Axton Birth Story

Pretty sure Axton's birth story is the most simple - the most 'here it is' birth story ever.

My water broke at 5 pm. And I remember freaking out when my water broke with Talmage. We got to the hospital in a hurry because we thought I would go into labor asap and I was freaked out by the idea of my water being broken and him suffocating in there. Should have looked into that second detail more - but whatevs. So we had rushed to the hospital. And then I had spent the next 12 hours wide awake and pacing the halls to make him come faster. Which didn't work. I wasn't doing that again.

Called the midwife up - let her know what was going on and she said she would have someone check on us in the morning.

I went to bed at 10. I meant to get to bed earlier, but I couldn't sleep because I was too excited/nervous. Steven went to bed even later than I did because he was so jittery. I had myself set up with a heat pack for my back because I had kinked something in the first trimester, dry-heaving into the toilet. It hurt something fierce and I was having back labor. The heat helped.

Woke up at 12:30 with a contraction that was hard enough to wake me up. Went back to sleep and was woken up once a hour until 4:00 - which is when they started getting closer together and harder. Did that until 5:00, by which they were 5 min. apart and I was having to breathe through them. Woke Steven up at 5:00, planning on him being just 5 minutes to get in the car. It took 20. We got to the hospital at 6:00 and Axton was born at 6:34. They didn't have a time to put in a saline drip or anything. Basically I stripped my clothes off in the bathroom, got a gown on and the midwife was there and I was ready to start pushing and out he came - 5 good contractions later.

I was actually a little disappointed. I had really wanted to do a water delivery and when we got there, everyone knew there wouldn't be time to set it up. The midwife joked as she was sewing me up a little, because I tear so easily, "I've never heard of anyone wishing their labor was a little longer. That just doesn't happen."

And that was that. The real story starts after we got put in our recovery room. A 9 lb 11 oz baby is a big one and Axton has to have his blood sugar checked every three hours for three times, and then if he passed that third one - he would be done. Well, he didn't pass it. So they had to stick him three more times every 2 hours to make sure he was maintaining and the nurse even put some glutose gel in his cheeks to help him out. And the nightmare of nursing began. Right there.

A big baby takes a lot of food and I just couldn't get him satisfied. I was terrified that he would be like Talmage. Not have enough energy to even complain about not having enough food. So we started giving him supplements, even at the hospital. And I requested a pump so I could start in on that. He had tongue tie and my nipples had blisters before they got someone in to cut his frenulum on Monday. The nipple shield didn't help a whole lot.

We had a lactation specialist come in a lot on Sunday and Monday and had an appointment made up for Wednesday to check in on things. And then it just makes my boobs ache to think about the rest of it. So we'll just leave it at that. But I HATE nursing. Know that.