labour never really is just as you plan it to be

wow. what a journey the delivery of my precious little boy was! i was expecting it to be difficult, i was expecting it to be emotional, i was expecting it to be exhausting; but having never been through it before, the unknown was petrifying. i never was nervous about labour. and i assumed that was because i never pictured myself delivering a baby naturally. i never feared that pain. i should have though!

i ended up labouring for a total of 44 hours before the baby finally graced us with his presence. it was an emotional rollercoaster and worth every ounce of pain, pressure, exhaustion. cameron was an absolute GEM in the delivery room.

i had a solid 24 hours of early labour with contractions coming every 5 minutes. not strong, but definitely good solid contractions. i went to the hospital wednesday night after contracting since 4am that morning, they checked me and i'd finally started to efface and was about 1cm dilated - sweeeet (or so i thought). we went home for the night and were told to come back to see my dr. at 7:45am and he'd do another assessment then to see how the night progressed. i was supposed to be induced the next day anyways, so it wasn't an issue at all.

walking the baby out!

woke up at 1:45am in the middle of the night with a REAL contraction. i was screaming in my sleep. barely knew what hit me. when people tell you that you will just know when you are in labour...they are 100% right!! my contractions were hard, long, and steady at about 7 minutes apart. we went to our 7:45am appointment at the hospital and they said i'd effaced a bit more and was niow 1-2 cm. at least enough that my dr. could get in and do a quick sweep.i thought it was no big deal. they said to go home, labour at home for a while and come back at 1pm or sooner should i need anything for pain.

my contractions totally picked up in intensity and i decided at about 12:15 that i wanted to go back and just labour there...just in case things got worse and i needed something for pain. the car ride was awful as i had 4 contractions in the car (thanks to hitting EVERY red light!!). they admitted me right away and i laboured at the hospital for another hour or so before asking for my options for pain medication.

i used laughing gas for a while and was in the shower for a good 5 hours with 2 nurses and cameron all doing things to keep me comfortable. it was going really well until baby flipped posterior and my pain was absolutely incredible!!!! by 6pm i asked for an epidural because i couldn't tolerate it anymore. my dr. came and broke my waters shortly after i asked, but the epidural didn't show up until an hour and a half later!!!!!

it was brutal, totally brutal. i was screaming in pain, absolutely hysterical. got the epirdural finally and laboured for another 5 hours. the epidural was really patchy so i still had a ton of pain they kept having to top it up because even with the epidural i was forced to use laughing gas and was in total agony when contractions hit.

FINALLY i hit 10cm and was ready to push. we got things all sorted out (baby was still fiarly high), gave a good 6 pushes and baby's heartrate dropped with every one. if it only dropped al ittle it wouldn't have been a huge deal, but it dropped 60 beats per minute, so clearly major distress.

we decided then to go with a c-section and just get him out safe and healthy. ahhhh, what a long road!!! even the c-section was tough. as they were pulling him out, they had his head...he managed to squirm back and was laying lengthwise across my belly!!! what a nightmare.

long story short, he's here and he's healthy. we're finally went home after 4 long days in the hospital.

we named him kingston cohen martyn. he was born on june 18, 2010 at 1:32am weighing a healthy 7 lb 14 oz and was absolutely perfect!

our first family photo. love at first sight.