The Details

So here is Henry's birth story. If you don't like honesty in blood and hospitals then feel free to scroll down and merely look at the pictures (not pictures of the birth but of Henry)

A little background:(Henry yawning, not screaming. I love the action shot)

Week 35: We decided to change doctors. I know it was kind of late in the game but I really felt strongly about finding a doctor who would be more compliant with our birth plan. I had decided that I wanted to birth naturally and Steve and I had taken hypnobirthing classes in preparation. In short, hypnobirthing uses relaxation to work with the body and baby in labor. I won't go into it here but if you want more info just leave me a comment. I had taken my birth plan to my original doctor and hadn't gotten the reaction I wanted. So we went to someone else.
I loved our new doctor, Dr. Berry and we both felt really good about him. He didn't think our birth plan was unreasonable and was totally willing to work with us.
Then, literally the first appointment I have with him, I have high blood pressure. I have never had high blood pressure before in pregnancy or not.(After his second bath at home, he hates baths.)

He had me come back to his office the next day to check again. My pressure was still high and he sent me to the hospital to be monitored. The hospital. I had never been to the hospital before.
At this point I am at risk for toxemia which means bed rest and more trips to the hospital.

Week 37:
They tell us that they are not going to let me carry past 38 weeks since the baby will be fully developed having reached full term at 37 weeks. I mentally prepare myself to have the baby as I am going to be induced on Monday December 21. Meanwhile I'm working and relaxing from home on bed rest which is the hardest part for me. Literally I can only get up to go to the bathroom and shower. During this time I don't even set foot in the kitchen and Steve being the wonderful man that he is takes care of me and helps do the finishing touches for the baby.

Week 38:
Thursday before induction, I have a doctor's appointment and they get protein in my urine test which means my kidneys are possibly failing so they send me to the hospital to be induced. Steve and I stop at Subway to get dinner since they will not feed you once you set foot inside. Steve and I check into the hospital and get settled in our room. They hook me up to a monitor and check my progress. So far I am already dilated to a 3 and am about 80% effaced. I register a 10 on the Bishop's Scale which means that inducing me will be successful and that my body is pretty much ready to go.(This is my boy, all cheeks and no neck)

While they put my IV in and take a blood sample, I start to feel faint so they have me lie on my back. Immediately I feel better but to my dismay the room fills with nurses and they have an oxygen mask over my face, the baby's heart rate has dropped from 150 to 70. They roll me over to my side-to allow circulation back into the uterus and everything goes back to normal. But not without a momentary panic.
All hooked up and waiting for the final doctor's orders for Pitocen, Steve leaves to run home and get our bags. We had already packed up everything except for the final items like toiletries and such. At 6:00 pm they start Pitocen and tell me that someone is going to be coming in to break my water. I didn't really want that to happen since I would have preferred to have it break on its own. They came in and broke my water at 6:30 which was pretty much like having a pelvic exam but with a huge gush of water at the end. It didn't hurt and since having random people poke around down there was getting less strange, it wasn't too terrible.(Sometimes we find him making funny poses, Steve saw this one.)

Once they started Pitocen things continued to progress normally for the first few hours. I was having contractions but they were even less painful than some of the braxton hicks I had had. Steve came back with all our stuff just as they upped my dosage on Pitocen. Now I had planned to birth naturally despite having to be induced. I had heard horrible stories of Pitocen being quite the killer especially in combination of breaking your water. Once they upped my dosage, I really started to feel the contractions and they were super intense. I tried hard to relax but was shaking because of the pain. Imagine really bad cramps, that's what it felt like.
I'm not going to lie, it really hurt and I was having a hard time handling it. Then to add another cherry on top, my nurse came in and said that my blood pressure was so high-due to the pain-that I was at risk for seizures. Seizures! So they hooked me up to magnesium to prevent me from having a seizure. It was then that Steve and I decided to go ahead and get an epidural. I knew that as soon as my pain went away my blood pressure would come down.
The anetheologist came in and worked his magic. It wasn't what I had originally planned but nothing about the labor ended up going as planned. I think the main thing was that I felt really prepared. I had read my books, done my research, prepared myself the best I could to make the wisest decisions for myself and my baby. And I feel good about the how experience went since I felt like I was pretty much in control and in "the know" throughout.
So once the epidural kicked in, I was still shaking but I felt relaxed and my blood pressure went back to normal. My left leg was completely out-like I couldn't even move it-and my right leg was the perfect amount of numb and still being able to move it.
Once the epidural was in place, they checked me and I had dilated to a 7. So within an hour and a half I had dilated from a 3 to a 7. No wonder I had been in so much pain. After the epidural I pretty much just slept while Steve watched the Suns game and then before I knew it, I was at a 10. The only weird thing is that once your water breaks with every contraction the baby shifts position in your birth canal and water continues to leak out. Its a great feeling, kind of like you peed your pants but you didn't and since Henry had had a bowel movement inutero, the fluid stunk. Well, I couldn't smell it but Steve said it did.
Once at a 10, we waited for the baby to come down the birth canal instead of pushing him out. At this point my right leg was starting to really feel pain again so using the handy button they gave me, I gave myself another shot of drugs. This is the only thing I regret as my body became numb again it was trickier to push when the time came.
I started pushing and since my contractions were about 3-5 minutes apart I was able to sleep between most of them. I pushed for about 2 1/2 hours but it really didn't feel like that long since I had breaks in between. Once his head came out I gave another small push and remember feeling this giant release and flow. It felt amazing-by then the drugs had worn off enough so I could feel some of what was happening. They placed Henry all red and covered in vernix-white cheesy waterproof coating-on my belly. I remember thinking he had a very red face and a cone head. I didn't see the placenta, Steve did but I pushed that out as well. They took Henry to the side since they had to check him for meconium in the lungs and Steve went to take pictures and be with him.
They stitched me up, I had just one small tear and then they started kneading my stomach to make sure all the placenta had come out and that hurt like a mother. It was the most painful part and would be every time they checked me over the next day. Sometime during that they brought him back over and put him on my chest. His cone head was gone and he was very alert but he had no interest in eating so off to the nursery he went with Steve for his first bath.
Meanwhile my nurses finished cleaning me up and getting me ready to move to recovery.

Since you probably don't want to hear about recovery, I'll end it there.

Overall nothing went as planned but I feel really good about the experience. Not just because we ended up with a healthy mom and baby but because of the preparations I had done beforehand. I think if I hadn't done all my own research and planning, I would have felt like just another procedure and instead I felt like we were able to make good decisions and really be involved in our medical care.
(I love this one, so sweet, my two guys)