Wow, what a whirlwind this last week has been!! Baby Layton tried to make his appearance several different times, well, at least that what WE thought!! Given that this was my third pregnancy, I thought for sure I would know beyond a doubt when I was in labor! Apparently, I'm not such a good judge of that, since we found ourselves in the hospital and back out of the hospital two times before it was actually the REAL THING! I have never spent so much time walking and doing anything else to help "encourage" this little one out of me! I had been praying and praying that things would work out somehow to allow my Dr. to deliver this baby. And wouldn't you know, God had it all worked out in the end! After a VERY discouraging and frustrating day at the hospital last Wednesday that ended with us coming back home and waiting some more, I found myself at the Dr. office on Thursday morning with MY Dr., confirming that I was in fact "ready to go" at any minute. He ensured me that if I had any more contractions, he was confident that they would be the real thing and I would find myself holding my baby boy at the end. And he was RIGHT! I started having 10min. contractions Thursday afternoon that were very consistent. They finally started getting closer and closer around 6:30 and got to about 4-5 minutes apart. The intensity was increasing to the point that I was in quite a bit of pain with each contraction, even though they weren't very close together. We finally decided that since Dr. Bland was on call Thursday night, we would head into the hospital since he promised to help my labor along this time!! So, we sat down with the kids for a "family meeting". I reminded Reilly that God has a very special plan for everything and we never really know what that plan is or what His timing is. I told her that a few times mommy and daddy thought we knew God's plan but had been wrong about when this baby would come. And then I explained that while we still don't know for sure what God's plan is, THIS TIME mommy and daddy had a pretty good idea. I told her that we were pretty sure we would have a baby either that night or the next morning. The biggest smile stretched across her face. We continued with our bedtime prayers with the kids (all the while, I'm having pretty intense contractions!) and I tucked Reilly into bed. As I was going to close the door to her room, she called out to me, "Mommy!", "yes", I said, "I hope we're right this time!" she responded. "Yes buddy, I hope we're 'right' this time too!!". So precious:)
Tom and Susan got to the house about 10:30pm, planning to just come and spend the night so we could head down to the hospital. By the time they got there, my pain level was pretty high and I was really having a hard time getting through the contractions at that point. We got to the hospital at 11:00ish and the best news ever was awaiting us...we didn't have to go to Triage!! We bypassed the WORST part about going to the hospital! Since Dr. Bland was there, he told them to go ahead and admit me. This was when I was SURE we were going to have a baby that night!!!
I got an epidural around 12:30am which helped a ton on the pain situation. At 1:00am, I was at 5cm and 100% effaced. Dr. Bland went ahead and broke my water to see if that would speed things up a bit. Shawn and I and mom and dad were just hanging out in the room and then they went out to the waiting room for a bit so we could try to rest. At 4:00am Dr. Bland came back and I was only at 6cm. He wasn't pleased with how slowly things were progressing, so he ordered some pitocin. The pit didn't get started until about 4:30 and wasn't fully in my system until about 5:00am. I was trying to dose off a bit but the contractions were so strong that I was feeling them through the epidural. At 5:45, my nurse came in to check on my and I told her that I was really feeling the contractions. She decided to check and see if I had progressed anymore. "Oh!!! You're complete!" was all she said! What?! I was at 10cm and the head was at a +2 station, +3 being fully out!! She said, "don't move"! and all I know is that within 60 seconds, the room was swarming with people prepping for delivery. Shawn had been sleeping on the chair next to me and he was a bit disoriented when things started happening so quickly!! Once everything was prepped and ready, I pushed TWICE and Layton Boyce Turner was born!! Exactly 18 mins. after I complained about my contractions being pretty painful. Amazing. It all happened so fast I couldn't even believe it! And the biggest shocker....he weighed 8lbs and 13 oz!!!! Holy Moly, what a big boy! It was so awesome having my own doctor there to deliver and even better that things happened so much quicker than with Braxton and Reilly's labor!
The best part is that I had a great photographer/friend "on call" to do some photography for us in the delivery room. She arrived about 30 mins after Layton was born since everything happened so fast! But, it was still amazing to have her there and the pictures she captured are beyond perfect!
We were discharged just around 5:30pm and couldn't WAIT to get home! It's just so hard to constantly have people and nurses and nurse techs coming in asking how you're doing, what you need, can I check you here and there and how's the baby and when was the last time he ate, pooped or peed??!
