And a baby came out! {Landon's Birth Story}

The subject of this story is currently in his little hospital bassinet/pod/thing, making adorable sounds and waving his arms around like he did so much in utero. He's always happiest in someone's arms, so he's sacrificing for a cause right now. However, after being fed every hour this morning, changed, and then worshiped by two adoring parents, little Landon is in no danger of feeling unloved.

Yes, Landon. Landon Edward Maurer, according to all documentation and #landonedward if you happen to be following my instagram obsession.

Landon's due date was February 3rd, and despite every bit of knowledge that assured me a due date is simply a guesstimate in a 4-5 week span, we felt sad and disappointed that he had not made his appearance.  It was more than just typical 9 month exhaustion  and aches (for me) and eagerness to meet his firstborn (for Stephen) that had us staring wistfully at the calendar. Uncle Sam had called and Stephen was needed elsewhere and soon, so soon that it cut into the timeline that medical professionals and mothers usually use while waiting for baby to appear au natural. I didn't write a birth plan, but if I had, I would've written two main points: I wanted us all alive and us all to be there. With that second crucial point in jeopardy, my body dilated to a 1, and Landon sitting surprisingly high, my doctor and I talked induction.

We made tentative plans for a charming notion called cervical ripening via a small pill called Cytotek. This procedure would first occur late Wednesday night (February 5th), then again early Thursday morning (February 6th), and then I would begin Pitocin Thursday morning around the start of business hours. Those plans being made, I told everyone that my induction was scheduled for Thursday morning--provided Labor and Delivery wasn't too busy--and that we should meet Landon by the weekend.

Stephen was gone for his usual fourteen hour work day on Wednesday, and arrived home at 5 PM tired, sleepy, and with a head full of work. We decided that he would drive me the 45 minute to the hospital, help me get settled in, then go home for a full night's sleep, since the actual induction wouldn't be until the morning. Plus, someone had just handed him some last minute things to do.  But as Google and most women will tell you, inductions take a while...

We got to Labor and Delivery just before 8:30 PM on Wednesday, February 5th. The nurses were relaxed, and it took them forever to even find a vein to start an IV. The delivery room looked more like a darling hotel room, complete with a couch and shutters on the window, and golden, relaxed lighting. Stephen decided to stay the night with me, then run back to the apartment and base in the morning.

At 10:30 PM, I was given the first dose of Cytotek, showed the difference between baby's heart rate graph and my contraction graph, and learned that the annoying back cramps I'd had occasionally for around a week, and all day that day,  were actually mild contractions. Mild, unhelpful contractions.

We settled in, Stephen's frame crunched up on a supremely narrow couch, and my aching, nine month pregnant body on a hospital bed that couldn't be comfortable. Still, we were together, and the menstrual cramp-like ache in my back now had a name.

At 1:45 AM, my attention was rudely jerked away from browsing Reddit, as a sharp, intense pain filled my back and uterus, and I felt decidedly unromantic pop out liquid burst from me spontaneously.

Um,  ow. That hurt. Was that a real contraction? And did my water just break?

I waddled to the bathroom, confirmed that the liquid was not the contents of my bladder, and decided that I wanted my dull cramps back. A nurse came in, officially confirmed what I suspected, reminded me that things would get more intense, and asked if I wanted to wake Stephen. I didn't. It was not even 2 AM, he'd been asleep for an hour and awake for 22 hours before that. We had a long day (and night, at least) ahead of anyways, or so I thought.

15 minutes later, Stephen was woken up to the sound of my moaning, as sharp, angry contractions grabbed my back at a seemingly rapid pace. I felt simultaneously uncomfortable and annoyed that I was already in so much discomfort at barely a 2 dilation and the start of labor.

The next hour was a hellish one. The frontal contraction I'd experienced when my water broken is still the only experience I've had with non-back labor. Lying down, sitting, squatting, standing and swaying--every position still brought forth acute agony as my body sprinted into labor and my lower back became a living nightmare. My contractions were a minute apart and thirty seconds long, giving me exactly thirty seconds to recover before my body was plunged into the abyss again. It was the type of raw, brutal labor only Pitocin is supposed to bring, and I found myself dying mentally as my brain mocked me for being in such pain, and still dilated at a 2.

I went through all the painful cliches that are supposed to happen at transition--swearing, vomiting, nearly blacking out, freaking out, begging for it to stop--all the while assuming that this pain was only the beginning of a day-long marathon. It'd always been my plan to have an epidural, so the nurse called for that doctor once my 30 second recovery periods were taken up by vomiting. It took longer than necessary to start the epidural, mostly because I was afraid of sitting down during a contraction. Thankfully, the L&D nurse used her strictest voice, told me to sit, grabbed my hands, and forcing me to look into her safe, brown eyes, breathed with me. Once my brain accepted that sitting would actually bring relief--and not countless more hours of untold pain--I managed to be a decent breather. The relief from the epidural felt almost instant, and as my body slowly became able to tolerate the constant contractions, the nurses told me what I'd experienced wasn't normal.

• It wasn't normal to have constant contractions a minute apart, focused in the back, and only be dilated at 2
• It wasn't normal for labor to start that intensely and get to that level of worse in a matter of minutes
• And it was certainly not normal for labor that intense to start from one dose of the cervix ripening pill Cytotek. 

I had been no where near Pitocin, yet I'd been in Pitocin  misery and was well into labor. 

The next 3.5 hours were blissful, as my body felt more comfortable than it had in months. I gazed dreamily at Stephen, and wished he could experience the wonder of an epidural, too. My body started progressing, now that I could do fun things such as breathe, and my blood pressure rushed down the 50 points it had earlier climbed. The nurses came in every half an hour to change my position in bed, which seemed odd to me, but I was too comfortable to care. They gave me a shot to slow my contractions down, since they were still slamming my body every minute, but my uterus had other plans. Whenever a new person would come in the room, he/she would invariably ask "Pitocin?" and be greeted with an incredulous "no, just cervix ripening."

Just before 7 AM, the nurse checked me and told me that I was almost at a 5 and complimented me on my ability to still lift myself with my legs.

Then my OB came in...

While the epidural had blessedly taken away my body's ability to feel the minute-by-minute contractions, and had relaxed my body enough for it to progress, the rate of the contractions hadn't slowed. Landon was getting slammed by too strong-contractions, while my cervix progressed at a slower (and more reasonable) rate. He also wasn't dropping to where he needed to be, although no one was sure why. My doctor explained that, if I had actually gotten to the induction stage with Pitocin, it would be a simple matter of easing up on the amount of Pit. But I hadn't. My body had taken the warm up medicine and proceeded to try and run a marathon with it.

And of course, there was oxygen deprivation. While Landon was still healthy, his heart rate kept dipping lower than it should and he kept getting bursts of time without oxygen. My OB was very gentle, and not wanting a precipitous C-section, checked me twice more within 45 minutes, hoping that my dilation would move up to an 8. However, it didn't.

I quickly texted my mom and mother in law, who were on their way, that I might be in surgery by the time they actually arrived at the hospital. My mom, like any mother, was instantly worried about a her daughter getting a surprise C-section, but after hearing how oddly my labor was going, was assured that no one was forcing an necessary procedure. 

By the start of 8:00 AM, I was prepped and in the OR. 12 hours before, I'd assumed that would be when I'd begin Pitocin and the labor process--NOT when I'd be neatly cut open so that my baby could enter the world. The medical team was fantastic, as the OBs were gentle, kind folks, the anesthesiologist was a hilarious kindred spirit, and the nurses happy to be assisting in an urgent C-section, rather than an emergency. Plus, everyone wanted to see how my odd labor would end, and if the baby who wouldn't drop was actually huge or just stubborn.

I had the requisite operating room chills and shivers--much preferable to intense back labor in my opinion. The anesthesiologist chatted the entire time, and I drifted comfortably from listening to her stories to paying attention to the random tugging going around in my abdomen. Stephen was just pulling the camera out to prep it for Landon's birth when...he saw his son emerge. We'd been warned that he might not cry right away, so I was surprised when I heard his sweet grunts, informing the world that it really was too cold for his pink skin.

The OR was filled with...

"He's so pink!"

"Finally, a cute one!"

"Aww, look at that hair!"

"His head is huge! No wonder he didn't fit!"

And other accolades, as Landon began his first moments on earth. His official birth time was charted at 8:20 AM in the morning, ten hours after I had been given one, tiny pill. He arrived delightfully pink, surprisingly alert, a short, round 8lbs, 2 oz, and 19.5 inches, and dark hair crowned his massive 37 centimeter head, that he had been dutifully been trying to descend through my pelvis, only at a slight angle. I was delighted that I hadn't inadvertently grown a 10 pound baby, and that it really was a matter of the predicted large Maurer head and a bad angle.  Landon scored an impressive 9.9 on his APGAR, the missing .10 "because C-sections never get 10s" or something. 

He was bundled up and placed in a delighted Stephen's arms, and then brought over to my head and shoulders--while my torso was being masterfully stitched up. While I was gazing in awe at my newborn son, I was complimented on my "young, tight muscles", and Stephen actually got to record the event, something that I had forbidden with a vaginal birth. 

Happy--because I had my husband beside me, my baby in my arms, and muscles in my belly

"I'm in love."

It's been 48 hours since Landon's birth, and they have been beautiful hours. I've been recovering faster than even my lovely, optimistic doctors , and was just cleared to leave tomorrow morning since they're playing it safe. 

Landon has had none of the problems people often associate with inductions/epidurals/ and c-sections. He is absurdly healthy, alert, has a ridiculously strong latch (owie), and we are working hard to welcome my milk in!

Stephen has taken the role of daddy seamlessly, balancing work, baby worship, and wife doting beautifully.

Our little family now numbers three and we are so, so, so happy.

This morning we indulged in drooling over our baby, and he is already a spoiled prince, ready to receive homage.

I don't know why God chose to bless us with this darling. We certainly don't deserve him, but how we do adore him. 

Today I know this: I have been extraordinarily blessed by God. I have an amazing husband that got to be with me at the birth of our darling son, despite crazy extenuating circumstances. I had a short, accelerated, partially unexplained labor that lead to a fantastic c-section and recovery. I am blessed. 

Note: at the eleventh hour, Uncle Sam changed his mind, causing father, mother, and child to not be separated for months and months only a few days post birth. So I ended up with a baby, an awesome c-section scar, and a husband at home.