Ezra Connor's Birth Story

Fast.

If I could only use 1 word to describe his birth that would be it. At the time it did not feel fast but after he was born and we realized what time it was.... we were shocked! But I am glad it was fast because I was ready to be done and just wanted to meet my baby boy. 

This pregnancy was a lot harder on me, physically and mentally. Taking care of two toddlers on top of being pregnant is quite difficult. My back pain started in the first trimester and I felt more nauseous this time than with the others, although I never actually threw up. And I was exhausted. But when you have a 3yr old who doesn't nap and doesn't like to be left alone, well, naps get forgotten. The second trimester went smoothly and quickly. But as I got closer to the third trimester I started to struggle with worry. How were we going to handle 3 kids, where was he going to sleep, would I ever get time to myself or with Eli? And of course worry about labor.... They say women forget the pain of labor after a while but not this time for me. I was really not looking forward to that part of birth. And then to top it all off, I got a lovely varicose vein. Which was actually kinda painful. The solution to that is to wear compression hose, which are the worst. Imagine laying in bed, 7 or more months pregnant and trying to put hose on..... it was like a mini workout! 

By the time I hit 36 weeks I was done. I was ready to have this baby, but yet at the same time I was not ready for labor. All I could think about was how much it hurt. Not a good mind set to have at this point in pregnancy. 

Both Aiden and Lydia were early (3 days and 8 days) so we all (me, the midwives, friends) thought Ezra would be too. But as the due date got closer and closer, and nothing was happening, not even braxton hicks, I started getting depressed. Every morning I would get up expecting something to happen, and every morning I would tell myself it could be today. But after almost 2 weeks of expecting something to happened and nothing happening I was about ready to scream. I really did not want to be overdue, as I have stated several times I was done with being pregnant!

2 days before my due date Eli and I went in for my appointment. We had decided beforehand that we were going to see if they would strip my membranes to possibly get labor started. My midwife didn't seem too enthusiastic about it (probably because I wasn't overdue) but she was nice to enough to check me (2 1/2cm), stretch the cervix, and give me some homeopathic pills (black and blue cohosh) that could start contractions. I started taking them immediately and within about an hour I had some contractions. Walking is also a good way to start labor so we went on a little mini date after my appointment and walked around several different stores for about 2 hours. The contractions ended up only last until that evening and then they petered off. 

I woke up the next morning, Friday the 23rd, one day before my due date and started taking the homeopathic pills again. Once again contractions started but then petered out by lunchtime. Eli came home around 3pm to find me laying on the couch, having a little pity party for myself. He talked me into taking a little walk, which then turned into a long walk and a stop by a new restaurant for dinner. Getting out of the house and having adult conversation helped take my mind off my worry and stress. On the way home I decided that I would try using my pump to see if that would start some contractions. I had heard of it working before, but was pretty skeptical. At this point though I was ready to try anything. We got home around 7 and I immediately started using it. At 7:30pm the contractions hit. And when I say hit, I mean hard contractions and 5-7 minutes apart. None of this gradual, 20 minutes apart nonsense like my other pregnancies. I waited half an hour before calling my midwife, then took a bath to see if the contractions stopped or continued. Well, they continued. At this point we called my sister-in-law who was going to be watching the kids and told her that she should probably think about coming over. I was concerned that this was false labor, just because it started so quickly and I had used methods to get it start instead of just letting my body do it naturally. So we kinda down played the urgency of it. But a little after 9pm I realized my contractions were super close and we still had to drive 25 minutes to get to the birthing center. Ended up calling my mom to come stay with the kids until Rachel got there. We loaded up our bags and left around 9:30pm. We arrived at the birthing center at about 10pm and found out I was already dilated to a 7! I kept feeling the need to push, which turned out to be the pressure from the amniotic fluid surrounding baby. My water has never broken on it's own so this was a weird feeling, especially when it did pop! I honestly thought I had pushed the baby out in 1 push! Unfortunately that was not the case and I still had to push him out. It felt like forever but inreality it was only about 6 pushes before our sweet little boy made his entrance into the world. And that's when we realized it was only a couple minutes after 11pm! It had only been about 1 hour that I had been there, yet it felt way longer than that. We all started joking around about having the baby in the car next time... hopefully that will not happen.

Ezra weighed 6lbs, 7 ounces and was 19in long, the smallest one yet. But he made up for that with all of his dark hair! It's ridiculous how much he had, and still has. 

As I said before, it was fast, a little chaotic, but it's over now and our family has grown because of this sweet blessing!