Ryan’s Birth Story

Our little mister Ryan decided to come early!

Honestly, even though Carter and Olive decided to come early, the further along I got in the pregnancy with Ryan- at least after around 32 weeks, the more I felt like he was going to stay in until his due date. Part of that might be the fact that it felt like the pregnancy was never ending. At the same time though, I was afraid I would go into labor early… don’t know how any of this makes sense!

Needless to say, me going into labor when I did 4 weeks early, was a surprise!

The day after thanksgiving, Hans had decided to take work off, and we ran errands and got our first real Christmas tree! We went to see the hunger games, my back had been hurting a lot in the last few weeks, so i was uncomfortable sitting in the theater. I decided to get up and go to the bathroom, and I was sure I had lost my mucus plug…. it was similar to what I remember happening before my water broke with the twins, I was just more aware of what it was this time! So I called my doctor, and told her. I was unsure of whether it was something I needed to call about, but I thought it was a bit early, so I called. She said not to worry, and to call if my water broke or I started having contractions.

I felt completely normal the rest of the day! We got our Christmas tree and ran our errands, and went to bed like normal that night. I was nervous about going into labor, so the next day I spent cleaning  and getting our Christmas decorations together. Hans was not happy with all the ordering around I was doing :)

All throughout that day I thought I might be leaking amniotic fluid, so finally at 10:30 PM I called the doctor and she told me to go to Labor and Delivery. After I hung up the  phone, I had a panic attack! I was freaking out! I started throwing up…… and then my water broke :) HAHA. Luckily I was already in the bathroom :)

It seems like most people have some kind of contractions to signal that labor is starting. But apparently, not me! My water breaks first :)

So, I sat in the bathroom while my water kept coming out and I was still heaving and freaking out!  Hans tried to calm me, he looked me in the eyes and said “this is a happy thing, we have been waiting for this, this is good” then he left the bathroom and proceeded to freak out when I couldn’t see him :) He was frantically running around trying to pack for the hospital! But me being the planner that I am, I had already almost fully packed a hospital bag. I had made a list of the things we would need to gather last minute and put them on top of my packed bag :) So I told Hans to consult the list and all was well! Well, the car seat wasn’t installed yet, but we did that later :)

So we got in the car with a bunch of things we probably didn’t really need, and headed to the hospital! I called my mom, and then I called my best friend Sarah, and stayed on the phone with her for the whole ride to the hospital, to keep me calm :) I had only a few contractions in the car on the way there, but they were very manageable.

Once we got the the hospital, we checked in, and the nurse checked to see if my water really did break, and she checked my cervix. I was already at 3 1/2 cm! So I said, get me an IV and call the anesthesiologist, I want an epidural ASAP :)

The nurse took us to our room, and got me all set up, my contractions were getting progressively worse. I was able to get an epidural fairly quickly, but it only seemed to be working on my left side. so the tilted me to my right, and I kept pushing the button for more medicine, but I didn’t have much luck :(  I was up the whole night with the contractions, they were dulled by the epidural, but still there! after a while in the early morning hours, my contractions were a little irregular, so the put me on pitocin. That regulated them pretty quick, and they took me off of it shortly after!

By 8 cm the epidural had worn off A LOT and I felt like I could fully feel the contractions. The anesthesiologist eventually came back in and gave me an extra dose of medicine for the end. which helped a little but I could still feel the contractions. The next thing I knew I was at 10 cm and they told me that when I started pushing it would help with the pain. Strangely enough, it did! Who knew?!

Hans held one of my legs and I started pushing! I didn’t think he would want to watch, but he did! he kept telling me he could see his head and to keep pushing. After 15 min or so of pushing I asked for the mirror, out of curiosity :) once I could see with the mirror, I knew he was right there and 4 pushes later, he was out! after only 20 min of pushing! I only tore a little bit :)

He came out, and gave a cry, and we both had tears in our eyes . 6lbs 8.8 oz   18 inches!  He was born at 7:16 AM on December 1st. Hans cut his cord and they brought him to his basinet to be looked over. Hans took pictures and videos of him and then they brought him over to me to hold. It was all so surreal.  Hard to believe he was finally here!

He wasn’t really crying very much, just whimpering and grunting a lot, so they wanted to check him out in the NICU for a while. They left with him soon after and Hans went with him. The next thing I knew I was in the room alone. The nurse came in and asked me to pump so they could give him some breast milk (colostrum)  in the NICU. It all happened so fast it was hard to know exactly what was going on, but all I wanted to know was when I would get my baby back!

They monitored him for an hour and decided he was fine, and he was able to come with Hans and I to our recovery room. Both Hans and I were exhausted! We got a little nap in, before a photographer came in to take pictures of Ryan.

By the end of our second day in the hospital,  Ryan had high levels of billirubin, and had to be in a basinet with lights for jaundice, which meant we couldn’t hold him much, but he was still able to be in the room with us which was good! we weren’t able to get a bili blanket to take home with us, but the pediatrician wanted to give us one night at home to see how he did.  So we were able to take him home from the hospital with us! I was so glad they let us take him home that first night, because I don’t know if I could’ve handled going home from the hospital without a baby again.

We brought him back in the morning to get his levels tested again, and they were still high so he had to be admitted to the hospital again :(  he was admitted on Wednesday morning and was able to come home Friday afternoon. It was hard having him in the NICU, I didn’t like being away from my baby and going back and forth from hospital to home was annoying. but we made it through!

We have been so happy to have him home with us! He is such a good baby (so far). He doesn’t cry much. a little when he is really hungry, and when he is getting his diaper changed. He breastfeeds like a champ! I have a good milk supply, and he just does great nursing- he knew what to do right from the beginning (which is a blessing considering he was so early!).

We love him so much, and can’t imagine life without him now! We feel blessed that things went as well as they did :)

I will add pictures later in another post, I’m just glad I got all of this written down finally!