Gibson's Birth Story

Hello and happy Wednesday! Today I wanted to get a bit more personal and share Gibson's birth story. I love reading other birth stories, so I'm just hoping y'all do, too. And don't worry, I have pre-screened all the photos so you won't be scarred.

First let me give a little bit of background. We were very certain we were done after two kids. My pregnancy with Porter was super uncomfortable, and he wasn't the easiest baby. Two seemed like plenty. But after a lot of back and forth, should we or shouldn't we, and a lot of prayer, we decided we needed one more member of our family. And thank the Lord because Gibson is the world's sweetest baby and I can't imagine not having him.

I also want to share that Evan was born at 38 weeks. My water broke but labor never really started on its own. He was born 30 hours after my water broke. It was exhausting. I was really nervous going into the end of my pregnancy with Porter in fear of another long labor. He was pretty comfy in there so I ended up being induced at almost 41 weeks. My labor was 6.5 hours from start to finish. Definitely an improvement!! Needless to say I didn't know what to expect this time around since my two experiences were so different.

I had braxton hicks contractions pretty often throughout my last trimester. So I spent a lot of time wondering if they were ever going to turn into the real deal. I did all of the (safe) things to try to encourage labor to happen starting around 37 weeks. I spent most of the day bouncing on a ball. I went for lots of walks. Did lots of squats. Nadda.

On the day I made 39 weeks I was getting ready to put Porter down for his nap around noon, and I got hit by a contraction. It wasn't horrible but it was definitely different than any others I had experienced. I looked at my watch just to note the time. About 15-20 minutes later I had another one. This kept up for about an hour. So I shot Jonathan a text to let him know just in case. Over the next two hours they moved up to closer to 8-10 minutes apart. I still wasn't sure if it was real since I'd never gone into labor on my own. So I was drinking lots of water and going between walking around and propping my feet up. When Jonathan got home around 4:00 I went and took a warm bath to see if that made them subside. That's when I started to have a few around 3 minutes apart, and I started getting nervous. I decided I should probably get out of the tub and go wash my hair and shave my legs...because apparently that's just what we women think we need to do when labor hits. I tried to go lay down for a bit after that, but I could not get comfortable. I don't think Jonathan 100% believed me, but when they were consistently under 5 minutes apart I asked him to pack his bag.

I got up and tried to blow dry my hair, which was ridiculous because I was contracting every 3 minutes. So I finally gave in and called my doctor (this was about 5:30). She said it was time to head to the hospital. So we called my sister to head over to stay with the boys and hit the road about 6:00. I was consistently contracting every 3 minutes all the way to the hospital (about a 15 minute drive). I sat in the assessment waiting area for what felt like way too long, and then they finally put me in the room to be checked and monitored. The monitor was picking up my still-every-3-minute contractions, but when the nurse came in to check me around 7:00 PM I was a whopping....ZERO centimeters dilated. WHAT? They told me they would monitor me for a while longer and left the room.

I was feeling really discouraged, so we prayed and solicited prayers from friends. The contractions stayed about every 3 minutes, but were starting to feel more intense. They came back in the room around 45 minutes later to check me again. The nurse kind of made a face, and I was bracing myself to hear her say I still wasn't dilated. But she said I was at a 4! She grabbed another nurse to come and double check, and she said I was around 4-5 cm. Praise Jesus! I waited a few minutes and they wheeled me up to the room. That was around 8:00 PM.

My sweet friend Heidi was thankfully working that night, so I got to have her as my nurse. My contractions were intensifying as they were doing the check-in questions and taking my blood. But I was ok in between. I was, however, ready for an epidural. Thankfully the anesthesiologist showed up very quickly, and life got much better.

About an hour or so later I was at 7-8 cm and my water broke. With Porter I went from 6-10 centimeters in about 5 minutes, so I told them they may want to go ahead and call the doctor since she wasn't already there.  And sure enough, about 5 minutes later I started to feel the pressure. 10 centimeters, y'all. And without any pitocin! I was so proud of my body. They started wheeling in all the equipment. The pressure was crazy intense and they made me lay on my side as we waited for the doctor to arrive.

After about 5 minutes of that while I death-gripped Jonathan's hand, I asked them to call her. And I said if she was more then 5 minutes away then we were NOT waiting. I wanted that baby OUT. The pressure to push was way worse than any contraction. When they called she was in the parking lot about to head up. When she walked in they immediately stuck my legs in the holder things and I started to push. No time for tarps or any of that mess.

I pushed through 2 or 3 contractions, and our sweet baby boy came into the world at 10:38 PM.

He came into the world SCREAMING, which is the best sound in the world in the delivery room! I was caught between laughing and crying with joy to finally see him.

After everyone cleared the room we knew we had to finally decide on a name. We had such a hard time deciding on something beforehand. Coming up with a third boy name is hard! And I just couldn't quite picture the reality of 3 children so I think giving him a name was just too much before he was actually here. Gibson John was the only name we had always come back to, and thankfully it felt right when we saw him.

For the first few hours he would immediately cry whenever you moved him or unswaddled him, but that didn't last long. He has turned into the world's calmest baby. We even got a solid 5 hours of sleep the second night in the hospital.

His big brothers were so happy to meet him, and I thought my heart might explode finally seeing the three of them together.

I am seriously in awe of this precious boy, and I am honored to be his mama. I can't wait to watch him grow and to see the type of man he will become.Although I really just want to hit the pause button on his 4 month old self because he is adorable. And he doesn't talk back yet #realtalk. I am fairly certain he will be our last (I know I've said it before but I mean it this time!), so I am soaking up every bit of baby-goodness that I can. I don't want to take a single moment for granted.

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I love birth stories! So if you have one you want to share, feel free to leave it in the comments!