tuesday's doorstep entertainment: the story goes like this...

A little over a year ago we, a family of 3, were spending time together probably taking it pretty easy. I was coming up on 36 weeks pregnant and liked taking lots of little rests throughout the day. Todd was finishing up finals to complete the first year of his MBA program. Peter was 2.75 years old, newly potty trained, and had a vocabulary that was growing by the minute. As we were hanging out Peter out of no where made a declaration. More of a prophecy really. He said, "Baby brother is coming soon." We laughed and asked him when. He answered with, "Next Thursday." And that was that. We were surprised that he knew the word "Thursday" and it was kind of weird for him to just up and randomly make his declaration. But I was not even 36 weeks so we weren't counting on baby brother coming too soon. I mean it was April 16th and I wasn't due until May 17th. So we moved on with our week. Daddy finished finals. We celebrated our 4th anniversary with thee most delicious dinner at La Jolla Groves, and Peter and I kept attending his mommy-and-me swimming class. The big day --Peter's prophesied "next Thursday"-- came and we pretended like baby was coming. "Today's the day!" we said. Todd was done with finals so he came with us to swimming lessons that afternoon. The class was full of old babies and Peter was most certainly not a baby. He was a large almost 3 year-old haha. All he wanted to do was jump in the water over and over again. No time for those silly baby games, right? After swimming lessons we headed home and I mentioned to Todd that baby was getting pretty aggressive with his "bladder bouncing." I felt like baby was really trying hard to either make me wet my pants or break my water. "Today was the day" after all!

We made it home, got dinner going, and I hopped in the shower because my sister was coming over to do my nails. She's awesome like that. Then it happened. I got out of the shower and wasn't able to get dry... ya know...

I didn't tell Todd was what going down for a bit... I wanted Marysa to do my nails haha and I wasn't positive my water had broken and I wasn't feeling a thing.... besides feeling wet. So yeah I waited. Marysa did my nails while Todd fixed the crib, and maybe a wet hour later I informed Todd of the current situation and called my midwife for some direction. Today was the day! Holy moly! But today couldn't be the day! I still had a month left to prep for this! I had just finished a full time babysitting job and Todd was done with school... I needed to time with bond with my first two boys before boy #3 came and took over my life! Today was the day! So we packed some half-hearted bags, I gave Peter a long and teary hug, and we set off for American Fork to see what was going on down south.

We showed up and I felt so lame practically skipping into triage without a single contraction. We were surely going to be sent straight home. Triage was empty and pretty soon after we arrived they checked things out and confirmed that indeed my "waters" had partially broken and we would not be leaving the hospital until we had our baby boy.

Thus began the hardest night of my life. Of our married life. Baby boy might have "used his toenail" to break my waters but he wasn't budging. Once 2:00am rolled around we decided with our midwife that pitocin needed to happened. The clock was ticking and the longer baby boy waited to come the higher my chance was of getting infected. Turns out pitocin wasn't my idea of fun and I would not wish it upon anyone. They slowly gave me more and more and by the time we topped out things were getting pretty serious. Throw that on top of back labor and you have yourself quite a lovely experience. Luckily I had an incredible midwife who coached Todd and I through the whole thing. Todd provided counter pressure for every single contraction for 19 hours. He was amazing. I absolutely would not have made it without him.

Time was no longer a factor. I knew that it had been a long time. But I had been told so many times that my second would come fast. Even by my doctor. So when I progressed one single centimeter over many hours I wasn't sure if I'd make it to the end. At some point when things were feeling impossible (aka hours three of contractions back to back with no breaks) I had a realization that this was how baby was going to come. This is how it was going to feel if I wanted to deliver baby boy naturally. I realized that I just needed to accept it and figure out how to deal with it best. I knew that I wasn't going be able to deal with it best unless I used multiple resources. My husband and my Savior. And so that is what I did.

The night passed. The morning passed. When was this baby going to come??

The answer was 1:03pm. The end was intense. My midwife was delivering another baby down the hall and I was ready. My nurse didn't know who to call... the midwife or the respiratory specialist?? I'd say both but we found out later that we were her first solo delivery. She did pretty well but we definitely provided her with an exciting shift.

And an exciting shift it was. Once it was time for baby to come he came quick. And upside down... silly baby. They had told us beforehand what they'd do when he came out. Since he was early their biggest concern was his breathing. Sure enough he struggled a bit and after holding him for what felt half a second they whisked him away. I was so nervous something bad would happen that through my tears I told Todd to go with him. He was so little and helpless and needed his daddy. Todd went with baby, the doctors went with baby, and I was alone in my room reflecting on what the heck just happened.

I called my mom and cried some more as I waited for Todd to come back and tell me that our baby was okay.

He did. Baby was okay! They didn't have to do any treatments like they anticipated and it was only a matter of time before I got to give him cuddles. Two hours after he was born they rolled him into our room and he was so happy and seemed sooo tiny compared to my big boy at home.