Alden Andrew Wilson's Birth Story

I always knew that the baby inside me liked to do things in his own way on his own time, but I had no idea he was going to throw us through such a loop when he decided it was time to come out 5 weeks early!  Dane and I had toyed with the idea of traveling to his hometown for Labor Day weekend or possibly driving up to Michigan to see my grandparents and my mom.  Thank god we decided against both (mostly because I couldn't stand the idea of sitting in a car for more than a few minutes) because Labor Day started with a BANG!  Dane and I were snoozing in the morning and around 7:15am I felt something weird in my shorts and didn't really think anything of it until I rolled onto my back and there was a huge gush.  I immediately jumped, or rather rolled my round self out of bed and yelled at Dane to get up and turn the lights on.  Once he turned on the lights and I ran to the bathroom with more gushing I knew my water had broken.  I immediately called my mom and had a moment of panic because I knew he was too little to come out!  I called the doctor and talked to the person on call who told us we needed to come in to triage and be tested for them to know if my water had broken for sure.  Dane and I knew this was it so we packed a bag, I showered, and we got in the car to head to the hospital.

When we got to the hospital I got into a gown and they tested me to see if my water had broken and after 60 seconds I was walking down the hall to labor and delivery because we were in fact in labor on Labor Day!  After an ultrasound to check the position of the baby and a shot of steroids in the butt my doctor informed me that he was not going to jump start labor (induce) or stop labor from happening...he was going to leave it up to the baby to decide.  I got 2 shots of steroids to help the baby's lungs develop a little more and iv antibiotics every 4 hours.  One of the antibiotics was extremely harsh and hurt HORRIBLY going in, and apparently is also so harsh it can blow veins (of which I blew 4 ivs).  We entered the hospital on Monday and when Friday morning rolled around my left wrist, where one of my iv's had blown, was swollen and red and my doctor was afraid that infection was a real possibility.  He told me that he wanted to start inducing me and get the baby out which is exactly what I did NOT want, but given the circumstance I was not going to argue.

I was induced at 8am Friday morning and all day long had visitors as I was contracting but no real progress was happening.  My sister Sarah was flying into Indianapolis for the first time EVER because I was supposed to have my baby shower, my dad was on his way from New York, my mom was coming from Michigan and my sister Amanda her husband and baby were on their way as well.  I couldn't believe that most of my family was going to be there considering I have ZERO family in Indianapolis.  My mom arrived around 8pm and by 9:30pm I was starting to get uncomfortable and wanted everyone to leave us alone so I could focus on my labor. 

By 10pm I was in full on active (uncomfortable) labor with contractions happening the worst in my back.  I was breathing through the contractions with Dane massaging my back.  I desperately wanted to avoid drugs and an epidural for as long as possible so that I didn't slow my labor down, but by 11pm I was so uncomfortable I needed something to help me get a little further so I asked for nubane.  Just for everyone's reference, nubane is a pain killer that didn't help at all except for making my eyes so heavy I couldn't open them between contractions.  I begged the nurses to check me around 11:30pm to see how far along I was and I was only 4 to 4 1/2 cm and I decided about 10-15 minutes after that I was ready for the epidural and was yelling at Dane to get the anesthesiologist in the room.  When the doctor came in they allowed Dane to stay in the room and hold my hands.  They usually wait to insert the catheter in between contractions but the doctor told me I was just having one really long strong contraction (as if I didn't know what was going on) so she inserted it anyway and the next thing I know I'm hearing her say  "OK dad...thanks for sitting down...someone get him an orange juice"...all I could think was "you have to be kidding me!!".  Dane must have held his breath and knew he was light headed and had to sit down to recover and was completely fine within a few seconds. 



My doctor barely made it in time to suit up and catch the baby.  3 contractions, 6 pushes, and a few minutes later our little angel was born with about 10 people in the room - there were 3 people in the room to attend to me and 3 people in the room from the NICU to attend to the baby.  The baby was only put on my chest long enough for Dane to cut the cord before they swept him away to be analyzed by the NICU team.  After assessing him and getting myself cleaned up my entire family was allowed to come into the room and watch the baby's first bath.  I was so grateful that family from both sides could be there to support both Dane and myself and welcome Alden Andrew Wilson to the world! :)

Blog won't allow me to upload pictures right now so stay tuned!