Fast, Furious & Gooey – Lexi’s Birth Story!

My first two kids came ON their due dates. So, in my mind, of course, the third would do the same.

Right?

I woke up the morning of August 31, 2013 feeling… Off. Just crampy and gross. But, my baby wasn’t due for another three weeks, and I had stuff to do! We HAD to go back to school shopping for my 7-year-old son, I HAD to get my 1-year-old daughter’s stool sample dropped off at St. Joseph’s Hospital… And, wait, what is that? Oh my gosh, does my daughter have PINK EYE? Sigh.

So, I got up and took an extra long shower and made the family breakfast. I still couldn’t shake that crampy, nauseous feeling. I told my husband I wasn’t feeling great and he shook it off, too – I mean, the baby’s due date wasn’t for three WEEKS.

So we all got dressed – and the first stop was going to be urgent care to get my daughter’s pink eye checked out. But on the drive there I knew something was up. I started to get an inkling that this might be the day.

Crap.

So, we called my mother-in-law and said, guess what?! We are dropping off our two older kids and heading to the hospital. Oh yeah, one of them has pink eye. Have fun!

On the way to the hospital, I remembered the stool sample. It HAD to get to St. Joe’s by noon. It’s a long story but trust me, I had to get that stool sample there. So, I told my husband to just drop me off at Tampa General Hospital and then drive the stool sample to St. Joe’s.

He’s like, what? You want me to just DROP YOU OFF?

Yup.

So, that’s what he did. Pulled up to the hospital and ditched my pregnant butt at the curb!

By this time, I may add, I was contracting pretty heavily. Like, every minute or so. This baby was coming and she wasn’t messing around!

I walked up to the reception area in Labor and Delivery and very calmly waited for my turn. When they got to me they started asking me a ton of questions, trying to assess where I was in the process. I looked at the sweet little nurse and said, “This is my third baby. I promise you… I’m in active labor.”

I was taken into a room to get checked out… And lo and behold, I was already at 7 centimeters.

Told ya.

That’s when things got a little hectic.

They needed to get me to a delivery room pretty pronto.

My husband still wasn’t there.

No biggie… I got this.

Anyway, now comes the story of the iv. Apparently I was dehydrated… And the nurses couldn’t find a vein. I was poked and prodded in every part of my arm.

Nothing.

By this time, I’m in pretty legit pain and they’re trying to stick me between contractions. I vaguely remember screaming at the THIRD NURSE trying to poke me with an iv that I don’t plan on having an epidural anyway… Just FORGET the iv!

Apparently, that’s not allowed.

It’s at that point my husband arrives. They had just stuck the iv in my arm, missed the vein and my arm was filling up with fluid.

Finally, some heavenly older nurse appears. Fixes my arm, and eases the iv into a vein in my hand.

Thank you, God.

I’m wheeled into the delivery room in massive amounts of pain. Seriously, only an hour has passed since I arrived at the hospital and the baby wants out now.

A midwife comes and checks on me, says I’m nearly ready, and advises me to get up and stretch and walk around the room a bit.

I’m sure the baby is going to fall out if I stand up.

However, I get up and start doing some stretches as my husband gives me the lamest back rub in history. For the second time that morning, I’m screaming at someone, “Do it right or don’t do it at all!”

He puts a little more effort into the rub.

I’m about two seconds from begging for an epidural when the midwife returns. She checks me and claims I’m ready to push!

Now, this is the first one of my kids I’ve really had to push with. My son took forever, but then I dilated from six centimeters to 10 really quickly and he just kind of slid out.

Same with my older daughter.

So, being told I had to actually push with my third was new to me.

I know moms everywhere will probably hate me for this, but I pushed about 5 times and she was out.

Guess these birthing hips are good for something!

There she was, covered in goo and screaming.

The midwife asked my husband if he wanted to cut the cord.

He said no.

She said, c’mon… Cut the cord, it’s a beautiful moment!

He said no.

She grabbed his arm, dragged him over, and made him cut the cord!

It was awesome!

Anyway, they immediately plopped my gooey daughter on my chest where she rooted around for about a half minute and immediately latched onto my nipple.

Now, I don’t like being gooey… But I’m not going to starve a newborn. So I waited until she fell asleep and then tried to hand her over to someone to wipe her down.

Nope.

They were adamant this was a beautiful bonding time for mom and baby. So, my gooey little girl laid on me, quite contently for about 30 minutes before they took her and hosed her down a bit.

Yes, I had to be stitched up and I was saving her cord blood, so all of that had to be handled. But it was really a pretty easy birth.

Three days later my husband had a vasectomy.

The end.