Clayton's Birth Story

I've put this off for too long. It's time I finally write down Clay's birth story before I completely forget it!

Since I'm now a mother of 5, I think I better do a quick, short version. We were worried that Clay might be too big, and since we had issues when Max was born we decided to induce. I'm not a fan of inductions, and part of me wishes we had just gone natural again, but I'm thankful that Clay arrived without any issues or shoulder distocia.

So, we went to the hospital late at night on November 4. The told us that since we were doing an induction we didn't take priority. So we waited... and waited... and waited... we waited for about 18 hours in a labor and delivery room before they finally induced me. By that time my contractions had started on their own, but they were pretty weak.

My midwife thought that we should jumpstart things by giving me some pitocin. I got on that, and things started picking up. I didn't want to be in much pain, I'm a total wimp. So I got my epidural pretty quickly. As we were waiting for the anesthesiologist, my nurse gave me some meds to take the edge off until she got there. That stuff helped quite a bit. Once the epidural was in my pain levels dropped right off. It was so nice to know that I wouldn't have to have any more serious pain...

After about an hour, I shifted my body and as I did that, I noticed a smell that I had smelled when the anesthesiologist had inserted the epidural. I have no idea what it was... but it wasn't long after that when I noticed that my epidural was not working anymore. My nurse told me to shift sides, and try some different things. Nothing seemed to help. I started to really hurt and was having some intense back labor. Back labor results in no rest from pain. During contractions, you only feel pain during a contraction, but back labor is consistent.

My water broke and I was wanted to have our baby. I got sick and threw up several times. My midwife got there (he was upset the nurse didn't call sooner) and we started pushing. He noticed that Clay was sunny side up. That explained my back labor. He manually turned Clay's head and soon the back labor subsided. I had to push for longer than I had with Max. Clay was a little more stubborn. Scott was so wonderful and encouraging while I was pushing. He kept getting me a cool cloth to put on my face, and that seemed to help me deal with the nausea.

Clay was born and my midwife put him right on my chest. He nursed right away. I was in love. He has lots of hair and was my best eater right off. He nursed and nursed and nursed. I had about a 3rd degree tare, but I headed pretty quickly.

We are so glad to have our sweet Clayton Benjamin in our family.