Pregnancy My Way

Spoiler alert: This post may be too much information for any male readers out there ...

I always believed that pregnancy was easy for women. God created us to carry babies and it never crossed my mind that some of us may not be good at it! Admittedly, before I was pregnant with Brynn I had never been around many pregnant women, and women in the movies breeze through their 9 months.

This was not the case for me. Everything was fine with the majority of my pregnancy with Brynn until I reached 36 wks. I woke up for a few days running with mild menstrual-like cramps, so finally called my OB, who told me to come in right away. She sent me over to the hospital, and it turns out I was have contractions every 5 mins. Who knew??? I didn't feel a thing. I was put on strict bed rest, only allowed up from a horizontal position to eat, go to weekly appointments to have an ultrasound, and with my OB, and to swim. Oh, and did I mention the medicine I had to take? It made me me shake, and feel icky, but stopped the contractions.

Statistically, once you stop taking the medicine at 36 wks, labor doesn't start for at least 2-3 weeks. Not with me. I went into labor 34 hours after I stopped taking the medicine. After getting up to use the restroom at about 4am, my waters broke as I got back into bed. Brynn was born 1 hr and 15 mins later - we barely made it to the hospital in time! Brynn wasn't breathing when he was born, since he came out so fast, but was off the oxygen with in 24 hrs, and released with me right on time.

Oh, how quickly we forget the pain and horror of it all!

A year and a half later I was pregnant with Alex. After about 5 weeks into that pregnancy I started some light bleeding. This continued on and off until I was 24 wks, with me being on bed rest that whole time. Jon didn't leave for work until 2:15pm, so he looked after Brynn in the mornings and my parents helped out by paying one of my friends to take Brynn from 2:30 until 6:30, feeding him dinner.

That was really hard on me - a stay-at-home mum who couldn't look after her son properly! But he was a very active 2 yr old, and so very social that he most likely had a better time with his buddies anyway!

At around 24 wks I stopped bleeding, but started have contractions, so the bed rest continued. At 32 wks they put me on the same med's I took with Brynn, and then Alex was born at 36 wks also.

I was in the hospital a total of five times with that pregnancy! Once while we were in Phoenix for Mary Rose's wedding, and four other times at home.

I only had to stay overnight one time, because it was pretty late by the time they were able to stop the contractions. I was exactly 36 wks that day and my OB was thinking about encouraging the contractions. However the nurse in charge of the baby nursery asked her not to, because they had 2 sets of twins and another baby with some medical issues, and they didn't want to possibility of another sick baby, not that anyone actually expected Alex to need anything. So the contractions were stopped and I was sent home the next day.

My parents and other families in our area who used to live in Hong Kong were hosting a huge reunion that weekend, with loads of old friends coming, so I went straight from the hospital that morning to one of the reunion events. I did stayed seated for most of it!

On my fifth visit to our Family Center at the hospital, the nurse didn't even let me get into the bed until she knew for sure I was having the baby this time! She said she didn't want to change the sheets if I just got sent home!!!!

That was 10:30am. I called my friend Alia, who was visiting her family home from NY, and she came over to be with us. I had an epidural at 1pm and Alex was born at 1:20pm. I went from a 5 to having a baby in 20 mins! At least I had an epidural this time. There was no time for anything except oxygen with Brynn.

I will forever be grateful to the nurse who encouraged my OB to send me home 3 days earlier. By the time Alex was born, the baby nursery was almost empty. I was the only lady on the ward in active labor, and so Alex had the attention of all the nurses and Dr's he needed. They looked after him for 5 hrs, until the Flight For Life nurses arrived from Denver Children's Hospital.

But that is a whole separate story ...

Jon told me that he never wanted to watch me give birth again, since he didn't know if he could handle the stress of another sick baby. So three months after Alex was born we made a permanent decision for me not to get pregnant again. They day Jon went to see the 'man' Dr I was struggling with the idea that I might want more kids one day.

"Honey," Jon said, "If we want more kids, we'll adopt." Little did we know how soon that would come to be.