Tags: Honesty Zone Mama Milestones Mom of Boys
My beautiful boy turns one this week. It just baffles me how quickly the time goes by. It feels like only yesterday he was all swaddled up and sleeping cozy in his basinet. Then I blinked and he’s practically off to college…I must stop blinking. With his birthday approaching, I find myself thinking back to the day he was born.
He was late! Liev was born ON his due date and for some strange reason I assumed Silas would do the same thing. It wasn’t bad though…I had had a wonderful pregnancy and didn’t mind the extra time. My doctor, however, was ready to speed the process along, so at seven days late, she went ahead and scheduled an induction for me. They were scheduled to induce me Wednesday morning at 9am and our little spit-fire decided to start the process ahead of schedule at 4am instead—much like his mother, he doesn’t take kindly to having someone tell him to do something a certain way.
At exactly 4am I was woken up with menstrual cramp-like pains. I lay there for a few minutes trying to figure out what was wrong—for some reason it didn’t immediately register that it could be labor pains. My immediate thought was maybe something I had eaten wasn’t agreeing with me and I might need to run to the bathroom. Then the pain went away, and I shrugged it off as a fluke. Settling back into bed I was dozing off when another pain hit me. I realized what was happening. Not wanting to disturb Adrian or wake up Liev unnecessarily, I sat on the edge of the bed breathing through the contractions until they were coming five minutes apart.
At five minutes apart, I got up and called the hospital to let them know we were on our way. Then I woke Adrian up and started getting my stuff together. When we were dressed and ready, we woke up Liev and headed out the door. I called my mom and sister on the way to the hospital to let them know it was go-time, and by the time they showed up at the hospital thirty minutes later, I was settled into my room breathing nicely through contractions coming steadily every five minutes.
I had decided on having an epidural and thankfully didn’t have to wait long to have it administered. Once it kicked in, I was one happy camper. I sat and chatted with my mom and watched Liev play with my sister. It felt more like we were having coffee after a day of shopping…you never would have guessed I was about to give birth. God bless epidurals.
At about 8am I started feeling discomfort, so I started trying different positions to find a sweet spot—they had told me that the epidural might settle in one spot if I didn’t rotate sides and positions. Nothing I tried eased the pain, so I sat up and it dulled slightly. Two or three minutes later, a couple nurses ran in frantically checking my monitors and sensors…apparently because I was sitting on his head, his heart rate had slowed (oops, sorry). They called my doctor to the room and she checked to see how dilated I was. I was ten centimeters and could give pushing a try, if I wanted. In just five short minutes, the pain had intensified to the “unbearable” point. My sister left with Liev and the doctor started getting everything ready.
I couldn’t for the life of me figure out how she could be so calm and move so slowly when this baby was coming NOW! I just kept looking at Adrian with pleading eyes trying to convey the importance of my situation—like they didn’t understand what was happening! Haha
Finally, after what seemed like a lifetime, the doctor was ready. She smiled and calmly said, “Ok, we’re gonna try pushing, ok?” I pushed ONCE, and he flew out! Adrian said he came out so fast that for a split second he wasn’t sure the doctor was going to catch him. He had waited long enough apparently and wasn’t going to wait any longer. That should have been a huge red flag. He’s an impatient little dude, and I’m just realizing as I’m typing that we should have seen the signs. Huh…interesting.
As soon as he was out, they placed him right on my chest. Now, let me preface this next bit by saying that I’m 100% in support of skin-to-skin contact with your newborn, but does it HAVE to be the very second after they’re born. Here I was still in excruciating pain and I have Silas screaming bloody murder on my chest while two nurses are vigorously wiping him down and my doctor is not so gently stitching me up. Oh, and lest I forget, Silas had pooped on the way out so I’m now covered in blood AND poop. I needed a breath…just sixty seconds in which to lie still enough for the doctor to stitch me up, less painfully, and clean the poop off Silas before laying him on my chest. Oh well. I’m sure somebody will think I’m a horrible mother for saying all that, but this is my honesty zone, and I know I can’t be the only mother out there who’s had such thoughts.
Well, the hard part was over. We were all cleaned up and skin-to-skinning-it-up right nice, but he was still screaming his little head off, and I couldn’t seem to calm him down. At least we knew his lungs were working. Adrian picked him up, held him close to his chest and started gently swaying back and forth. He quieted almost immediately—talk about “baby whisperer”.
He was here. All 8 pounds, 2 ounces and 21 inches of him and he was perfect. Perfect little face, perfect little toes and perfect, LONG fingers. He sucked on his bottom lip so much so that he had a crease on his chin. He must have been doing it in my belly too because it seemed like a natural soothing mechanism for him. He also had the most pronounced eyebrows I’ve ever seen on an infant. His little face was so expressive, and the eyebrows just made all his facial expressions so much more dramatic. It was so adorable. Our beautiful little boy.
He’s sweet and silly. He’s impatient and bossy. He’s the biggest drama king on the planet…everything is magnified a hundred times with this kid (it’s hilarious). He loves following his brother around and mimics EVERYTHING he does. He loves giving Sam kisses, but doesn’t love GETTING kissed by Sam. He’s our little spit fire and I thank God for him every day. Happy Birthday, Silas!
Fun fact: Liev was also born at exactly 8 pounds, 2 ounces and 21 inches. Pretty amazing, right?!
