Milo William's Birth Story

I cannot believe my baby boy is actually here! It seemed like an eternity towards the end of my pregnancy before he would ever come. But now that he is here, I cannot imagine my life without him. He has brought such joy to our little family! 

I want to record here the story of Milo's birth before I forget too much of the details. It was one of the best days of my life, right up there with the day I married my best friend. Now our lives will never be the same :)

Things started back to the week of Thanksgiving. I had an appt. with my doctor, Dr. Voss, and it was the first time he was going to check me to see how dilated I was. At this point in time, I was feeling great! So great that sometimes I forgot I was even pregnant. I had never experienced the feelings of Braxton Hicks and didn't even know what a contraction would feel like. So I just figured that little Milo was happy as a clam being inside of me and was in no rush to come out. Well, surprise surprise! I was dilated to a 4 and 90% effaced! My first thought was, "Holy cow! What is even holding that baby inside of me!" But, I guess people can walk around for weeks dilated to a 4 and still have no baby. Still, we were a little worried to be hosting Thanksgiving at our house this year for fear that we might be having a baby that day. Thanksgiving came and went though, and still no baby.

Now at this point, knowing how close I was, I was ready for our baby to come out. I could not stand another minute of being pregnant and a lot of mornings started out with me bawling because I wasn't getting a single contraction. Tyler thought I was crazy for wishing pain on myself, but I always told him that pain means the baby is on the way! 

The week before Milo was born it was freezing! But, I was so determined to go into labor that the cold weather did not stop me from going out walking all the time. Even with all that walking, still not a single contraction. I just knew that Milo was never going to come out. So I started to keep myself busy. Ty and I went to the movies one night to see Frozen, another night we went to the Grand America to look at their windows and ginormous gingerbread house, and (FINALLY) the day before Milo was born we were at This Is The Place Park for a market and went shopping at the mall and I started getting what  I thought were contractions!! Hallelujah the choirs of angels sang! Unfortunately the contractions were not very strong and I went to bed with no contractions at all and wondering if thats even what I had felt. Meanwhile, outside a huge storm was hitting us and there was snow covering the roads. 

The morning of December 8 came and I got probably the best sleep of my whole pregnancy. I was still laying in bed when 9:45 came and I felt a very painful sensation going on in my stomach like somebody was stabbing me! Ouch! These HAD to be contractions and they were coming fast! I started to time them and, sure enough, they were every two minutes. Whatever happened to what I was told, that contractions will come every 15 minutes to 10 minutes to 5 minutes to 2 minutes? I did not experience that. I went from zero pain to excruciating "Now I know why people die in labor" pain! I still didn't think there was any way I could be going into labor, though. 

So I showered and got all ready for my day, meanwhile hunching over every time a contraction came. I finally told Tyler that we are going to the hospital at 12 if I still felt this kind of pain. We were out the door at 11:45 :) Luckily most of the snow had melted that morning from the storm the day before so we didn't have to worry about our little Mazda making it up the hill to LDS Hospital. What we did have to worry about was where to go once we got to the hospital since neither of us had ever been there before. Whoops for not taking any birthing classes :s

We drove to the emergency door and I waited in the car while Ty went in and asked if this is where we were supposed to be. The receptionist came out looking very concerned at me and rushed me inside. They put me in a wheelchair and then started checking me in while Tyler parked the car on the street. Then off we went to the delivery room. At this point, I was still getting contractions every two minutes but I thought for sure that they were going to send us back home saying that I wasn't ready for delivery yet. 

The nurse came in and checked me and lo and behold I was dilated to a 6 now! She had to tell us about 3 times that we were going to stay and have a baby that day. We could not believe it! Ty started calling everyone in our families to get them ready for Milo to make an appearance. 

The nurses got me all ready to go and asked if I would like to have an epidural. In my mind I thought, "Hell yes I do!" but what came out was, "Yes, please. I don't do well with pain :)" The anesthesiologist came in soon after that and did a very nice job at giving me my epidural even though I was completely terrified of getting it. What a blessing it was though! I did not feel a single thing waist down and asked the nurse if I was still getting contractions (I was still worried that they might send me home). 

Now it was 1:00 and the nurse told me that I had to keep the baby in until 5:00 so that I could get both bags of antibiotics in my system. So Ty and I got comfortable and both took a little nap. Around 4:00 the nurse came back in with the doctor. Unfortunately, Dr. Voss was out of town so he would not be able to deliver my baby. This doctor was getting off his shift at 5:00, so when he checked me and saw that I was dilated to a 7 and fully effaced, he decided that he would break my water and we were going to have this baby before 5:00. WHAT?! I had heard that pushing a baby out could take hours and I had to get mine out in half an hour?! 

Well, 20 minutes later, at 4:59:56 Milo was born and he was the most beautiful thing I ever did see. He let out two little cries and the minute they handed him to me he calmed right down. He was the sweetest baby and I just burst into tears, I was so happy that he was here and he was safe! He weighed 7 pounds and 4 ounces and was absolutely perfect. Tyler and I were smitten with him immediately and could not take our eyes off of him. 

After he got all cleaned up, we got taken to our recovery room and got to spend our first time together as a family of 3. Of course, we had to call our moms and tell them to hurry down to meet their new grandson and everybody else in the family came down too. Our room was packed! We had Linda, Kip, Lyle, Claudia, Christy, Dustin, Joy, Larry, Julie, David, Mckenzie, and Cayleen. Then more guests came later: Lora, Dani, Lexi, Hillary, Jesse, Owen, and Elle. Everybody was so excited to meet our little Milo, he is such a loved little boy. 

Our last date night together with just the two of us.

 Just checked into the hospital and found out we were having the baby that day!

 He's here!

 First time dad got to hold his son.

 David and Mckenzie were one of the first visitors to meet Milo.

 Milo with his little Christmas hat.

 Looking so peaceful laying on mom's shoulder

My family has been saying that the storm brought Milo to us that day. I've heard old wives tales of that being true but, after getting to know Milo this past week, I think that my sweet little boy heard his momma's prayers and knew that I couldn't wait another minute. He also knew that Sunday was the perfect day because I was home with Tyler and not at work going into labor :) We are so blessed that this little angel chose us to be his parents and we are excited for this new adventure that we are embarking on.