Welcome Home, Josiah Hamilton!

We got home late last night and while I wait for hubby to go pick up the kids from Grandma’s, I thought I’d write Josiah’s birth story out!

We went to the hospital around 8am to be induced, and found out that I was still 3cm but my cervix was pretty long, so they inserted a balloon into my cervix and filled it up to try to stretch my cervix and irritate it into labour. After a couple of hours, they sent me home to spend the day with the balloon in to see what happened. I had some contractions pretty close together the first couple of hours, but then they stopped and all I had the rest of the day was mild cramping now and again so when we went back around 5:30 to get it checked, I was pretty discouraged and thinking they’d send us home for the night.

Turns out I was 6cm and 80% effaced!

The Dr. broke my water a few minutes after 6:00, and I got an epidural shortly after. Since with my last labour I didn’t have time to get the epidural, they didn’t make me wait before getting this one. Contractions were already getting intense by the time I got it put in. The epi didn’t take entirely; if I laid on my right side, the baby’s heartbeat would go up, and if I laid on my back I’d have a vaso-vagal response to the pressure from baby and start to pass out, so I had to lay on my left side. Because of gravity, that meant the epidural didn’t take on my right side. Every time they’d have me turn side to side to even out the distribution of the epidural, it would only take on the side I was laying on. But, it was definitely better than nothing.

Contractions got more intense but bearable and a few minutes after 9:00 the Dr. came in then left again, saying the lady in the next room was closer to delivery than I was. About 2 minutes later, it was like there was no epidural at all and the new pain totally took me by surprise. After I think just one MAJOR contraction my husband ran out to get a nurse, she hurried in and rushed to get things ready while I was starting to push. I think I had 3 of those big contractions before I started pushing…I found it interesting that I didn’t have any pain at all while pushing, but maybe it was since I was sitting/squatting almost upright and not to one side, the epidural had more effect. She told Louis that she might need his help, and I was thinking, “what, she’s going to have him catch?” (Turns out she just wanted him to take note of the time when baby was born.)

I only pushed a couple of times and the nurse barely had everything she needed laid out before the head was out, and at 9:20pm we welcomed Josiah Hamilton into the world! Right before he was born another Dr came in with just enough time to watch (she was there to see if she could fix the epidural to make it more effective for me..bit late! lol) and the Dr. who was supposed to deliver came in a bit later. Turns out I’d delivered before the lady in the other room..Surprise!

Josiah weighed 7lbs 8.5 oz at birth..our biggest birth weight so far, and he was the earliest baby we’ve had! He is 20 inches long (also our shortest baby of the 3.) His middle name, Hamilton, is also my grandfather’s middle name.

I’d read Supernatural Childbirth a few weeks ago, and though I didn’t have a pain-free labour (I know I just didn’t have the faith for it..I couldn’t seem to convince myself that God could give me a pain-free labour), and in the last week I’d been praying for many specific things regarding the birth. And go figure, God answered each of them specifically. I know that has to be God, not a coincidence.

I’m not even sure I can remember all the things I prayed for, but there was the preparations for induction and childcare that was taken care of perfectly with no stress.

I prayed that I would have the baby on the 24th and not have labour dragged out into the next day.

I prayed that my cervix would dilate and thin out as much as possible before labour started. (It makes me wonder how far my cervix would have dilated without labour if the Dr. hadn’t broken my water at 6cm and gotten things started.)

I’d prayed that I wouldn’t have any tearing…I had none, despite this being my biggest baby.

I’d prayed that I would have no issues with my bladder or bowels after the birth..and have none.

I’d prayed that I wouldn’t have bad afterpains and that I wouldn’t have a lot of bleeding afterward. I’ve had some cramping but not bad afterpains like I remember with my daughter, and even in the hours directly after birth the bleeding has been minimal. I remember feeling gushes of blood when they’d massage my uterus with my daughter, or when I would stand up after having her; this time, even right after delivery when they were massaging my uterus a bit, there was almost no bleeding and my uterus had hardened up immediately.

I’d prayed that Josiah would have no jaundice, and no effects from the whole Rh negative antibody issues…turns out Josiah has the exact same blood type as I do, and that the antibodies must have come from my daughter (my only Rh+ child) and that this pregnancy must have kick-started my immune response with them. They’d taken more blood before labour, and it turns out the level of antibodies has actually DECREASED since they first showed up in the other blood test.

I know there are at least a couple of other things I’d prayed for, but can’t remember it all now. I just know that WOW is God ever Good!

I’m tired and a bit swollen from the extra fluids they’d given my while Josiah’s heartbeat was a bit high in labour, so sitting is a careful process. Since there isn’t any tearing though it’s not painful..just uncomfortable. Josiah’s getting better with latching on to nurse with each feed. It’s a bit sore now but I know that it just takes a few weeks for the skin to get used to it, and for Josiah to perfect his latch.

Overall, I feel really good. Louis was saying I was even looking better than after my daughter’s birth, and with her I didn’t even have the discomfort from swelling.

We stayed in the hospital for 25 hours. We were allowed to leave earlier, but then we’d have had to come back for the heel prick and hearing test since they wait until the baby is 24 hours, so we figured might as well stay the extra hours and be done with it. Last night went extremely well. We got home a bit before 11:00pm, and Josiah stayed away for a little while. He finally went to sleep just before midnight, after eating. He semi-woke up around 3:30 but then fell back asleep so I didn’t get up to feed him. I finally woke him up around 6:30 to eat.

I know that they say to make sure baby eats every 3-4 hours and to not let them go longer when they’re brand new, but I figured that God was giving us some much needed rest, and that a few extra hours one time wasn’t going to hurt anything.

I think that’s about all there is to tell! I’ll let you know how it goes when the kids meet him! They’ll be back home with Daddy in a couple of hours. Thanks for all the prayers!