Birth Story

Caleb Benjamen’s birth story May 4, 2009

Sunday (5-3) morning I started having contractions that came every 2-3 minutes that lasted about 2 hours. But they ended up stopping even though they were pretty intense. They even stopped enough for me to go back to sleep around 7:30 am. When I woke up, I still had a few occasional painful contractions through out the day, but never ones that were very consistent. Most of them felt like the ones that I had been having the past 4 weeks or so. Annoying and really, really tight. After we put Luke to bed close to 9pm, I started to have them again. Just like I had that morning. Except this time they were about every 3-8 minutes apart, and not quite as painful as before. So, I took an Ambien and went to bed trying to get some sleep. We didn’t want to call the doctor only to have them tell us to come back into to the hospital and then send us home. So we waited to see if anything else would happen.

I woke up again early Monday (5-4) morning, around 5:30am, (almost the exact same time as Sunday morning) and started having them more frequently, around 2-3 minutes, and definitely more painful. They lasted about an hour and half, and I was able to go back to sleep…again. When I woke up in the morning around 8am, I woke up to a pretty intense one, but they weren’t coming as frequently as 2-3 minutes, they were more like 5-9 minutes. So, I just started to go about my day, took a shower, and then decided to put a call into the doctor just so that they knew what was going on. They told me that they wanted me to come into the office to be checked; just to “make sure” those contractions didn’t do much since I had been dilated 1-2cm for the past 4 weeks.

So, I called my sister in law to see if she would watch Luke for me while I ran up to the doctor’s office. And Brandon offered to come, but asked if I could handle driving up there myself since he had some work he needed to get done, and I told him I could and that it probably was nothing. I just wanted to make sure all was okay. My mom, mother in law and sister all were either working or had school, so none of them were available to watch Luke or even go with me. So off to the hospital I went. All by myself.

I got there, checked in and had to wait for probably 40 minutes before going back. All while my contractions were picking up again and coming consistently. Maybe 5 minutes apart or so. They called me back and my doctor checked me. She said I was 3 cm! I couldn’t believe it. She then asked me “how do you feel about having a baby today?” To which I replied, “really?” She said she would give me the option of either being admitted or going home and seeing “what would happen as the day progressed” I told her I would rather just be admitted. So, she called over to the hospital and told her I was on my way and off to Labor and Delivery I went around noon. All by myself!

I called Brandon and everyone else in the family to let them know what was going on. Brandon had to finish up a few things with work and my mom and sister headed straight over with Luke. (They both left work and school and picked Luke up from Kayla’s). They told me initially I would have my csection between 4-6pm that day, but it kept getting bumped back as the day went on because of other ladies who were more of an emergency than I was. When I got there they gave me Nubain for the pain, and then I got my epidural around 2:30pm. I finally felt so comfortable after a month of having constant contractions.

The rest of our family finally arrived and we waited around until they said it was time. They finally took me back to have the section around 8:15pm or so and Caleb Benjamen was born at 8:51 pm. 7lbs 7oz, 21 inches, and a head circumference of 13.5 inches! He was a big boy and Dr. Gaudreau said that because he was so big, he more than likely wouldn’t have fit and that is why my contractions never dilated me more than they did. He couldn’t push as hard on my cervix as he needed to. And after lying there all day in the hospital, I had only made it to 4 cm when they took me back. So, I’m glad I had opted for a csection anyway.

We stayed in the hospital until Friday (5-8) afternoon and came home around 2:30pm. He lost some weight at the hospital, he went from 7.7 to 7.4 to 6.13 back up to 7.1, which was great news, he was already gaining weight when we left. He is doing great at nursing and wants to eat about every 2-3 hours. Round the clock. We feel so blessed to have this little boy here with us and healthy. Our family is feeling complete.