Peyton's Birth Story

Peyton was due on May 6th, but the due date came and went without any sign of him wanting to come out. We were disappointed, but knew that he would come eventually, and are now glad that we had the extra week to grow big and strong, and mommy and daddy would be fully prepared for his birth!

On Monday evening, I started to experience some bad cramps, but put it off as just that. By midnight, I realized that they were coming stronger and more consistently at 10 minute intervals. I was too excited to sleep, and timed the contractions all night waiting for the doctor's orders of 5-1-1 (contractions 5 minutes apart, lasting 1 minute, for 1 hour). By 6am, they were about 6 minutes apart, so I called my doctor who told me to head to the hospital.

Scott and I got to the hospital at around 7:30am, checked into triage where we were put on a monitor, but things were progressing slowly, and by 9am, they were still only 5 minutes apart. My doctor gave us two options - either go and walk around for two hours and come back to see if labor has progressed any further, or start picotin to help the contractions. We didn't want to wait any longer to meet Peyton, so we chose to start picotin at around 10am.

By this time, the contractions were really strong, but I was not in "active labor" just yet. The nurse gave me some drugs to help relive the pain, so I was able to sleep, and by the time I got my epidural, thing were progressing well. However, the pain medication made me really nauseous and so I was given even more drugs for the nausea (which didn't work). I threw up a couple times, and labor was progressing slowly. We had thought that we could get Peyton out by 8 or 9pm, but it wasn't until 1am that they were satisfied with the progress and broke my bag of water. I was given different meds for my nausea, which completely knocked me out, so by the time I had to push, I barely had any strength left. I had to push for an hour and a half, and it was one of the most exhausting (but rewarding) thing I've ever done!

Peyton finally came out at 4:15 am. He's beautiful and we love the newest addition to our family so much!