Where to begin! I always "knew" Tatum would be early - I just had a feeling. The night before I went into labor I thought maybe that was it or it was just wishful thinking - I wasn't sure. On Saturday 10/14, we'd walked to the fall festival in our neighborhood and done a lot of walking/standing/etc. - I was pooped by the time we got home BUT we'd been trying to do a weekend date night the past few weekends and I was always too tired and would pass it up so I got myself ready and off to dinner we went.
I mostly had back labor so I felt my first pains as we got to dinner and thought to myself "maybe tonight is the night!" - I nervously ate my way through dinner to get home and relax - I skipped the seafood I'd been hoping for and we split a pizza instead.
Around 3am I woke up with some more back pains and just started timing them to see - about 12-15 minutes apart and totally tolerable. An hour later I quietly went downstairs to walk around, grab and ice pack and head back up to lay down. Another hour later around 5am I decided to jump in the shower "just in case" - my biggest thing was I wanted a shower before going to the hospital so I figured if I showered and it was time to go, I'd be ready and if not then it was out of the way for the day. I hadn't woken Derek up yet but he said later he heard me turn the shower on and new the baby coming that day!
Sweet Stella new exactly what was going on - she was cuddled right up next to me, more so than usual, when I left the room I'd see her eyes watching for me to come back - my little labor nurse. I laid back down after the shower and around 9am decided to get up, walk around and see what that did - I was much more comfortable being up and mobile - not that I was in too much pain anyway. Since my labor started very slowly and fairly painlessly I had lots of time to prepare - I washed our towels, finished packing our hospital bags, tidied up anything I could. I'd been up for hours so I was pretty tired and headed for the couch - I was in and out of sleep as the back labor would wake me up every 8 minutes or so at this point - still not terrible pain. A couple hours later I finally got up to go to the bathroom and felt a little weird - I realized that my water had broken (With how rare they say that is - I never thought it would happen to me!) - it wasn't fully broken so not too bad of an experience.
Derek was out watching football so I texted him, called the doctor and while my contractions were about 4-6 minutes apart the pain wasn't that bad - if anything after the water broke it was better. The doctor said to stay home a bit more and they'd definitely pick up so we ate lunch, brought our bags down, loved on Stella and around 4pm even though they weren't that much stronger we decided to take off for the hospital just to see what was up. I didn't tell anyone we were going because part of me thought we were for sure going to be sent home.
I was able to comfortably walk into the labor and delivery wing prompting the nurse to ask if I was visiting someone and I nervously said no I think I'm here to have a baby - after that I thought for sure I was going home and felt so stupid! After a little bit of waiting I was officially admitted around 5:30 and I'll never forget the doctor's look of shock when she said good thing you came in - you're dilated 6 centimeters, 100% effaced and the baby is low and ready. They also received the test results back that my water did in fact break. At that point everyone kind of stopped what they were doing - the nurse stopped my admission work (which wasn't finished until sometime overnight) to start my iv and bloodwork, Derek ran to call my mom to tell her to hurry to pickup Stella so they could get to the hospital in time and I just walked around and texted some friends and family the big news that the baby was on the way! For a few hours it was a toss up whether he'd be born on the 15th or the 16th.
I still wasn't overly in pain, it was easier for me to sit at the edge of the bed or walk around - I'd always figured I'd get the epidural as soon as I got there to prevent any pain but I was doing fine so I kept waiting since they said within about 15 minutes it could be given since things were quiet - it was a Sunday night after all (honestly, I always thought I'd get it around 4 centimeters, ha!) but the anesthesiologist got a sudden call that she'd be away for an hour or two so we all agreed better now than later so about 7:30 I nervously got it and luckily could still somewhat feel my legs and such. The nurse rotated me side to side and on my back every bit or so and by 11pm I was 8 centimeters.
I didn't want the baby to come before midnight (but would have happily welcomed him early!) - I love even numbers and would have preferred the 16th but really I didn't want our two night stay to start with one night being the recovery and the nurses agreed - but the baby wasn't ready anyway.
Even though I'd barely slept the night before and didn't sleep this night at all, I preferred that it was overnight - it was a peaceful and calm setting, the floor was quiet and while I didn't have a birth plan at all - if I could have picked one, it would have been exactly as things unfolded. We loved our two labor and delivery nurses from the second we walked in, the vibe in the room was relaxed, joking, laughs and fun. We were able to even get two naps in for about an hour or so each. By a little after 1am I was finally to 9 centimeters - getting so close! I was so happy to be able to sip on some icy water and enjoy a popsicle.
I could feel the epidural wearing off a little bit so they topped it off twice before pushing began. By 4am I was 10 centimeters and ready to go. When all was said and done I pushed for just under an hour until our little boy was born at 5:27am - Tatum let out cries right away and we couldn't believe he was here!
I couldn't be more thankful for the positive experience and how everything unfolded. I'm so glad that he was early and it was a "surprise" of when to go to the hospital.
We spent about an hour enjoying him ourselves and letting him get cleaned up, weighed, footprinted, etc. before my parents came back to meet him - I was so excited to see them as grandparents and just see them in general! About an hour later we moved up to the maternity floor and after we got settled Derek walked to wawa to grab us hoagies as I was starving.
After a quick nap we spent the rest of the day fighting over who would hold him and getting settled in.
The rest of our hospital stay...
Monday night we had a nice visit with family and some friends and the rest was a blur - I was so exhausted.
Even with little sleep, on Tuesday we felt so refreshed! I think we barely put Tatum down the whole day, the photographer came in for newborn pictures, he had a few appointments, we had a few more visitors and also some downtime.
We were getting sick of our room so for our last dinner we wheeled Tatum out to the lounge, which was right next to our room, and enjoyed our meal out there.
By Wednesday morning we were a mix of sad to leave the comfort of the hospital but eager to get home. We spent the morning getting our stuff together, getting all the discharge information and then changing Tatum from his hospital clothes into his going home clothes, packed him up in the car seat and headed home to start our new life as a family of four (including Stella, of course!)
