Noah's Story

Over a week later, here is the story of how Noah came into the world... (note - very long and some graphic details so be forewarned!)

After being postponed from a Friday night delivery because of a personal emergency my doctor had, we were thrilled when Saturday morning arrived and it was time to head to the hospital. We had followed through with our initial plans to have the kids spend the night with various people so that Scott and I could get a decent night's sleep and it worked - we were both very well rested, although I wasn't thrilled about going to the hospital without seeing the kids first. We called the hospital an hour ahead of time and they told us someone had just arrived in triage and there was another induction scheduled ahead of us and to please call back in an hour. We did, then we got the news that three more women were in active labor and had arrived since we last spoke with the charge nurse. We were told to call again in an hour. When it was nearing the end of the hour, I got a call on my cell phone from the charge nurse asking me if we would be willing to reschedule again to Sunday morning. I was devastated!! I tried to keep my wits about me and kindly explain to her that we had four other children and had already scrambled that morning to find people to watch them (after also doing the same thing for the initial Friday night plan) and I didn't think Sunday was a possibility. She told me she thought we might want to just have our Saturday back - HELLO, I was planning to have my baby today, not make an impromptu field trip to the beach or something! And part of the reason we decided to be induced was to make arrangements ahead of time for the kids!

I think she could tell how desperate I was so she told us to call back again at noon, or she would call us in the meantime if they cleared some rooms. That was probably the longest 120 minutes of my life! Mind you, I hadn't eaten anything since 4:00 Friday afternoon because I thought we were doing this Friday night! When we talked to her at noon, she said to come in at 1:00 PM - I was elated!! We only had to wait about 20 minutes for our room. We got settled and they hooked me up to the fetal monitor, and I got the dreaded IV. The pitocin was dripping by 1:50 and we heard from several different nurses that word on the street was I would deliver pretty quickly. We are a legend - ha!

The rest of the afternoon is kind of a blur - it was basically an occasional increase in pitocin with them checking me every so often and me not making progress as quickly as I remembered in the past. I got my epidural pretty early just in case - I wasn't ready for another Lillian episode (no epidural because she came too fast after they started the pitocin). When things get a little less fuzzy is in the evening when my epidural WORE OFF. I was pretty miserable but my doctor didn't want to top off the meds because he was concerned that it would affect my ability to push. At 7:45 I was 7 cm dilated and a little while later started feeling a small tinge of pressure so I told Scott to call the nurse. No kidding, before he got the words out of his mouth I started feeling really intense pressure and felt like the baby was literally coming out of me right then. The nurses and my doctor rushed in the room, I was 10 cm at 8:10 PM and it was go time! Unfortunately the room wasn't set up yet so everyone was scurrying around and all I remember is Scott telling me I couldn't push... good luck with that! I'm sure it was only a couple of minutes, but after what seemed like an eternity, it was time to push. Baby Noah came out rather quickly at 8:21 PM with no tearing or stitching and Scott got to announce to me that we had another baby boy!!! There is no experience in life quite like meeting your baby for the first time, but this time was especially emotional for me since I didn't think we were having any more kids. They laid him on my chest right away and actually left him there to cut the cord. In the past the doctor has always been holding them for that.

Scott brought the other kids back first by themselves so we could have some family time together, then Noah got to meet his grandparents, Uncle Austin, Uncle Mark, Madisyn and McKenzee. Such a sweet time, even at 9:30 PM with kids who had been in the waiting room for about 7 hours!

It was pretty quiet at the hospital. We did have several visitors and Uncle Austin made sure I was well-fed with some Chipotle and Krispy Kreme. My doctor offered to send me home on Sunday and I told him thanks but no thanks. :) Our pediatrician was actually on call in the hospital which is a first. Noah only got down to 7.10 in the hospital, down from his birth weight of 7.14. Scott was off all last week and basically cared for the older 4 by himself - he even took them all out to Sam's one day just to get everyone out of the house (they get stir crazy like their Momma). Not to mention all the times he took them outside to play in the blazing heat.

Last year we went on vacation to the beach for a week... this year's vacation wasn't quite as restful but I would make that trade anytime!