Here's the long version of the L and D story: Tuesday the 14th my family left to their various destinations after cleaning my house. Unfortunately, the second they walked out the door, the house exploded. I'm still not sure how it happened. We ignored this and decided to set up the crib with all the boy bedding to give Abby three weeks to get used to the fact that it was no longer her bed. We also sorted all the baby boy clothes into sizes and organized them into different Rubbermaid bins. So glad we got that far.
Wednesday the 15th I had a doctor's appt. She checked me and true to my nature, my little cervix friend was sealed tight. We asked the doctor whether or not she thought it was safe for me to go camping that coming weekend. She said as long as we weren't too far from a hospital she thought it would be fine. Fine. A camping we would go.
Friday the 17th we started packing and loading up for a quick trip to the mountains with the majority of Trevor's family. Sadly, our house still hadn't recovered from housing 17 people the past week, but we were sick of cleaning and thought that it could wait until we got home. So sad we didn't get that far. Gina and Cory were graciously letting us stay in their tent trailer since I was almost 8 1/2 months along. We were to meet Gina and help her set up camp until the working folk could join us. Long story short, the campground proved near impossible to find and after a two and half hour search on Gina's part along with an hour's search on our part, not to mention the one lane TRAIL we had to forge that was nothing more than an ATV path, we found it. This road was gnarly. I'm talking boulders, rocks, bumps, dirt and at least one of the shoulders on the edge of a cliff at all times. In the middle of our expedition, Preston said a little prayer that we would find the campground "quickly and fastly". Five minutes past and we were there.
We got to camp much later than expected and set to work on the trailer. That didn't go very smoothly since Cory wasn't with us, but Trevor and Gina prevailed and we were, at last, able to start on the tents. That we're pros at. We had a quick bite to eat, thanks to Gina and then Trevor dropped a bomb on me. He and Gina were going to go back down the mountain to get water, guide the working folk back up to us since it would be impossible to find in the dark and, in general, leave me.
Now this isn't that big of a deal, but I was tired and not exactly feeling like I wanted to be abandoned by my husband. I threw a mild tantrum (mild, I swear). I felt that as long as he got the generator started, so that I could have power and lights, I would be okay. It was about the time I was plugging in the generator, sitting on the ground that it all started. I thought I had wet my pants. I looked at Gina about to say something, but decided it was too embarrassing so I kept my mouth shut. Then, I stood up and started pulling the rip cord trying to start the generator. Gina kept telling me that I shouldn't be doing that, but I kept blowing her off saying that I was fine. Well, it opened the flood gates. I looked at her and said, "I think my water just broke". Then I took a couple of steps to make sure and, sure enough, with every step more water kept splashing down my legs. She yelled at Trevor and a hysterical panic ensued.
What were we going to do? Trevor obviously had to take me to the hospital, but someone needed to guide the working folk back up the mountain. We decided that Torri and her friend, who are both 14, could watch the 4 younger kids until Gina got back. We would leave them a phone and the 3 adults would head down the mountain. We quickly got everything unloaded out of our van, had a swift family prayer and got the kids settled in the trailer with instructions to lock themselves in and stay there.
But this story needed more drama, so on our way down the mountain, we got lost. Seriously. We ended up on the opposite side of the mountain to where we were originally supposed to be. I don't need to tell you that we were more than a little nervous that all our babies were up in the middle of nowhere mountain land and we had no way to get back to them. I said a prayer and ten minutes later we figured out where we were and were able to navigate ourselves back to where we were supposed to be. It took us over an hour to find the working folk and send them on their way back to our kiddos. That was the first huge source of comfort. Trevor and I continued down our way toward the hospital.
Saturday the 18th we pulled into the hospital at midnight, 3 hours after my water had broken. That was the second huge source of comfort. Shortly after arriving, we got a text saying that Gina and the working folk had made it back to camp and all was well. That was the third, fourth, fifth and sixth source of comfort to me.
After being seen by the doctor, it was decided that they would start me on pitocin. My body still doesn't understand when contractions are welcome to start on their own. The drip, drip of the I.V. started around 1:30am Saturday morning. Along with the saline and pitocin, I got a dose of antibiotics. My strep B test results hadn't come back from the lab yet. Better safe than sorry.
By 3:30am, I was begging for the epidural. Pitocin and I aren't friends. 3:45am brought the anesthesiologist and he brought my seventh source of comfort. Before he showed his lovely face, though, my sweet little babe started having trouble keeping his heart rate up. He kept dipping into the 80's and 90's and didn't want to bounce back after my hard core pitocin induced contractions. Trevor wasn't allowed to stay with me during the epidural (weird, I know) so I was alone. It would have been fine with the nurse there to hold me, but she was too busy giving me an amniotic flush because the baby really wasn't doing well by this time. So, I had to hold my own while lovely epidural man shoved a needle millimeters from my spinal cord during a pitocin induced contraction. I'm the woman.
My sweet baby still wasn't responding well to all the crazy pitocin induced contractions. I signed the consent forms for a Cesarean. All I wanted was for the doctor and nurses to leave the room so that Trevor could give me a blessing. They finally did and Trevor's blessing brought me my eighth source of comfort.
In a last ditch attempt to help out my sweet baby, they turned off my nemesis, pitocin, to give him a break. He liked that. A lot. The best news was that I was able to carry on with the contractions without that pesky little pitocin. 4:30am rolled around about then and Trevor and I took a nap. At 6:00am my nurse came in and asked if she could check on my progress. I was almost completely dilated. Good thing she woke me up. I started pushing at 6:35am.
My sweet baby likes the drama though, as we've all come to realize the past 8 months. He presented his little self face UP. It takes much longer to push a baby out that way. I doubled my longest pushing session with him.
But, at long last, he came. At 7:22am little Will was born. He was a teeny tiny perfect 6 pound 3.5 ounces (the nurses rounded up to 4). His eyes were open and staring right at me. This brought an endless sea of comfort.
