Walker's Birth

So Walker was unwilling to come on his own, much like everyone else in this family except Hunter. I don’t know what they are dreading ;) His unwillingness was also a blessing. When you have 6 kids and no family around going to the hospital to have a baby can be a bit daunting. Who can stay with the children overnight? Who can help get kids out the door for school? Who can make dinner to feed that many? And so being induced is actually quite convenient in my opinion. I ended up using 4 sisters from my ward to get it all done. We had two sister here in the afternoon to put a premade dinner in the oven, feed the kids, and get them to bed. We had a different sister volunteer to stay overnight while they all slept (and thankfully everyone did sleep!) and we had another sister come in the morning to help get kids breakfast and out the door for school! I then arranged with another sister to watch my younger ones, for a couple of hours in the morning knowing that Bryant would need a nap to function. I am so grateful for their willingness to help me and each other! I wasn’t worried about my other kids the entire time I was at the hospital.

Those faint of heart or that don’t like birth stories should probably stop reading at this point. We checked into the hospital around 4:30 pm after stopping for some delicious burritos for my last meal. I was finally hooked up to the plutocin around 5:30. Bryant anticipated that we would have a baby by 8pm. I laughed because being induced has always resulted in at least 8 hours of labor! With Gunnar and Connor I toyed with the idea of going natural but I always ended up with an epidural because I wasn’t fully committed. Well with ConnorI gave birth within 20 minutes of getting the epidural. This time I was a lot more committed. Bryant has always thought of me as a little crazy for wanting to go natural and he was a little surprised when I told the nurses that my goal for this birth was to go natural. Being the wonderful husband that he is, he looked at me silly and then supported me through it all! I didn’t ever tell my mother of my intentions because I knew she thought I was crazy and she proved me right when she found out I had gone natural. My sister-in-law commented that she wished she had tried going natural to which my mother loving replied. “I don’t know why anyone would want to go natural. It is like burning your hand to see what it feels like to get burned.” She was super happy to have epidurals invented and be able to benefit from them with her last two children.

When my doctor learned of my desire to go natural she assured me that he thought I could handle. As he was describing what to expect he said the last 20 minutes to hour “the pain would be bru..really intense.I liked how he switched from brutal to really intense in his description. When I commented about that to him he hadn’t even realized his change of words.

Well being induced apparently means that your contractions are harder from the beginning. Since I have only had one come on his own and I opted for the epidural right off I can’t say that I really know anything different. Well the contractions did eventually come hard. The nurse had just checked on me, I was dilated to a 5 and she said she would return in another hour to check me again unless I felt something change. Unbeknownst to me she had called my doctor figuring he could wait out in the hallway for an hour if it took that long. After she left I had some truly awful contractions and told Bryant that I couldn’t last another hour of contractions like the ones I was having and then I felt some super intense pressure! Bryant called for the nurse to come in. She was very polite, explaining that sometimes people can progress in just one contraction (even though she seemed a bit doubtful) and I had progressed to 6 ½. She then left stating she would return in another 15 minutes unless I felt something change again. Well my doctor arrived a minute later so they both came in. Neither was really convinced that I was ready to push the baby out. I expressed my feelings of intense pressure. My doctor set me up in the stirrups, anticipating checking my progress and said that pushing often relieves the pressure even if the baby is not coming out yet. With his permission to push, I pushed with the next contraction and experience the “joy” of the ring of fire (the pain of the baby crowning--I had often assumed that the epidural with Gunnar and Connor had been pointless because I thought I was still feeling everything when giving birth because I had waited so long to get the epidural. I was wrong. I had never before experience the ring of fire pain. I now know why people in movies scream out while pushing, I found it a very effective way to release the pain I was feeling). Anyway, I pushed and out came Walker’s head, before my doctor even had his gloves on. He quickly put them on and told me to stop pushing while he worked on sucking all the stuff out of him. One more push and he was born after only 4 hours of labor!!! I couldn’t believe it. The nurses nicknamed Walker “Missile” because he was born so quickly.

People keep asking me if I would do it again. I’m not sure. I did not get the “runner’s high” that people often talk about but I did find it rather wonderful that I could feel my legs and move around after the delivery. Recovery has been super easy. I didn’t tear or have an episiotomy.