being done working (nothing like procrastinating until the last minute). Tate arrived back to the hospital about 11:30 and we started walking to get the labor moving. After 2 walks I moved quickly into the transition stage and was flat on the bed trying to "relax" through contractions. 

Side note- the concept of relaxing made sense to me. Don't fight your giant muscle that is trying to push the giant child out. BUT the actual relaxing in the moment is nearly impossible. It is more of a keep breathing and  try not to fight it too much! 

I will include my Mom's 2 favorite things that I said during labor for a complete picture.

#1- Tate asked for permission to eat his lunch in the room that was brought in for him. I said yes, then as soon as the smell of beef & peppers wafted to my side of the room demanded that he leave. NOW!

#2- Tate was being a wonderful husband and rubbing my back during contractions. He was getting tired and had rested his head on my hip while rubbing my back. Unfortunately for him my hand was on my hip and he was breathing directly on it & I was already super hot. Mom had a very hard time not laughing out loud when I said "Stop breathing on me!"

If it is not apparent already, I went into the labor/delivery process attempting to go all natural. We did not take any birthing classes (shame, shame) and instead read the Bradley Method book and decided to wing it from there. All was well until about 12:30 or 1 when I was fully into the transition stage and starting to doubt myself. I only asked for the epidural 2 times and Tate & Mom did a good job of refusing & staying strong for me. Tate later said he would have given in the 2nd time I asked so it is a good thing my Mom was there to tell me to put on my big girl pants!

I also tried to finagle my way into an epidural for medical reasons. Just before the picture above they had come in concerned because they lost baby's heart beat. His monitor moved, then when they did get him back on the monitor his heart rate was very low and staying low. He was descending very quickly and neither of us were handling it well. There was a flurry of activity to get his heart rate up including an internal monitor to get a better read, hooking back up to the IV, the face mask for oxygen, and a shot to increase my heart rate & in turn his. In the middle of this flurry they mentioned emergency c-section if baby did not respond and the heart rate did not come back up. I saw this as my opening and asked if maybe I had the epidural now it would avoid the necessity of an emergency c-section and would just be a regular c-section so that I could be awake. The doctor told me no this time, shooting down my idea saying it wouldn't be fast enough. Thankfully his heart rate came back up as I was able to relax and I made it to the end of the transition stage without an epidural. 

Life got much better once I was given the go ahead to start pushing around 2:15. I was actually able to cheese for a picture again which is a very telling sign. 

Sorry, one pushing picture. I have to say that rowing in college prepared me pretty well for the pushing phase. It was like 45 minutes of Power 10's in sets of 3 to get me through the end :)

At 3:06 PM on July 20th, 2012 Bridger Alan Williams came into this world with a big healthy cry. The name Bridger came from a baby name book and means bridge builder, connector, or reconciler. His middle name, Alan, is both of his grandpas' middle names and means handsome, precious or rock. Our prayer for him is that he will be a great reconciler and connector of God's people and stand firm on His promises. We also think he is a pretty handsome boy :)

Tate cutting the cord, one of his very important jobs

Proud Papa                                 Grandma's favorite grandbaby :)

Big healthy boy!

With giant feet!

Grandpa holding his grandson for the first time

Welcome to the world Bridger Alan Williams!