Adding a Third Child: Arthur’s Birth Story

I feel like this post is long overdue, which is funny because I haven’t ever posted a birth story on the blog before. I guess with Arthur, more people want to be informed. Before I jump the gun, let’s start from the beginning:

I actually announced this pregnancy while blogging!

I’m not going to lie, this entire pregnancy was motivated (for me) by wanting a girl. You know what they say about making plans? Make plans, God laughs. It actually looks like I knew we were going to have a boy when I look back on our announcement photo, but we only happened to own blue chairs. Hey, it worked out!

This pregnancy really surprised me- being our quickest to “take” and led to some first trimester morning sickness and my first experience with Antepartum Anxiety and Depression. Oh, if I only knew then what I know now… Arthur is worth the world!

Following suit of “Make Plans, God Laughs”, everyone assumed that Arthur would arrive sometime early-full-term. The other boys were both making their grand appearance around 2 weeks before their due date, so should Arthur… we thought. So after everyone had planned for a delivery around 38 weeks, we were scrambling to adjust work schedules and doctors appointments to extend further. By 39 weeks my patience was shot and I requested my membranes be scraped. Membrane scraping only progressed the process mildly to save you the details. I wanted to try again. I called the doctor on my due date and demanded they try again! Not really, though. I called in, requested an appointment and my very nice resident squeezed me in in the morning between appointments. He let me in on his guess that the first time wouldn’t work, just because of how things were placed and where I was at physically. This time, he thought he’d be seeing me later that day at the hospital. Determined, I left the clinic planning to walk a marathon if I had to.

Contractions started while leaving the clinic and were four minutes apart for THREE HOURS. I called the hospital and my mom to watch the boys and had our bags ready to go, but my gut was telling me that it was just a reaction to the procedure and not the real deal. Sure enough, contractions waned and were gone by mid-day. Totally discouraged, I chose to try to walk after dinner and bedtime and went about two miles and they started back up. This time they were mild, but consistent, and after the emotional roller coaster of the day (and the entire last few weeks, really), I decided that if I was meeting the technical criteria to be admitted for labor, let’s just do this- there’s no way they’d turn away a lady past her due date.

We finished bedtimes and had my mom come stay the night and made our way to the hospital. The drive felt surreal- I was able to think and talk clearly, but we knew we were having a baby! (Way different than last time!)

Things moved slowly at first with the contractions naturally progressing and being uncomfortable, but labor was still easy (as far as labor goes). Once we were in our birthing suite, we decided to start the epidural and then break my water to speed things along. The trick worked and labor was speedy! I kid you not, I did not even push. (TMI? Sorry!) Arthur arrived crying on his way out and aced his very first test in life- 10/10 on his APGAR!