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Noah Miller Brown
12.4.12
6:32 PM
5 lbs 14 oz
19 inches
Noah was born nearly three weeks early! Whoa! After carrying both of my bigger boys to 40 weeks (literally...they were BOTH born on their due dates!), this was a new one for me.
My water broke around 2 AM on Dec. 4. Honestly at first I thought I peed myself...then I coughed and ....voila. Water breakage was completely clear and unquestioned at that point. I alerted Josh. I called my OB (who told me I could come in when contractions got uncontrollable or by 8 AM). I sat on towels. Three towels actually. I soaked all of them. Awesomeness! I did laundry, I cleaned the kitchen, I tried to prepare for my mom and dad and in-laws to take care of the boys in our home for the next few days.
Anita, my mother in law, arrived at 6:30 a.m. We told Owen good-bye and what was happening since he would have to get up for school shortly anyways, and then Josh and I took off. We stopped at Chick Fil a on the way :) Since my water had broken I had not had any sort of good pattern of contractions. A few here and there...but nothing consistent. I was afraid of getting to the hospital and needing pitocin which rules out eating and I didn't want to take this whole birthing thing on with and empty stomach...and what better to fill it with than Chick fil a breakfast!
I got checked in to the hospital and seen by my OB by around 9:00 a.m. I was pretty disappointed to find out that I was only dilated to a 1 and my cervix was still high and closed. Bad news man. I took some cytotec which is a pill you take when you are being induced to thin out your cervix...after that they have to watch the baby on the monitor for 90 minutes...and after that I walked the halls of the hospital like a crazy person. After walking for awhile I came back and rolled around on a "birthing ball" (exercise ball) since this is supposed to open up your cervix and help bring the baby down.
Around 1 p.m. my nurse checked me...she felt like I was still at 1...no change. She wanted to have someone else check me to confirm so she sent in another nurse. What fun. Almost like Disneyland. I endured the second most violent cervical check of my life and the nurse confirmed that there really had been no change. I took another dose of cytotec. 30 minutes later I started having contractions! WOOO! They were uncomfortable, but nothing I couldn't handle...BUT they weren't going away and they were consistently about two minutes apart. I labored like this until 4:30 when Dr. Ball (my OB) came and checked me. I was at a 3 and the baby had moved down...my cervix had changed. I didn't really pay attention to "effaced" or "station" so I can't tell you much about that. She told me that she'd leave me alone for awhile to see what I did but she'd probably come back in a few hours to talk about pitocin since I had passed the 12 hour mark where my water had broken. She also ordered an antibiotic for me to help fight off infection (standard when your water breaks and you don't deliver for awhile) and...I requested some nubain to help with contractions. Ah. NUBAIN. I love thee. Or I thought I did. It took a good half hour for the nubain to arrive. I was starting to really be in a lot of pain. I finally got the nubain in my system (through IV) and I felt some relief...SOME. Not a lot. Not nearly as much as I felt when I labored with Wesley. It made me sleepy, but really didn't help with the contractions. I labored on. Heavy breathing. In through the nose, out through the mouth. It wasn't too long before I started to feel that outside of my body pain and I'm sure I was crying through my contractions. I started to feel pressure but brushed it off because I had just been checked not even two hours ago and I was only at a 3. I couldn't possibly be ready. And then a few contractions later it was that panicky feeling where I knew something was going on. I yelled for Josh to get me a nurse...he ran in the hallway and found someone who wasn't my nurse (oh well :)) and she got me into my bed I asked if I was complete and she said "the baby is right here", told Josh to get a Dr.....lucky for me Dr. Ball was in a workroom across the hall, she along with two other nurses came running in...I saw her scrambling to get her gloves on...I felt my body bearing down and I looked down and saw my baby boy basically slide onto the bed. HOLY SCHMOLY. That was crazy! I had gone from 3-10 centimeters in just a few hours. I was still shaky and a little drugged from the nubain...so when they gave him to me I just looked at him (he looked exactly like Wes and Owen so....nothing real new there! :)) and then felt like I had to give him to someone else because I was so shaky! I couldn't believe that I had gone from walking the hallways crying because I thought I would end up with a c-section to delivering my baby in such a short amount of time.
Whew!
We named him Noah Miller. Josh and I had two names that we agreed upon. Noah and Cameron. Owen started telling everyone that his name was Noah, so I kind of felt bad to change things up on him. Noah seems to fit him well :) Miller is my mother Donna's maiden name, so we used that to honor her, my Grandma Dixie and that side of the family in general.
Noah has been nursing great since birth. I have no idea what Owen's problem was! :) We love him, the boys are adjusting well and we are sleeping a little :)
There it is! More later. Gotta feed my hungry little guy. :) He's a great early Christmas present!
Edited to add: A few things I want to remember...
After we were all cleaned up and before visitors arrived, my OB came back in to tell me she'd see me tomorrow. She paid me a huge compliment (for her...who I've come to believe is induction and epidural happy and overall somewhat unsupportive of natural childbirth)...she told me that I had done an excellent job with my last two births and it was obvious I knew what birthing was all about! Whoa! Huge compliment coming from her :) What she doesn't know is that with both births I was probably minutes away from requesting an epidural. Lol! During Wesley's birth she gave me "faces" whenever she would come in the room and suggest pitocin or an epi...during Noah's birth, she pretty much left me alone (except to mention pitocin if my labor didn't take off...understandable). Thinking back, she is probably more conservative than I want to give her credit for. Instead of forcing me into a c-section with Owen, she sent me home after a failed induction and gave me three hours to push him out instead of calling it quits and sectioning me. She also came through for me after Noah's birth when the new OB (fresh out of residency) came to discharge me and informed me she'd be catheterizing me and watching my blood for protein because my blood pressure was slightly elevated....Dr. Ball happened to be in the hospital doing some paperwork and stopped in to check on me and ended up over-riding the new OB, canceling the catheterization and instead just letting me do some resting and follow up with a blood pressure check in her office the following week. (where my blood pressure was normal and good.)
So all in all, I'm very happy with my birthing experiences with Zionsville OBGYN. Dr. Ball has served me well and taken good care of me considering some of the complications I've thrown out there along the way. The nurse staff is excellent and I'll truly miss keeping up with them on a regular basis during prenatal visits :)
Lastly, I want to comment on how blessed I feel to have three healthy, beautiful children. This is truly a gift from God. I don't take it lightly that all three of my boys have been born without complication or medical issues. I understand that we don't know the future and can't predict health issues, but every time one of my babies is born I marvel at their completeness. Bringing children into the world is such a risk. I'm so grateful for healthy babes. So grateful!
Edited to add: A few things I want to remember...
After we were all cleaned up and before visitors arrived, my OB came back in to tell me she'd see me tomorrow. She paid me a huge compliment (for her...who I've come to believe is induction and epidural happy and overall somewhat unsupportive of natural childbirth)...she told me that I had done an excellent job with my last two births and it was obvious I knew what birthing was all about! Whoa! Huge compliment coming from her :) What she doesn't know is that with both births I was probably minutes away from requesting an epidural. Lol! During Wesley's birth she gave me "faces" whenever she would come in the room and suggest pitocin or an epi...during Noah's birth, she pretty much left me alone (except to mention pitocin if my labor didn't take off...understandable). Thinking back, she is probably more conservative than I want to give her credit for. Instead of forcing me into a c-section with Owen, she sent me home after a failed induction and gave me three hours to push him out instead of calling it quits and sectioning me. She also came through for me after Noah's birth when the new OB (fresh out of residency) came to discharge me and informed me she'd be catheterizing me and watching my blood for protein because my blood pressure was slightly elevated....Dr. Ball happened to be in the hospital doing some paperwork and stopped in to check on me and ended up over-riding the new OB, canceling the catheterization and instead just letting me do some resting and follow up with a blood pressure check in her office the following week. (where my blood pressure was normal and good.)
So all in all, I'm very happy with my birthing experiences with Zionsville OBGYN. Dr. Ball has served me well and taken good care of me considering some of the complications I've thrown out there along the way. The nurse staff is excellent and I'll truly miss keeping up with them on a regular basis during prenatal visits :)
Lastly, I want to comment on how blessed I feel to have three healthy, beautiful children. This is truly a gift from God. I don't take it lightly that all three of my boys have been born without complication or medical issues. I understand that we don't know the future and can't predict health issues, but every time one of my babies is born I marvel at their completeness. Bringing children into the world is such a risk. I'm so grateful for healthy babes. So grateful!
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