I actually cannot believe I am writing this, because it means Tatum is finally here! We are so excited and have just absolutely loved every second of being new parents– no sleep and all! She is the sweetest little angel baby (not bias at all LOL) and we are just so grateful for a healthy, happy baby.
Little WARNING in advance– I am being 100% open about all the details here, so if ya don’t want to know some of the dirty sides to labor maybe don’t read.😆
Tatum’s Birth Story
So contrary to what it may have seemed like on social media, my labor was actually pretty long. I was in labor for a total of 15 hours– she took her time until the time was perfectly right (ill explain what I mean by that in a bit).
We spent Saturday watching a lacrosse game and then went and ate at Chuy’s after, so we had a pretty busy day that morning. Once we got home I was exhausted, so I just relaxed on the couch and Kenneth went to check out his brother’s new truck for a bit. It was about 9 pm and I started having some really weird pulses/cramps in my stomach. Once I had about three that came and went, I was like ok these may be contractions. To be honest, I had no idea what they were. I even called my mom to double check before calling Kenneth to let him know. So the contractions were not black and white for me like I thought, but since there was rhythm to them that was coming and going every ten minutes I figured I would go with my gut instinct. I called Kenneth after about an hour (no need to alarm otherwise) and he was home within five minutes. They kept coming and going at the same rate (I was using a contractions calculator to time them–highly recommend getting one because you really don’t feel like keeping track of time when you are in the middle of a contraction). At this point, it was a bit past midnight and since I could not really tell if I was in active labor and I was not in any pain at this point, we decided to have our bags packed and go to sleep– that way if they got any worse it would wake me up and we could go. Now warning here is the TMI part–but its just part of it friends. I went to the restroom before going to bed and I was bleeding pretty intensely, so at that point we decided it was time to go ahead and head to the hospital.
Once we got to the hospital, I was admitted around 1 am and was held in triage for a few hours. They hooked me up to all the monitors and confirmed that I was indeed in labor. From here, it was just a waiting game to see if I progressed AKA if I became more dilated as time passed. I was still bleeding pretty badly, so they kept a watch on that. Apparently, heavy bleeding is a very common labor symptom that I did not know about at all. About two hours passed and I had progressed from a 1 to a 4, so they confirmed that I would be moving to labor/delivery and Tatum was going to be born that day!
They moved me into my room pretty quickly and from there my contractions went from a 1 to 10 on a scale of uncomfortable. I did get an epidural, but there was someone in front of me, so I had to sit and wait my turn. Not going to lie, that was probably one of the more mentally strengthening hours of my life, to put it lightly. Kenneth was such a big help in getting me through all of those contractions, as they were coming much more frequently and stronger. Once I finally got my epidural which was around 4 am, (for the record, the epidural is a breeze ladies LOL), everything definitely became a lot more relaxed. I was able to get a little bit of sleep and again it was just a waiting game until I was dilated enough to push.
Around 11 am, I could finally tell it was ready to push. You feel a bit of pressure down there, even with an epidural. I called in the nurse to let her know and at this point my epidural felt like it had worn off quite a bit, because I was feeling things I should not have been feeling. Because I am a little bit on the taller side, I needed a much heavier dosage than usual, so that is why it had worn off. I was in a lot of pain, but the anesthesiologist was very quick and got everything fixed ASAP. After letting my epidural kick back in, Kenneth and the nurse began to help me push. After pushing a few times, Tatum’s heart rate was dropping pretty significantly and I got the labor shakes. The labor shakes are something I also did not know could happen, but pretty much the hormones in your body freak out and your whole body shakes. They are not painful– you just feel like you are really cold and cannot stop shaking. At this point, they had me stop pushing and put an oxygen mask on me. They let me rest for about 20 minutes with the oxygen mask, in order to try and let my body relax and get more oxygen to Tatum. The doctor came in and decided to keep the oxygen mask on while continuing to push again. I maybe pushed 2-3 more times and Tatum was born!
Back to what I said in the beginning about Tatum waiting until the perfect moment– Tatum was born on February 17th at 12:16 pm. February 17th is Kenneth’s parent’s anniversary and December 16th (12:16) is my parent’s anniversary. How crazy is that? Talk about some crazy timing. Honestly, the best feeling ever was seeing her in that first moment. I think Kenneth and I both definitely teared up– you are just so overwhelmed with emotion. I would go through labor over and over again for that moment.
