And you get a baby and you get a baby and you get a baby!
BIRTH IS NOT EASY! So obviously again I have had four kids. And still to this day trips me out that I have carried four kids and that they are actually mine ALL mine! I know that I am very blessed and have had the chance to carry full term for all my pregnancies and have had all healthy babies. I have also given birth in each womanly way possible. Zoey was a natural birth (pushed her out), Charleigh and Quinn I had a csection, and Yasi was a VBAC (vaginal birth after cesarean). Ask me a question any question about birth I can probably answer it! Any way you get your child out and healthy into this world is an amazing thing there is no “wrong” way to have your child, it is whatever YOU feel comfortable with. I am going to talk about what I FEEL the best was for me and in no way is it shaming anyone on how they have had their own child(ren). Because again it is what works BEST FOR YOU!
To date after all four births, Zoey was by far the easiest! Zoey’s birth date was March 8th I did not have her until March 14th. I was induced on the night of March 13th and she arrived the next day at 4:44pm! I told myself I was gonna try to go to 5cm dilated before or if I got an epidural, yeahhhh I think I got to 4cm before I asked for the drugs! And they give you a great little button to push and I pushed that thing as much as I could. I drank sprite, ate popsicles, and watched Law&Order SVU the whole time (Zo was born to Law&Order SVU just with the volume down). I have NEVER for any of my pregnancies had my water break by itself something I wish I got to experience. But let me tell you something one of the most painful things for me is having the doctors break your water! THAT SHIT HURTS. More then getting a needle in your back for an epidural, I will take that any day. When it was time to push the nurses said to me ok we are gonna start pushing now and it will probably take an hour or so before she comes out. I said noooo I was not gonna be pushing for an hour and I pushed Zoey out in 20 minutes, it was so quick that my doctor had to throw his scrubs on and they told me to STOP pushing so he could get scrubs on and be able to take Zo out. And they laid her on my chest and I was in love! I say she was my easiest because farther down you will read about my birth experience with Yasi and see the difference between the two.
The twins!! They were a complete surprise me and Q had already discussed about not finding out the sex of the baby whelp we were not counting on there being twins. We have no twins on either side of our families, some people go into an appointment fully expecting there is a chance they could be pregnant with twins I did not. Q was not even with me because yes it was the first sonogram but I did not think it was that big of a deal. I mean I could see what was happening on the screen but was still like nope nope nope that other blob is gonna go away. And when my doctor said it is twins my first reaction was to laugh. I told Q he did not even believe me and thought I was joking, and I sent him a sonogram and he didn’t even know what he was looking at (lol). So with twins there is always Twin A and Twin B. Twin A was Charleigh and Twin B was Quinn. Also with twins full term (normally 40 weeks) is 36/37 weeks, and I had to see my normal doctor plus a specialist and you have doctor appointments OUT THE ASS. The specialist is making sure the twins were growing properly and the umbilical cord wasn’t twist and still supplying both of them with food. I mean pretty much every week I was seeing one doctor or another, and it always happens to me but my iron gets really low (my children are vampires) which means I had to go get weekly iron IVs. (This was while I was working 2 jobs, going to college, and had a 2 almost 3 year old). There probably was a chance I could have pushed the twins out but my biggest fear was pushing one twin out and then having to go get a csection for the other twin, I had plenty of people tell me that was the most exhausting thing on your body. Twin A was low in my belly and if that does not describe Charleigh’s personality now just consistent and did not move and was content. Twin B each time we went to an appointment was always in a different position again fits Quinns personality as well to a tee, a mind of her own and always doing something. At one of my last specialist appointments Twin A (Charleigh) was starting to take the food and the space up and Twin B (Quinn) was starting to not have her abdomen grow but would be fine once she got out of my belly. So having a csection, and having them at 36/37 weeks was going to happen! Having the csection is definitely a very very weird experience, half your body is paralyzed and they warn you it is gonna feel like someone is sitting on your chest and yes that is exactly how it felt. Fun Fact: Q has seen my insides!!!!! They got Twin A out and when he went to go look at her he saw all my wonderful insides! The twins were 5lbs 10oz (Charleigh) and 5lbs 6oz (Quinn) and never had to spend any time in the NICU they were perfectly healthy and came into the world July 8th (original due date for 40 weeks was July 29th) one minute apart. I would never chose to get a csection (again just MY personal opinion) you cannot move afterwards, a nurse and Q had to put the babies to my chest to breastfeed. And when I finally got out the bed the next day I could not stand up straight it hurt to laugh, it hurt to pee, to poop, to ANYTHING. Q had to be the one to change diapers and bring them to me to feed. My very great husband literally gave me a shower, and if I thought I loved him before I really loved truly loved him then as he is changing my granny netted underwear and bathing me. I think having a toddler also made me not a fan of a csection I could not pick up Zoey which was hard and just made me sad. I had a few other people who had had csections tell me the best thing you could do was just walk as soon as you are able to because it was the best way to get better. And I really did believe that.
The only very odd (and hopefully will never happen to any of you) was August 8th (I remember the day exactly) one month after I had the twins exactly I woke up with a horrible pain in my upper stomach. I was home with all 3 kids, my mom was at work, and Q was at practice. I chalked it up to gas and took everything possible eating Tums, drinking ginger ale to get it to go away. It still did not… It took hours and hours for someone to finally get to the house to be able to watch the girls (thank god the twins chilled and slept most of the day and I literally gave Zoey whatever she wanted ice cream and popsicles and put her in front of the tv) and me to go to the hospital. I honestly thought I had a third baby in me or my appendix had burst. It was such a horrible pain they gave me the highest dose of morphine possible when I finally got seen by a doctor and it was still keeping the pain at like a level 5/6 at best. When they took me to radiology was when I finally got an idea that something was really not right, the girl doing it even called someone else in to show her whatever it was that was in my stomach. They had no clue what it was to this day I have never been able to figure out exactly what it was but a mass had formed in my upper stomach that was the size of two fists put together. I was in the hospital for 5 days, which was sort of a mini honeymoon for me and Q we just sat and watched Breaking Bad (Q’s mom and my mom took care of the girls for us). They drained it and afterwards it was all fine, they “claimed” it was just an after effect of my csection. I do not know if that was really it but you can see why I am not the biggest fan of a csection!
Yasi yasi yasi! So since this was just ONE baby we decided to let the gender be a surprise until birth, and let me say BEST DECISION EVER it was such genuine surprise. He did not want to come out. Again I was due on December 13th and that came and went. My doctor wanted to have a planned csection on the books for the 23rd if the baby did not come. I did not want to have a csection and I did not want to be in the hospital Christmas Eve. Also my husband played against the Cowboys so I did not to have our baby without him while he was in Texas. My doctor was AMAZING, it was definitely hard finding a doctor (part of the football world finding new doctors every where you go) and obviously I really trusted my doctor from Maryland since he helped me deliver Zo and did the csection for the twins. This time I went with a woman doctor and I had heard Seattle was more let your body do what it wants to do when it came to birth and pregnancy. My doctor had decided to put a csection on the schedule for December 20th and was going to let me see how far I could go having a natural birth and then have the csection down just incase. One of my second to last doctor appointments I was making some progression on my own and was dilated like 2cm so my super great doctor told me that we are just going to go ahead with good old natural birth and cancel the csection. I wanted to cry tears of joy (I did cry) I was so happy because she knew how much I did not want to have a csection. The morning of the 20th me and Q went in at 7am, I was trying to be all cute and strong and do this thang with no drugs. Me and Q walked around the halls I played music (our nurse was GREAT that was something different then Maryland because our nurse stayed with us all day the whole entire time) and then I told Q I did not feel good and started throwing up, yep right then and there I told the nurse give me drugs! I was not about to be in labor and throwing up no thank you. I got the epidural and I was stuck in the bed after that but the only problem was they literally had to flip me from side to side every few minutes otherwise the baby’s hear rate would go down from something pushing on the cord. A couple times the nurse checked me and I was not making much progress (wasn’t dilating), the nurse would tell me and I would say ok and then would tell Q to come here and I would start to cry! I refused to have a csection and I was so scared that was what was happening. But again my super amazing great doctor would come in and check me and say nope you are doing fine. So let me tell you this FIND A DOCTOR WHO LISTENS it is SO important, doctors a lot of the time are trying to do the quick and easy thing and that is a csection because it is quick and easy and lets them go about there day not like a natural birth where they have to wait on you. With this birth I could feel it, each contractions even with the epidural. I do believe the epidural took because it was a watered down version of real contractions, but I still felt those shits and it hurt (they also did not give me the button to push!!!!). By this time it was evening and I was about 8cm dilated (again me crying) but here comes that amazing ass doctor again! I felt the need to push even though I was only 8cm and you know what she said we are gonna go for it and let you start to push! This was WAY different then when I had Zo, with Zo I literally had all the energy to push and was singing a song about pushing her out. With Yasi I felt it all… I understood why people have one child, I understood why people cry when pushing out a baby. ALL of those things happened to me I was saying I can’t do this I can’t do this I am crying I am sweating. My husband, my nurse, and my doctor were all telling me YES I CAN and to pussssshhhhhhh. I pushed and pushed, Q is telling me keep going he can see the head. Then I hear “ IT IS BOY” (I am crying as I write this by the way) and I honest to god could not believe it I had mentally prepared for a girl this whole time and thought Q was joking when he said it was a boy (my doctor only knew it was a boy a few minutes before we had him, only one person in the office who does sonograms knew). If I have few memories that were my absolute favorite first is right after he was born, they laid him on my chest and he got to lay there for 2 hours. Just lay there they did not weigh him, they did not measure him, they did not do absolutely anything but just have him there with me snuggling. The second best moment (because Q had only ever witnessed a csection) was the pure amazement my husband had with watching me push out our son, at that moment I like to believe he thought I was a damn goddess and that is how he made me feel. Yasi came out with such fierceness that he had scratched his own forehead and had a popped blood vessel in his eye. My third favorite moment being able to walk after having a baby! I loved being able to move around and walk just fine, and that we got go home literally 23hours after having him! (and shoutout to our nurse who wiped away my mascara running eyes after just pushing him out).
Fun Fact: Besides our nurse and our doctor Mike and Pele Bennett were the first people to see to know we had a boy and we told his name was Yasi on FaceTime.
Random Fact: I have O Negative blood type so my blood cannot mix with my babies blood. I have to get something called a RhoGam shot (which is literally a shot in my ass) each time I am pregnant. Yasi was the only baby that has ever gotten some of my blood (I believe it was from the scratch on his head), and that meant he had jaundice and had to come back to the hospital the day after we left just to make sure he was ok and we was.)
My husband is an AMAZING birth partner, hands down the calm to my storm. I am nervous, I get upset easily, and freak out. Q is the opposite he is calm, makes decisions quick and sticks with them and cheers me the hell on when pushing out babies. (If you did not know we have matching tattoos on our hands I have a sailboat he has an anchor and that is because he is the calm to my storm).
Also another side note you have to sign your life away to have a VBAC but it is so worth it and would have picked doing that over and over again any day over a csection. You ever need some pregnancy or baby or delivery advice, feel free to ask away!!!! Because I have seriously done it all. And in the end I got all of my beautiful babies!
