Wes' birth story starts really early on the morning of September 28, 2018 - Like 3am early! We had scheduled Wes to be induced on his due date, which was September 28 - also our wedding anniversary! (Awwww!) We were all packed and ready to check in to the hospital at 6am, but during the 3am hour, I woke up to contractions. I started timing them and they were pretty regular! I couldn't go back to sleep, so I stayed laying in bed, timing contractions and wondering if I should wake Jon up.
Around 4am, Jon woke up and asked what I was doing awake. I told him I was having contractions, they were 4 to 5 minutes apart, lasting about 1 minute, and getting increasingly more painful. We both got up and got ready to head to the hospital. At 5:30, we got ourselves in the car and started driving. Since there is a Starbucks across the street from the hospital, Jon decided to stop off and grab a coffee in the drive thru. This Starbucks always has a long line in the morning, and sure enough, even at 5:30am, there was a line. I remember sitting behind a car that must've ordered the whole menu while I was having a painful contraction. I joked that they needed to hurry up because I was having a baby!!!
We got to the hospital and up to the labor and delivery floor at 6am. They took us to the room where we would deliver the baby and got us settled. I put on my hospital gown and they hooked everything up to my belly. They asked me if I was having any contractions, and I let them know that I was. At 7am, when they checked me for the first time, I was 4-5 centimeters dilated! All on my own! Without an induction! I was super excited about that.
They held off on the Pitocin to see if I would continue to progress on my own. Also, once I was hooked up to the machines, they noticed that Wes' heart rate would slow down whenever I had a contraction. That was another reason they did not want to start the Pitocin. At first, it didn't seem like that big of a deal, but as my contractions progressed, the nurses started to act more worried about his dropping heart rate. They had me shift positions, onto my side, to see if that would help - it didn't. His heart rate would slow down so much during each contraction that sometimes it almost seemed to stop. We could hear it on the monitors and it was a scary sound when it got very slow. The nurses said it was most likely just his position as he was traveling down the birth canal, but I started to panic. I didn't want anything to happen to him and I also didn't want an emergency C-section. I got very nervous and started crying a few times. In general, I felt very nervous on the day of Wes' birth. I had previously had two completely smooth birth experiences, and I was just really nervous about having something go wrong with this third one. I had a lot of anxiety leading up to the day and on the day of.
Time flew by as I labored, and they told me I could have my epidural at any time. I felt like I was ok for a bit - the contractions weren't unbearable - so I held off for a couple hours. Around 8am, I requested my epidural, but it took the anesthesiologist an hour to make it to my room. By that time, I was in a lot of pain and wishing I would have requested it earlier! The epidural went totally fine, and I was pain free in no time, around 9am.
At 10:45am, I felt something wet between my legs and thought my water had broke. I asked Jon to come take a look. He didn't tell me what he saw, just told me to call the nurse. When the nurse came in, she took a look and said, "Oh, that's blood!" I panicked a bit. Was that normal? She told me it was and said that probably meant it was baby time. She checked me and sure enough, I was fully dilated and it was time to push!
The nurse paged my doctor who works in the building next door and she came right over. By 11am, I was ready to push! I pushed a few times and time seemed to slow down. It felt like nothing was happening. I remembered how fast the pushing had gone with Elle, and I started to get nervous that this would take longer, but I was wrong! Only 12 minutes later, our little Wes Wild was here!
As soon as he came out, Jon cut the cord, they cleaned him off a tiny bit, wrapped him up and put him on my chest. He curled up against me with his little hands on the side of his face and stayed like that for a while! I immediately fell in love with him. I could just tell his sweet, loving spirit in that first moment! It was literally love at first site. I was so nervous about having a boy after having two girls and didn't know how I would feel, but I fell in love with that little boy the second I saw his face and have only fallen more and more in love with him every day since. It was such a calming thing to immediately know that yes, this was the person that was supposed to complete our family. He was perfect for us. I knew that immediately.
The fun thing is, my body did this one all on its own! They never gave me Pitocin before the birth! (They did give it to me after he was born to help everything contract back down.) So induction or no induction, this little boy was coming out right on time on his due date! Now every year, we will celebrate his birthday and our anniversary on September 28, and we'll always remember what a perfect anniversary gift he was. :)
After he was born, I just held him for an hour or so, snuggled against my chest, while my epidural wore off. I will always remember that time of us snuggling, me eating a sandwich from the cafeteria and drinking a Sprite, Jon taking photos, us talking about his little face and hands and his light hair. Once it was time for us to move to our recovery room, Jon took him and held him for the first time while I got ready to relocate. They started me on my Pitocin drip at that time, and that's when the after birth contractions started. These were so painful for me after Elle's birth and even more painful after Wes' birth. I experienced them for days after we got home and sometimes I would just cry through them because they hurt so bad. It was like labor contractions all over again, but for days!
Jon's mom came to El Paso for Wes' birth to help us with the girls, so Jon was able to stay with me at the hospital that first night. No one got much sleep, though! Wes would not sleep in the bassinet, and I was terrified for someone to fall asleep while holding him. So we alternated being awake all night and taking turns holding him and changing diapers, and I just remember how exhausted my body was. I was so thankful when the sun started to come up. At this hospital, there was no nursery that could take him for a few hours to let us sleep. That was rough! But we made it through!
The next morning, Wes got to meet his sisters for the first time! I had bought presents for the girls from Wes and I gave them to the girls when they got to the hospital. I remember Elle kept asking how they were from Wes, like how did he get them?? I told her he drove to the store and picked them out himself - they thought that was hilarious.
Wes also got his first sponge bath that morning, and he was circumcised. We were very nervous about the procedure and had done a lot of research before about if we even wanted to do it or not. We decided in the end that we would do it, but we chose our own doctor to do it and he came to the hospital and performed the procedure. Jon's mom cried when they took Wes back for it - we all anxiously awaited his return. He came back sleeping, completely peaceful, all bundled up nice and tight. We were so relieved that it went well and that he was ok!
We were cleared to go home later that day, so we only spent one night in the hospital! We headed home as a family of five, and our arms and hearts have been SO FULL ever since.
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