Asher Reed Gibbons

Even though Asher has only been home a week, I decided to write everything down quickly so that I wouldn't forget the details. I was pretty miserable the whole month of August leading up to having the babe. I kept having Braxton Hicks contractions which would often come every few minutes apart for a couple of hours. It was super annoying and frustrating because they didn't hurt super bad but I could definitely tell they were contractions, so I thought if they were that close together that maybe something was happening down there. We actually ended up going to the hospital a week before I delivered because I had contractions 2-3 min apart for about 3 hours. I was already 3 cm dilated at that point, but I didn't progress while we were at the hospital so the nurse sent me home and said don't come back until I couldn't breathe through the contractions. I wanted to punch her in the face because that kind of description is super subjective to every person and still didn't help me know what to really expect!

Anyway, after the longest week of my life, I woke up around 5 am Monday morning (August 19th) to a bad contraction along with cramping. I got up to go to the bathroom and immediately the contractions started coming 2.5 - 3 min apart with painful cramping. I was pretty sure this was finally the real thing so I woke up Jared. I told myself I would give it an hour before heading to the hospital because I didn't want to get sent home again. By the end of that hour the contractions only got more intense so I headed downstairs where Jared was in the middle of breakfast. I think I said something like, "Eat faster, we gotta go!" so he started running around getting stuff to the car, it was kind of funny now that I think back about it, even though at the time I wanted to break my belly off!

The drive to the hospital was only about 15 minutes, but each contraction felt like cutting knives on the inside. By the time we walked into labor and delivery I was bent over and really couldn't function during each contraction. One of the nurses at the desk asked me if my water had broken, because according to my face, it "looked like I was in alot of pain." I replied, "Nope it just hurts like hell!" They got me into a triage room quickly after that and a nurse there checked me. I was almost to 5 cm and 100% effaced so I finally got admitted. I could have kissed that woman! I called my mom to tell her to start driving and went my merry (not) way.

Once I was in the delivery room, my nurse Aneisa came in (love her!) and got everything ready for the epidural. She gave me something to take the edge off the pain since the anestheiologst was about 30 min out from getting there. The drugs made me a little high so by the time the doctor got there, I was a pretty out of it, which I don't mind because I really didn't feel any part of the epidural being put in. A half hour later I was feeling pretty good.

Since my OB was out of the country on vacation, I knew I was going to have another OB from the same clinic instead. She swung by about an hour later to check me. She seemed pretty cool and Jared noticed that she had a stud ring in her tongue which made her that much cooler in my book! I hadn't progressed at all during that hour, so she broke my water and told me that the baby's head was down but that his face was up (looking toward heaven), so they needed to do these positioning tricks to see if he would roll over on his own. Aneisa got me through the different positions ("high sims" or something like that, I can't remember the name) which lasted about an hour and a half. At the end of that she checked me again and the baby had turned on his own, like a champ, and I was already at 7 cm!

Once she announced that, it was a little crazy in our room for the next 15 minutes or so. A couple nurses came in to get the internal fetal monitor set up, a CNA came in and got a bunch of Grey's Anatomy type instruments ready, Aneisa was in and out doing whatever she was doing. I seriously thought I was about to start pushing in like 30 minutes and it freaked me out because I was not ready! I figured I would be in labor for a really long time since it was my first, and I haven't heard of any 1st time mom getting an epirdural without having to get Pitocin to speed things up. When I realized I still had a little ways to go I relaxed and eventually everybody left the room. My mom and sister got there about 15 min later and we all just hung out for another hour or so until I was at a nine and ready to get the show on the road.

The only thing I didn't like about the epidural was not being able to really know how to push effectively. It took 15 min or so to figure out how and where to focus the effort (for lack of a better way to describe it) and then the doctor came because the little dude was ready to come. Everybody kept saying "Oh it looks like he's got lots of dark hair" but I was completely out of it and trying to recover from the feeling of popping my head off every 2 minutes! The whole experience was a little out of body for me. I could mentally comprehend that I was bringing a child to earth but at the same time I couldn't believe what was physically happening, I remember saying once between contractions, "I can't believe I am pushing a child out of my crotch!!" which made everybody laugh. Two pushes later and Asher arrived! He was 8 lbs even and 20 inches long. Everybody kept saying how long his eyelashes were, which was pretty inevitable considering Jared and I both have freakishly long lashes. Overall, I labored from 5 am to 2:30 pm.

It was an incredibly emotional and humbling experience to hold him for the first time and know that he was here and he was our son. Even though there were other people in the room, it seemed like it was just the three of us. After he was checked out, we did skin to skin and it was the best 30 min of our lives. He was so alert and just stared at us, he didn't make a peep. The rest of the day and night were a blur of family visits and vital sign checks. The next day we just spent time together and got ready to come home since my recovery was going well.

Now we are home and we couldn't be happier. He has been a good little boy so far, pretty laid back, although we don't have much to compare it to. I'm sure things will get harder once he starts getting bigger, but I will enjoy this time together for now and try not to think about all the craziness in store in the very near future!

Coming home

Meeting cousins

This was right before he peed on Jared haha!

He's got the biggest hands!

Hey

Best daddy

Meeting Nipes and Lissa for the first time

Milk drunk

First nap in the crib

Haha, what happens when Mom 

rubs lotion in his hair

He loves his big cousin