Charles Mark Lanham - birth story

February 12, 2018

Charles Mark Lanham - birth story

July 6th: I am currently 37 weeks and 6 days pregnant. And like I said previously, I was feeling terrible. Cramping (which I now realize were contractions), diarrhea, mild fever. Luckily I had an appointment with my midwife this morning. I told her how terrible I was feeling, like, I couldn't even sit up. I felt like I was dying. She told me it must be a bug or something. She checked me, I was still only dilated to a 1, which was super disappointing. Then we checked on baby boy one more time (where I got super nauseous while laying on the table and had to sit up and take a break). The rest of the day I just laid around all day, thinking I had a stomach bug of some kind. It wasn't until around 7:00 pm that I realized I wasn't getting any better, only worse. My cramping was constant, I now had a 103 degree fever, and had uncontrollable chills. I called my mom and she told me I really needed to go to L&D to check on me and baby. So, we called our dear friends John and Aspen to come stay with Lucy. They played with her and got her in bed while Jesse and I headed to the hospital.

We got there, got checked in, I put a gown on, peed in a cup, then laid in the bed waiting to get hooked up to the monitors. Once the belly bands were on, we could tell I was indeed having contractions! And poor baby boy's heartbeat was quite high. Because of his high HR the nurse took some blood, did a amniotic fluid test to make sure my water didn't break, and checked me. I was now 3 cm dilated! Once we got the tests back (all negative!) they got an IV started to get some fluids going, while we continued to monitor baby. Baby wasn't looking too great, and my contractions were right on top of each other. The nurse checked me again, this time I was at a 4. The midwife decided to admit me....we're having this baby tonight!

The pain was obviously getting stronger and harder to bear, so I got some pain meds and zofran and then they put us in our own room. I was able to sleep on and off for the next couple hours before getting checked again. I was now almost 6 cm dilated! Time to move to a delivery room!

July 7th: We moved rooms, got all settled, then I asked for an epidural. The contractions were reallly hurting at this point, way more than I have ever felt because I got an epidural so early with Lucy. It was getting bad. So, epidural went smoothly, I did great, the NA did great. I was so excited to start getting relief! The midwife broke my water after and that really got things going.

Well... For some reason this time around the epidural didn't want to work on me. After about 15 minutes (all while contractions are one right after the other) I got another bolus of medicine to see if that would get me numb. At this point my butt and legs are starting to lose feeling but abdomen and crotch are still feeling everything. Perfect, right? I'm now at a 7. In between contractions and me crying and yelling, I kept asking for more medicine or for someone to figure something out! I was not prepared for this pain, that's for sure.

After about 30 minutes of contractions every minute or so, the pain got real bad. Like, me crying and yelling and telling Jesse I couldn't do it any more! The pain never went away, felt like a constant contraction and so much pressure down there. All while continuing to have a fever. By now the epidural medication was working from my pubic bone down and my butt. Abdomen was untouched. The nurse finally checked me...COMPLETE! Time for baby!

I was hurting so bad. Then slowly but surely... my stomach started to lose feeling. As we waited for the midwife to get there, I put my contacts in, brushed my hair, and tried to prepare myself for baby boy! Now that I wasn't completed overtaken by the contractions. The midwife showed up, and so did all the other respiratory nurses, set things up, and it was go time!

2.5 pushes later and my midwife telling me to "stop stop stop, that's good!", baby boy was born at 4:59am! Crying and screaming, just how we like them. The first thing Jesse said was, "he looks just like Lucy!" He was able to be on my chest for a minute before they needed to do a little suction and check his temperature. As expected, baby boy had a high temperature as well. Poor guy was just roasting inside of me! Jesse stayed with baby as I got stitched up. (Luckily I was completely numb at this point!)

The rest of the day is kind of a blur...I got some more medicine for my fever and it almost immediately broke! And when it did I was drippppping in sweat. Just soaked. It was crazy how much better I felt. Just needed baby boy here! We sent my placenta to the lab to check for infection -- that was what was expected to be making me so sick and causing baby's heart rate to be so high.

We got cleaned up and changed, snuggled baby for a bit, then headed to our postpartum room. We ate breakfast, worked on baby nursing, and tried to get some sleep.

Soooo, as for Lucy girl, Aspen was able to stay the night with her, which was seriously such a blessing. I am so grateful for her and her help! Jesse went home for a bit then brought Lucy to meet baby boy! She didn't think too much of him, but was sweet and hugged him for a minute then went about her business, haha! Jesse took Lucy back home when Mark and Stephanie arrived! We were also lucky that it was a weekend and they live so close and were able to come; to see baby and to help out with Lucy. So they stayed the night of the 7th with her while we were still at the hospital. It was really strange and a bit scary for me not to have any family around, especially my mom. But it also was special just to have Jesse in the delivery room. All we had to do was survive for the next five days until my parents arrived!

As for his name...we seriously had no idea what to name him. We had a few names going into it that we somewhat liked. Charlie, being one of them. Alexander the other. As soon as we were able to hold him, we felt his sweet little spirit, and just felt like Charlie fit him better. And after some deliberation, possibly arguing, we settled on Charles. Even though I definitely don't love that name, it is a family name that Jesse really likes and would let me still call him Charlie. So, our son...

Charles Mark Lanham

Born at 4:59am on July 7th, 2017

8lbs 3 oz, 22 inches

A picture I sent to family on snapchat just hours before going to the hospital

Not a lot of variability for baby boy...

Little sneak, sleeping away ;) Jesse was, of course, so great during this whole thing. Once we knew we were staying and going to meet our son before we felt prepared, he gave me a wonderful blessing. And he was so supportive during labor. I'm grateful to have him by my side.

A really attractive picture of me hurrying to get my contacts in before pushing!

And wiping smeared makeup off my face...

Cutting the cord

Holding daddy's finger :)

If that's not the face of a tired Momma, I don't know what is!

My sweet boy! :)

The best part about having a baby. I love skin-to-skin right after birth. Makes me feel so connected with the little human that's been growing inside me!