The Day My Life Changed Forever

January 22, 2012 was the day my life changed forever. On this day I gave birth to my first son, I became a mom, my heart doubled in size, I fell deeper in love with my husband, I watched my parents turn into grandparents and beam with pride, and my brothers turn into uncles and automatically take this baby boy under their wings. This was the day I witnessed God's most amazing miracle and a day I will never forget.

It all started around 2am early Sunday morning. I started to feel period-type cramps and they lasted until 4am. I didn’t wake up Tayt because they just felt like cramps and they were nothing that could be timed. A little after 4am it felt like one cramp was about to get stronger and all of the sudden I felt a POP! I jumped out of bed and my water broke! It was not what I thought it would be, a huge gush of water that would cover the floor like I'd seen in the movies, but much less. I even remember telling Tayt, “I THINK my water just broke”. "You think?" he replied, still half asleep. Immediately I started to feel contractions. I know now that I had not felt any real contractions earlier in my pregnancy. Everyone was right, when they are real you will KNOW! They started out at about 3 minutes apart and I watched the clock as they came and went a few times. The intensity quickly picked up as Tayt jumped in the shower. Within a few minutes they were coming every 1 ½ to 2 minutes and they were STRONG. They were lasting about a minute each, which meant that I only had 30 seconds to a minute in between each one. I feel like I skipped the whole step in the labor process where contractions are weak and come and go every 10 minutes and then stopped for a while...NO, these were the real deal and it was time. We didn’t even call the doctor, we just decided to go to the hospital. Luckily, there was no one on the road a little before 5am and Tayt quickly drove us to the hospital. I remember getting a contraction right as we pulled into the almost empty parking lot of Plano Presbyterian Hospital. We sat in the car until the contraction stopped and quickly walked across the parking lot and into the hospital. Another contraction came just as we were getting in the elevator and lasted until we stepped onto the Labor and Delivery floor. I got to my room at 5am and was at 6cm with strong contractions coming every 2 minutes.

(These were the first nurses that were there until shift change at 7am. Ironically, Jeanne had twins named Allison and Austin!)

My parents arrived soon after we did and at 5:55am I got my epidural and I was 8cm! After getting the epidural the pain was gone for a few hours...Thank God for the epidural! We talked and texted and everyone “watched “ my contractions on the monitor but I wasn’t feeling anything.

(Can you tell the epidural is working in these pictures?!?!!)

Around 9am the epidural started to wear off and they tried to bring it back without much luck. I was numb on one side of my body but not the other. I was almost at 10cm and Austin was at +2 station with just a little bit to go so I moved into a few different positions to try and get things moving along but the painful contractions were back and I was feeling a lot!

Around 10am I really started to push and with the help of my nurse Tracy, Tayt and a 20 year old paramedic in training I was able to move things along. (Yes, you read that right a 20 year old "kid" was there for my whole labor and delivery as part of his training to become a paramedic...I'm sure I gave him quite a show!) I will skip the details about the pushing, but lets just say I feel like I got a good idea of what people who don't get an epidural go through...ouch! Finally, Austin was close and Dr. Jaffee arrived for the final minutes of pushing. (Dr. Webster was not on call but I totally trusted her partner and honestly at that stage in the game I didn't care who delivered my baby.) We learned that Austin had the cord around his neck pretty tightly which was making it difficult for his head to come all the way down. But with a few more pushes he was out! At 11:29am on Sunday, January 22, 2012 I delivered our PERFECT baby boy, Austin Thomas. He weighed in at 6lbs 13oz and was 18.5 inches long. TAYT AND I WERE INSTANTLY IN LOVE!!!

Austin spent the first hour of his life on my bare chest, skin to skin. This was one of the best feelings ever. Immediately the pain was gone and all I could think about was how much I loved this little baby. We spent the next 48 hours in the hospital with amazing nurses and lots of family and friends visiting! I was changed forever that day and wouldn't dream of going back to the old me.