kev & mal brower

We lucked out in the friend department. We like our friends and they have boys the same age as Beck, how perfect is that?

We all wanted to try our hand at camping with the babies so went camping up American Fork Canyon (free camping y'all) and got the perfect little spot by the river (which was heaven sent, it was the perfect white noise to help Beck sleep that night).

Beck was still crawling at this point (he knew how to walk but was still not quite confident enough) so he was a MESS. I gave up keeping him clean on the drive up the canyon. I just knew he would get dirty and accepted it. And dirty he got. He loved it.

Beck was the last baby to go to sleep (10:45), and fell asleep in Kevin's arms at the fire. When he was in bed and it was just us adults at the fire, I felt like I was a teenager with a newly extended curfew. It was such a treat to just talk with our friends, outside, camping, around the fire eating s'mores.

Madsen.

The Max.

Our boys with their boys. And Beck's cheesy grin.

just chillin.

It was Kevin's 30th birthday on this trip, so we had to get a family picture.

At my 37 weeks check-up, my cervix had only dilated to an 80%. Week after week, my appointments were the same. Since I wasn’t dilated at all, my doctor couldn’t strip my membranes. At my 40 weeks appointment (Monday), we set up an induction date for the following Monday. I would come in Sunday night at 8:30 and start my cervical ripening medication while they monitored baby and me over night. I later did some research on the cervical ripening medication that scared me, so I called my OB and asked if I could come in Monday to be checked, and go from there. For the remainder of the week I tried all that I could to move things along on their own. Jumping on a tramp, walking, jogging, curb walking, pumping, and taking evening primrose oil day and night. I was stressing too much about it, which made my last week really hard.

On Monday morning my OB wasn’t in office at that time so I had another OB check me (he was so awkward). He checked me and said I was only 70% effaced (what?!). I realized that my body wasn’t going to go into labor on its own. We set up to go in that night and start.

Realizing that this was our last day without babies for the rest of our life(!), I wanted to go for a long drive. We borrowed the in-laws sports car and drove the alpine loop up to cascade springs. We pumped up the music and danced in the car. I felt like this was the last day for us to be young and hip. Kev is an awesome (but crazy) driver so I definitely got my dose of adrenaline.

When we got to the hospital, they hooked me right up (IV’s are the worst), I took my first pill, and we listened to babies’ heartbeat all night long. They came in every 3 hours for me to take the pill. A side effect of this medication is that it can increase stress and the heart rate of the baby. But Beck did so well, the nurses were so proud of him. His heart rate only went up once and once I started talking, he calmed right back down.

I of course didn’t realize that I wouldn’t be able to eat that night (as well as all of the next day) and only survived because I could have unlimited root beer slushees. Kevin was so great and got me whatever I needed our whole hospital stay. That man of mine!

They checked me down there every time I took the pill (oh it was such a fun night…) and we saw very little change with each pill. By 8:30 am, I was finally dilated to a 1! My OB came in at 9:00 am and broke my water, which was crazy to watch (and hurt). Since I had taken my last pill at 8:00 am, I had to wait until 11:00 to start the pitocin. But he did say I could get my epidural whenever I wanted. I waited about… another 30 minutes… and then asked for it. My nurse wasn’t too excited about me getting it, she thought I still had a long day ahead of me and thought it would slow the process even more. But for some reason I felt like it was the right time for me to get it. I had been having pretty intense contractions since 4:00 am that were anywhere from 2-10 minutes (mostly 2) apart and 30-60 seconds long. I really wanted to be able to relax, since I don’t handle pain all too well. The anesthesiologist came in right away and he did an awesome job. It actually hurt less than my IV. I told him I still wanted to feel my legs and he did just that. Within 30 minutes, I started feeling relief. At 11:00 she came in and started the pitocin. By 2:00 pm I was at a 3. My OB and my nurse didn’t think I’d be to a 10 until that night, but they were happy with my progress. My nurse finally said that she was actually glad I got my epidural that early; she thought that it was actually helping things go faster since I was able to relax. By now I was eating my slushees and Kevin was starving. I told him he should go and grab some lunch since it was still going slow and we didn’t expect anything to happen for a good few hours. He made sure I was ok (since I had just threw up all my rootbeer slushees  ) and left the hospital. My nurse came in 20 minutes later and told me I was dilated to an 8. I told her Kevin had left the hospital to grab lunch and she told me to hurry and call him right away, things were happening! I called him and he got to the hospital in 5 minutes. Right when he got there I was dilated to a 10. The nurse started to get everything in the room ready and called my OB to tell him that I was going to start pushing. I started pushing at 2:45-3:00 with Kevin on one side and my nurse on the other. Kevin was an awesome coach. We never went to any classes and both didn’t know what to expect. I wanted to just wing it, and wing it we did. Luckily my nurse was awesome and really helped me. I pushed for 30 or so minutes (felt much faster to me than this) and my nurse told me to stop, that my OB needed to hurry and come in. Kevin could see Beck’s head and told me he had lots of hair. This was kind of when it hit me we were really having a baby. My OB came in, started to get dressed and told me to push, I started pushing and then he told me to stop because he hadn’t realized that this baby was ready. He finally sat down and within 3 pushes Beck was out.

It was pretty weird to feel him come all the way out. They placed him on my stomach since I wanted them to delay the cord clamping. He was pretty blue, but just gorgeous to me. I was trying to hold him, but he was so slippery and the delivery nurse was holding him trying to get him to breath. Kevin cut the cord and they took Beck to the corner of the room to make him start breathing. I didn’t realize at this time that Beck had A LOT of fluid in his lungs. The nurse was working hard to suck out everything and to keep him breathing and crying. This delivery nurse was hilarious, Kevin later told me. She had the funniest sense of humor and was making Kevin laugh even in this tense time. My OB was stitching me up (I had to get a small episiotomy) and was talking to me at this time. I only realized after that he was trying to keep my attention away from Beck so I didn’t freak out. He did a really good job at bugging me because I had no idea how serious it was, I just wanted them to hand me my baby. Kevin could not stop smiling and staring at Beck, he said he was really emotional, but a happy emotional and couldn’t wipe the smile off his face. When Kevin finally handed Beck to me, I still don’t really remember it. It was so surreal. We tried to nurse for a little bit, and I don’t really remember how it went. All I remember is Kevin getting in the bed with me and us just staring at our baby boy.

They quickly moved us to our other room. I had always imagined being wheeled in the hospital to our other room with my baby in my arms as if it was going to be so awesome. But it was still so weird and surreal that I cant really remember that either (ha). What I do remember is how funny it felt getting out of the bed into the wheelchair and thinking that I didn’t need help from Kevin or the nurse and almost falling right over. Also, from pushing, my eyes were really swollen and hurt pretty bad. My vision was blurry for the rest of that day.

All in all, having a baby is a pretty surreal and weird experience. While pregnant, I always got teary-eyed imagining myself holding my baby for the first time. I thought I was going to bawl in the hospital. But I didn’t get emotional at all. I thought he was beautiful but other than that I felt pretty numb. I felt no real connection like everyone talks about. The first real feelings I felt for him was when the nurse in my mom and baby room was kind of rough with Beck when checking his vitals. I got real emotional and wanted to yell at her to be gentle with my baby. Sadly, this made me hate that nurse for the rest of our stay.

These emotions of anxiety for my baby were the start of my baby blues that lasted for the first 10 days. I will do a whole different post on that since this one is already ridiculously long.