Stuart's birth story

On Saturday night, the 18th of December, I started having contractions. They were frequent, but not regular, and fairly strong, but not unbearable. I thought I would probably have the baby soon. The contractions kept up, usually during the night so I couldn't sleep, but no baby. On Wednesday night they started coming more regular and stronger. Finally, they were five minutes apart and pretty strong, so at 4 in the morning or so we called David's parents to come over to stay with Thomas and when they got here we went to the hospital. On the way the contractions slowed, but when they came they were really strong, so we decided to go on in anyway. I had about 3 contractions in the 45 minutes we were at the hospital. I swore to the nurse that they had been 5 minutes apart for a couple of hours before we came. She said, "you'll know when its real because it will hurt really bad, not just be uncomfortable". It hurt really bad. She said I needed to drink more water to stay hydrated and it would help. So, we went home. David's parents took Thomas for the day so we could rest and I drank tons of water (and went to the bathroom every few minutes it seemed). I was able to rest some.

Harold and Stephanie got into town that day, so after we picked Thomas up that evening we went over to see them. I was still having quite a few contractions, but they had slowed down. It was worst when I had to go outside in the freezing weather. I was still miserable, but we had a good visit. They served us chili for dinner. It was a little too spicy for me and I think it made the contractions come back, which was a good thing this time!

Basically from then on I was having contractions. In the middle of the night they started getting strong and regular again, but I wanted to make sure it was real this time. David brought up our extra microwave and I heated up a rice bag to help ease the pain. I watched Andy Griffith and tried to relax as they contractions came all through the night. They were 5 minutes apart for several hours this time and I told David we better start thinking about it, but still didn't get my hopes up. I didn't want his parents to come over in the middle of the night again for nothing. Finally, they were unbearable and and there was only a couple of minutes at most between my contractions. David called his parent to have them meet us at the hospital. At this point it was after 6:00 a.m. I was in so much pain I just hoped to make it to the hospital.

When we got to the hospital we went to the parking deck to meet David's parents, but he could figure out how to get onto the parking deck. After a few tries he dropped me off at the front door and said he'd meet me up there. I wanted to get up there fast and didn't want to talk to anyone, so I just went straight to the elevators, but I could hardly walk. When I got to the second floor it took me a while to get to the desk because I had to stop every time I had a contraction. I probably should have gotten a wheelchair. They took me straight back to a room and got everything started. They weren't sending me home this time. I was already dilated to a 7. I was relieved I was actually progressing (even though I could tell I was, this was the proof). I was anxious for them to get the epidural in. The thought crossed my mind, "I could do this natural," but then I remembered I had already done enough and I got the epidural. They put it in twice because the nurse gave me a wet tap the first time. They said it could give me a really bad headache, but it wasn't too bad, I was just really numb on one side. It's the kind of epidural they do for a c-section. After that I was relaxed and it was an easy three hours until I pushed. I only had to push for about fifteen minutes and Stuart was born. Once I got to the hospital the labor was easy (especially compared to Thomas).

We named him Stuart Nicholas because he was born on Christmas Eve. (We were thinking of the middle name Joseph if it was not Christmas or Christmas Eve). Stewart is my maiden name and David really liked the idea of using it as a first name. He had to talk me into it because it just sounds like a last name to me, but I am really glad we went with it. We changed the spelling because we think Stuart is the more common way to spell it as a first name and we want to make our children's lives as easy (by using the most "normal" spellings). He weighed 7 lbs. 6 oz. and was20 in. long.

David's parents came to visit with Thomas before we were moved to our room. Thomas seemed fine with mom having a baby and being in a hospital bed. We moved to our room and they went home and took Thomas. An'mere and Aunt Jane came and visited us a little later. David went to be with his family for Christmas Eve dinner, but came back and spent the night with us. We went home the next day, Christmas, at 1:00 p.m. They almost didn't let us because they said Stuart was a little bit jaundiced, but that was based on the fact that they thought he was 37 weeks gestation instead of 39 1/2. Anyway, we got that cleared up and just had to take him to the clinic on Monday and have him retested. Since it was Christmas everything was closed and people were lax. We even had to ask for our own birth certificate form and fill out all the info.

After we got home David's parents and Robert came over and we opened presents (and they brought Thomas home of course). That night my parents and Anna came. Thomas loved his baby brother from the start!

I love having two little boys. The adjustment has been easy and I wouldn't trade them for the world.