Colton's Birth Story

I think I'm finally ready to be able to write this without becoming a big bucket of tears from the memories. Colton's birth was definitely not as easy as Dalton's. The recovery has been different too. But before I write about the recovery, I should write about the birth process.

We arrived at the hospital at 5am on the 21st of May. When we were walking in, I was literally barefoot and pregnant. The shoes I had worn out of the house that morning were hurting my feet, so I took them off to walk into the hospital. My feet were very swollen...along with my hands. I was very happy to be getting ready to have the baby because I was ready to reclaim my body--and get to meet Colton, of course.

We got to our suite in the birthing wing. The first 'trauma' of the day started shortly after that...when they had to try to get my IV in 7 times. They could find my veins, but they couldn't get the IVs to stay in the veins. Eventually (after the first 4 pokes) they called in an IV specialist...who had to try 3 times. She eventually put the IV in my elbow, which is the last place they want a new mom to have her IV. It makes it very hard to hold the baby and move around.

Once the doctor and all my nurses had come in to check on me, I was wheeled down to the OR. We got my epidural put in with little difficulty, but I wasn't getting numb very fast. I could feel where they would poke me and where they were putting alcohol swabs on my stomach. Finally the doctors said that I could either let them do the surgery with however numb I was then, or I would have to be put to sleep for the operation. Larry was a saint during the surgery because I had 'hot spots' where I could feel them cutting. He just held my hand and let me squeeze as hard as I needed to. He also kept telling me how awesome I was doing. He would ask the doctors how much longer til Colton came out and made sure I knew what was going on. He did absolutely everything I could have needed him to do.

My doctors had a few problems convincing Colton to come down and out of me. Doctor Morgan was sort of joking that Cole had been hiding from him for the entire pregnancy. Everytime they tried to find his heartbeat, Colton would flip so Dr. M couldn't measure his heartbeat. Now that it was birth time, Colton had moved as high into my abdomen as he could possibly get. One doctor was pressing on the top of my stomach and the other was doing everything possible to convince Colton to come out. Luckily for me, Dr. Morgan won the battle and Colton came out screaming.

As soon as Colton was out of me, the pain specialist pumped me full of antibiotics, a pain med that I couldn't have til Cole was out of me, and a "downer" to relax the shakes I was having from the epidural. The last medicine knocked me out and I was snoring pretty quickly. Larry found that pretty humorous. I managed to wake myself up every few minutes to look at Colton and watch the nurse clean him up and weigh/measure him.

He was born at 8:17am. He weighed 8 pounds 10 ounces. Colton measured 21 inches long. (and because I know some of my friends will understand this, his first APGAR score was 9---much better than Dalton's first score of 5).

When I got to recovery Colton immediately latched on and was perfectly happy to stay there until they took me back to my room.

We were met in our room by 2 grandmas, a grandpa, and his big brother. Dalton was immediately in love with him. Dalton's favorite stuffed animal is his lamb and he brought Lamb over right away to show Colton. I thought that was incredibly sweet of him. He's been showing Colton all of his favorite things ever since then.

Over the next few days in the hospital, we were visited by lots of friends, cousins, and aunts/uncles. Colton was definitely welcomed into the world surrounded by family and friends. He's also been showered with love from the moment he was born.

Even though his birth was extremely painful, having him in my life is well worth it. I will say that I am very happy we had decided to have my tubes tied, though. I do not want to go through another birth like that.