Austin's Birth Story

These past few days have been such a whirlwind, what a blur it is becoming already. So I have to be sure to document this as soon as possible. I have shed tears of pain, joy, and laughter all in a matter of days, but would do it all over again without thinking about it for a second.

Jason and I went Friday night to my parents house in GR to spend the night. Jason was taking out the bamboo wood flooring in their kitchen and replacing it, as it had been damaged. He was able to get the whole kitchen torn up before bedtime. At about 2 am, I woke up and as usual, couldn't get back to sleep. I layed awake for about 2 hours before I really started noticing that I was having contractions. It wasn't until 4:30am that I decided to get out my phone and start timing them. Sure enough they were 5 minutes apart. It wasn't until 5:15am that I had the courage to wake Jason to tell him I thought we should drive back to Kalamazoo and go to the hospital. I wasn't incredibly confident that this wasn't false labor but I kept asking myself, if I was in Kalamazoo at home, would I go in? and the answer was Yes! So we woke up my Mom as my Dad was up north deer hunting, and told her what was going on. So we packed up and drive to Borgess.

We arrived at Borgess probably at 7am after dropping Lily off at home and grabbing the hospital bags. They put me in a triage room and hooked me up to the monitor. My 5-minute apart contractions were actually 2 to 3 minute apart contractions, so I must not have been feeling all of them. The problem was, that the pain was actually tolerable. *On a side note: I went to the doctor's on Thursday for my weekly check up and was 1 1/2 cm dialated and 50% effaced.* So the nurse checked me in triage room and told me I was still 1 1/2 cm dialated and maybe 75% effaced. So they decided to watch me for the next few hours. The problem was that the contractions weren't becoming more intense and after hours of contracting, I only dialated to 2 cm. The doctor wanted to give me morphine to sleep off the contractions but I denied. So once again, they decided to keep me for another few hours, so I called reinforcements, my mom. We sat in the hospital until 3pm when the nurse came back in and said that I had two options, either take the morphine or be sent home. So we went on our way with no baby at 3pm.

Back at home, I finally grabbed some pizza since I wasn't allowed to eat in the hospital, and sat around watching t.v. while still contracting. Jason decided it would be best if he went back to Grand Rapids to finish my parents flooring and do a few other projects, while we awaited to see if I was really in labor or not. My mom and I grabbed some movies and dinner, and just sat around, waiting. The pain was just not bad enough and the contractions weren't as consistent. Jason got home around midnight so we all decided to hit the hay. I believe I got some sleep, maybe an hour or two, but layed away, contracting, not knowing what to do. I just kept thinking, what if I have to deal with this for days or weeks? Austin wasn't due technically for 4 more weeks, what a nightmare this could turn into. I could just imagine myself talking to my patients and saying, hold on a second while I have a contraction, I am trying to labor a baby here!

I called a nurse at the hospital around 5:30am to see what she thought about these contractions but she knew that since I was able to breath and talk with her, that I wasn't in labor yet. So I went back upstairs to try and lay down some more. I think I did end up getting some more sleep before waking up and dreading that I would be doing this all over again. Around 9am the contractions starting picking up in intensity. I started an egg timer on my phone and my mom started writing down the time inbetween and how long the contractions were. She also kept asking me the intensity because we needed to make sure they were getting worse or we really couldn't go into the hospital. If it were up to me, I would have gone in around 10am because they were getting pretty bad, but my mom was saying that I couldn't go in until I couldn't walk, talk or I wanted to punch her in the face, so that didn't happen until 1pm when I was having tears during each contraction.

We packed everything up and got to the hospital. They put me right into a delivery room. At that point, I couldn't open my eyes and focus as my mom had wanted me to, to help with the contractions, all I could do was grip onto things and as I called it, "howl at the moon".  Thankfully I was dialated to 4cm at that point and could get an epidural. Unfortunately, the anesthesiologist, took an hour to get to the room. So my hopes for getting one right away kept getting pushed farther and farther away. When I did get the epidural finally, it was heaven and I went into euphoria. I was able to better concentrate on the excitement that Jason and I were soon to be parents, and Austin would be here that night!

 It didn't take long before my doctor came in and since I was 7cm dialated, he broke my water for me. Once he did that, the epidural decided not to work on the left side so we had to call the anesthesiologist back. He gave me an additional bolus to help and at about the same time, the doc came back and said I was fully dialated and ready to push! I was so excited that the time had finally arrived but I tried to just remain calm and start gearing up!

My mom and Jason were excellent coaches and helpers! At one point, the doc said something about how my mom had great advice and to do what she told me. Jason made a good jump back once that head just all of a sudden went Bloop! and popped right out. But after 45 minutes of pushing, out Austin came. He was immediately placed on my chest and then whisked away to the neonatologist and NICU nurse since Austin was technically only 36 weeks and 2 days. They didn't spend much time with him before the neonatologist came right over to me, telling me he was in great shape and didn't need any extras, not even oxygen.

As soon as they determined that, he was placed right back on my chest for an hour of skin to skin time. His head was right under my chin, so I never got to see what he looked like for what seemed like forever. He also didn't get his weight or height done till after that skin to skin so we were all so curious as to how much he weighed.

Austin Joseph Rogers born at 8:31 pm weighed 6 lbs and 8 oz with a length of 20 1/4 inches!!

How PERFECT! the NICU nurse came back saying that by their scale, he was 37 weeks of age, but he will still be considered a premie since that was his estimated due date by the first ultrasound.

The hospital stay is a blur but there's a moment I just have to share! So Jason was the first one to give him a bath, change his outfit, and put on his diaper. The morning before we left the hospital, Austin had his first poopy diaper. But since those are not so much fun, it was taking Jason a long time to get him situated. Austin decided to start peeing, while Jason jumped back rather than covering it with a diaper. So Jason jumps back and out comes this fountain of pee all over the little bassinet/crib he was in! I laughed so hard! I think next time Jason will learn his lesson and cover it up, rather than let it go all over, but I am certain that when that happens to me, I will probably do just the same!

Happy to be home :)