Myles' Birth Story Part I

   As some of you may know Myles was due to make his entrance into this world on August 22nd, 2012. Most babies are not actually born on their due date of course; it's just an estimate. I was 100% sure that my little one was going to be late. I had guessed he was going to come around the 27th. He seemed perfectly content right where he was all snuggled up in my tummy and to be honest I really wasn't in any pain or discomfort besides being ridiculously heat-stroke-style hot. On top of that, I was only slightly dilated to 1 cm at my 38 week appointment. I mean I was happy to have even just that little bit of progress, but I was told that you can be at 1-2 cm for weeks before you go into active labor. At that appointment, we also discussed the possibility of induction. It was nice to hear that I wouldn't go past 41 weeks, however I was not in the least bit happy about the idea of induction. Everything about induction does not sit right with me, so I was hoping I would be able to avoid it. I also heard from many people that most first pregnancies go past the due date. I remember thinking it's kind of like a Catch 22: I was certainly WAY over being pregnant, but not being pregnant anymore means...well.. the baby is born and ready to be taken care of 24/7... ish just got real... But I was so ready to meet him; the anticipation that had built up over those past 30 something weeks was no longer manageable and I was as ready as I would ever be, aka I had absolutely no clue what being a mom was going to take.

     Operation Get This Baby Out of Me began on Saturday August 11th. Well actually it began in the evening of August 11th for I had a date that afternoon that I was not about to miss! She goes by the name of Julia B. Not only does she have the coolest name in the world, she happens to be one of the coolest people in the world. It had been almost a whole year since I had seen her last so I made sure that my little fetus knew he would have to stay put for a couple hours. I had to drive about an hour to see her but I wasn't really concerned because like I said earlier there was no indication that he was coming anytime soon. And really nothing short of my water breaking in the car was going to keep me from my Julia. 

     We met where she was visiting in a Chicago suburb and decided to have lunch and walk around their little downtown area. (Funny how I remember exactly what I ate.... Preggo much?!?) After lunch we walked around checking out all the little shops and may or may not have stopped for some ice cream (for me) and fudge (for her). I had such a great time I almost forgot I was 38 weeks pregnant... you know besides the hot flashes, swollen feet, and all around beached whale feeling.

    After my hot afternoon date, I met Mark at the Boone County Fair for a not-as-hot evening date ;) We spent 2 1/2 hours walking, eating, more walking, visiting with family, more walking, a Ferris Wheel ride, and more walking. The sign to the Ferris Wheel had a big RED line crossing out a pregnant lady, but you know me, I live on the wild side! I tried hiding my belly when it was our turn to get on.. yea right.. but he let us on anyway..  I'm not going to lie I was a little scared (and so was Mark..haha). It felt way higher than it looked from the ground... and the rocking... eehhh.. I definitely could have done without that. But no worries, it did not make me go into labor. So I would say it is probably safe to take the No Preggos sign off of the ride (lol). By the end of the night, I was very achy and tired, and my back was hurting very badly. Just when I thought I couldn't feel any worse.... Mark confesses that he has no idea where his car is parked (mine was further away so he was going to drive me to it). We walked around for a least 30 minutes while Mark pretended to know what was going on. When we finally found it, we quickly realized that we weren't going anywhere anytime soon. The car was suck in their sad excuse of a parking lot. After what felt like hours later, I somehow managed to get home and very quickly passed out. 

*This is where I feel it is necessary to put in a disclaimer. If you don't want to read about all the fun bodily fluids, functions, and pain of childbirth I suggest you back out now, because it's about to get real*

 
     I woke up on Sunday August 12th feeling pretty well recovered and my back wasn't hurting as bad. When I went to use the bathroom, I discovered some blood on the toilet paper. My first thought was mucus plug; so I called my mom and started up my Google searches. I came to the conclusion that I most likely was losing my mucus plug. I wasn't 100% sure though so I decided that if I didn't stop bleeding after 24 hours that I would call my doctor just in case. I got a little excited that maybe this was the start of going into labor. While researching, I did find out that even if I had lost my mucus plug, it could still be weeks until I went into active labor. So I tried playing it cool.. TRIED... 
   We carried on with the day as planned and met family out for lunch for my mother's birthday. While at lunch my mom's cousin said "Wouldn't it be cool if they (my baby and mother) shared the same birthday." It's funny because even though I had just lost my mucus plug, I still felt so far removed from the fact that I was going to give birth to my son very soon. I thought there is no way I'm having him before his due date, let alone today, on my mother's birthday! Of course that didn't happen as the rest of the day went by VERY uneventfully. Even though I continued to bleed on/off that whole day, I had no other signs of labor. I wasn't having any contractions or any other pains. 

My brother and I at lunch

   Monday August 13th I woke up feeling fine. I was still bleeding a little, but it was very random and faint. Around 3pm I decided I felt good enough to go run some errands and pick up a couple of baby items that I bought from people online. When I was driving around, I started to get some light cramping in the stomach and back. It would come about every 5-10 minutes and last 10-15 seconds, but it wasn't anything too painful. It continued this way for the next couple of hours. On my way back home, I had to stop to get some toilet paper. When I was walking up to the store, I got an EXTREMELY painful "contraction" on the left side of my back. It stopped me dead in my tracks. I had to wait until it passed to finish walking into the store. At that point, I probably should have just turned around and drove home, but of course we had absolutely NOOO toilet paper in the house. It happened two more times while finding the paper and getting in line. As I was hunched over holding my back wearing a look of complete terror, the lady behind me said "I think you're about to have a baby. Why are you at the store?" Trying not to sound like my uterus was being pulled out of my vagina I said, "Uhh I needed toilet paper!" 
   I made it home with the toilet paper and by this point, the contractions were coming more consistently and getting stronger. Mark came home and I made dinner, hunching over the counter every time a contraction came. I made a suggestion to watch a movie while we ate thinking that it would help keep my mind off of the contractions. So we picked "Machine Gun Preacher" (really good movie BTW) and I somehow managed to make it through the whole three hours (I'll never understand the reason for a movie to be anything over 2 hours long). Throughout the movie, I tried tracking my contractions with apps on my phone. I ended up just getting annoyed because they didn't work how I wanted them to, so eventually I just gave up. Pretty much they were coming about every 3-5 minutes and lasting about 15-20 seconds. If you're reading this and have never given birth, you might be thinking Really.. that doesn't sound so bad... Let me just tell you that the 3-5 minute break is the shortest 3-5 minutes you will ever experience in your life and the 15-20+ seconds of a contraction is the longest 15-20+ seconds you will ever experience in your life... AND it doesn't ever stop! 
  
   The movie was over around midnight and I decided to give going to bed a try..... futile effort on my behalf as I quickly realized I am only a human and have no business pretending I would be able to fall asleep with the contractions coming so fast and strong. I was only in bed for maybe 15 minutes when I could no longer take the pain. I yelled to Mark that I needed to go to the hospital now! He asked me if I thought we should bring all of our stuff. I was in no condition to think straight and honestly didn't care at that point, so I just grabbed my bag (that had a couple of things in it already packed) and Myles' diaper bag (previously packed as well) and RAN to the car. I tried to play it cool with Mark and act like I didn't know if this was really it; if I was really about to have this baby. Little did he know, in my mind, I knew that there was absolutely NO way I was going back home without having him. The next time we drove home we would have a baby with us. I was going to the hospital and I was going to have our baby!

Come back for part II: 

                                                                           The Actual Birth... the good stuff