Well hello friends. It's been awhile since I last blogged but I am happy to announce that I HAD MY BABY!!! Man, oh man, life is so different now...in the best (& craziest!!) way possible and I have so many more ideas to blog but waaaaaay less time...haha. (side note- I've been trying to get this post done since we came home from the hospital...ha!)
But today, I will be sharing the birth story of our sweet boy, Luca Kingston Liira. Just want to do a TMI warning that I will be using words like discharge, membranes, cervix, dilated...so if those words make you squeamish, here's the short story... Luca Kingston Liira was born on June 11th (his due date!!) at 2:44am weighing 7lbs 13oz after 22 hours of labour (early labour started at 4:30am on June 10th!)
And now the long TMI story....
I was beginning to get antsy waiting for the arrival of our sweet lion. I went off work on June 1st and used the first week to get lots of stuff done around the house (also treated myself to a pedicure!) but one week later there I was, madly anticipating labour. I had been getting cramping but had no idea what labour would feel like. It's the craziest thing, and everyone says, you just know....which is true but waiting for it to happen is one of the hardest things I've ever waited for. I even had started a blog post entitled, "The Waiting Game", trying to explain how I was feeling but I couldn't put words to the feeling! Let's just say, the more I thought about it, the harder it was to do everyday life so instead I just tried to distract myself as much as possible! And so did James, he was off that week and planned on painting the exterior of our house...he even bought the paint because he was convinced baby wouldn't be coming until a week after his due date but the Lion had other plans...
Two days before my due date, I went to my doctor's office for my weekly check up. For the past two weeks she had tried to sweep my membranes but apparently my cervix was too posterior and the Lion was still a little bit high in my pelvis. Going into this appointment, I was hoping that things had changed but to my dismay, my cervix was still in the same position and once again, she couldn't sweep my membranes. Baby's head had dropped a bit but still not fully engaged. It looked like James' guess of a week late was going to be right. Even though I knew most first babies come late, I was pretty upset. I just wanted to get on with this labour thing...haha.
So I went home and walked cedar hill golf course furiously (haha) then showered at Courtney's house (our shower head finally arrived when Luca was 5 days old ha!) Meanwhile James started painting the gate in our driveway. After I got home, I went to our room to put on socks and as I was lifting my leg, I felt a little gush of fluid. Now I forgot to mention that a few days prior to my doctor's visit, I had a few little gushes of fluid....I was never sure if they were amniotic fluid or urine or just discharge but I mentioned it to my doctor and she said if it happened again, let her know, because if it was amniotic fluid, we would need to go to the hospital.
So I called my doctor and she said to come on down to the hospital and they would check me out. Off we went to the hospital...James had managed to paint half the gate, incase you were wondering! In labour and delivery they swabbed me and then my doctor went to check the fluid under a microscope. She came back a few minutes later and announced that "it took a while to find but there was amniotic fluid...you probably have a small tear in your sac....we'll put you on the induction list for tomorrow...go home and rest and you'll either go into labour or you'll be induced tomorrow!"
OMGEEEEEE. We went from not having a baby for another week to WE'RE GOING TO HAVE A BABY IN THE NEXT COUPLE DAYS. It was a crazy feeling for us as we walked out of the hospital. That would be our last night without a baby!!!! So we lived it up by watching the office...#livinglarge
Now I really wanted to go into labour naturally. I heard that being induced brought a lot more painful contractions and I am such a wimp when it comes to pain! So I spent most of the night bouncing on an exercise ball to try to get things going. James also did some reflexology on my lower back, hands and ankles. And we also prayed.
Well we must have done something right because at 4:30am the next day I woke up with contractions (THANK YOU JESUS!) They were not super intense but they woke me up and were coming roughly every 8-10 minutes....I just knew, finally, that I WAS IN LABOUR!!!
In our prenatal class, the teacher had told us that early labour was all about distracting yourself and trying to keep your body upright so baby would continue to come down and the good ol cervix would dilate. I couldn't go back to sleep and I didn't want to wake up James so the first thing I did was self tan my face because obviously I didn't want to be pale going into everything..haha. After that I made my labour playlist (which consisted of mellow worship music...Amanda Cook, Bethel, Hillsong United). Little did I know, I would have that playlist on almost the entire labour as it helped me stay calm. I then continued to bounce on the ball and paint my nails...ha.
Around 8am I woke up James because the contractions were getting a lot stronger and closer together. We hung out in the living room while I bounced, bounced, bounced. The only thing helping me was bouncing on the ball and using a heating pad on my lower back. James was amazing in reminding me to drink water after every contraction and reminding me to go pee...ha! We also ended up walking down the street to Thriftys....it took us awhile as I had to lean on him during every contraction.
