Nixon's Birth Story

Our little baby is a week old already and Donovan and I are loving being parents.  We've been spending the last few days at home, adjusting to life with a newborn and getting to know our sweet baby boy.  Nixon has been doing great - eating well, letting mommy and daddy get just a little sleep at night, and giving us the best baby snuggles.

If you don't want to know all the gory details of his birth, just skip to the cute baby pictures :)

Little Nixon chose a pretty dramatic entrance into the world.  On Tuesday morning, I had a routine doctors appointment.  We discovered I was dilated to "one and a wiggle," as the doctor put it, which was encouraging but still didn't give any indication of when labor would start.  The doctor also swept my membranes, something that can encourage labor if your body is ready, but does absolutely nothing if your body isn't there yet.  She warned me that I would probably have some contractions throughout the rest of the day as a result of the membrane sweep, but didn't think I was close to going into labor quite yet.

As expected, that afternoon I began feeling more and more uncomfortable and noticing some contractions.  As the day went on, they started getting a little more intense, but nothing I couldn't handle by walking around and bouncing on my exercise ball.  Late in the afternoon, I took a warm bath to try and soothe my lower back, where I was feeling all the contractions.  Around 6:30, after getting out of the tub, things began to pick up.  Out of curiosity, we started timing the contractions and realized they were coming pretty regularly at 3-4 minutes apart.  Thinking that this could be the beginning of labor, but not wanting to get our hopes up just yet, I kept walking, although now I needed to stop and breathe through each contraction.  At 8:00, after having regular contractions for over an hour, we called the birth center to see what they recommended we do.  The nurse said it sounded like I was in the beginning stages of labor but it was unlikely I was far enough along at this point to be admitted (especially since I was only dilated to one earlier in the day).  She recommended I labor at home as long as I was comfortable, or until my water broke.

Thirty minutes later, still thinking I had hours of laboring ahead of me, I lay down on the couch to try and get some rest.  As soon as I lay down, my water broke in a massive gush.  But instead of being clear, it was red.  I went into panic mode, thankfully Donovan stayed calm, and while I freaked out and screamed through the now very intense contractions he threw the bags in the car and called the birth center again to let them know we were on the way.   After a speedy drive to the clinic, with me facing backwards in the seat and Donovan trying to apply counter-pressure on my low back with one hand, we arrived at the birth center just after 9:00.  The first thing the nurse said as we walked in was "are you pushing?"

Not even half an hour later, at 9:30, Nixon came into the world.  Despite my best efforts to not push until the doctor arrived, he wasn't going to wait for anyone and the nurse had to deliver him.  About five minutes later, everyone else showed up.  Because there was so much blood in the amniotic fluid, Nixon was checked out by a pediatric doctor just to be safe.  He was perfectly healthy though and before long he was in my arms and we were getting to know each other.  I was fine as well, the bloody amniotic fluid looked a lot worse than it actually was.  It turned out to be a slightly more intense labor and delivery than either Donovan or I expected, but it ended well and I was more than happy to skip the 10+ hours of labor most first-time moms are subjected to.

Welcome to the world Nixon!  Mommy and Daddy love you!

First picture - just a few minutes old

First snuggles

It's hard not to fall in love with this face

Hanging out with Daddy

Precious little hands

Getting ready to go home

Sleepy little baby