Drew's Birth Story

*Disclaimer- this post is very long and is very detailed. I wanted to write everything down so I can make sure to remember it all. Read all of it or just some of it, or just skip to the pictures at the end... whatever suits your fancy!

I had just gone to my 36 week appointment the day before my contractions started. According to the MD, I was dilated to a 2 and he had every reason to believe I would make it to my scheduled induction on April 27^th. Drew had other plans. The next day, we loaded up the Outback and jumped on the 15 southbound to enjoy conference weekend in sunny St. George. My mom, dad, and little brother Luke were going to meet us there and we were going to spend the weekend hanging out, hiking Zion, swimming in the hotel pool, and eating delicious food. All the makings of a perfect weekend getaway.

On Friday evening, we put Ryder to bed in his pack and play in the corner and Chad and I snuggled up in bed to watch a movie on Netflix. That’s when contractions started to make themselves known. They weren’t painful, but they were coming just about every 10-12 minutes for the next hour. That night I slept great and in the morning the contractions were still there, but not regular and not painful. We decided that there was no reason to wait around for something to happen, so we piled in the car and headed to Zion. Mindful of the irregular contractions and the fact that we were hiking with a 2-year-old, our hiking was nothing extreme but we did explore the park and hiked the Emerald Pools. I got lots of stares for hiking with my prego belly, but we had fun and good news… the baby was not born in Zion National Park.

The next day, I was still having irregular contractions, for an hour they would be more consistent, and then there would be longer breaks of 20-30 minutes. We debated whether or not we should head over to Dixie Regional to be evaluated, but we had not brought the infant carrier with us (we had thought about it but then didn’t want to jinx ourselves) and we were not really thrilled about having the baby in St. George. Instead, we jumped in the car and got on the road. I even stole a towel from the hotel to sit on while driving back, just in case my water broke. We were bringing Luke back to Utah with us, so it was nice to have an extra set of hands to help entertain Ryder on the drive back. Especially when the contractions started to become more regular and even a little painful. Thankfully we made it all the way home without baby coming! At this point, I knew I was in early labor, and it was just a matter of time before we got to meet our newest little guy.

We decided to drop the boys off at home and then head to the hospital to be evaluated. Once again, thank goodness we had Luke with us so that we could leave him at home with Ryder man! We checked into the hospital and I was at a 3. The contractions were regular, but not hurting too bad. After an hour of eval, they said I hadn’t changed since I had been there and therefore it wasn’t quite time. They said that after my contractions started to come closer together and were more painful to come back. I was a little bummed to have made Chad drive me all the way down to American Fork Hospital just to be turned away, but that’s life. We decided to turn it into a date night and grab some In-N-Out on the way home. In-N-Out always makes anything better.

Turns out it was a good thing to go home because we were able to have the evening to get things unpacked and cleaned up from our weekend in St. George. Threw in a few loads of laundry, got Ryder man in jammies and in bed (not an easy thing after our mini vacation) and packed a hospital bag for when it was time to go back to the hospital. We went to bed and waited to see how the night would play out. The contractions were still about the same, but as the night went on, they became increasingly more painful. I was up about once an hour with a contraction that was strong enough to wake me up, otherwise I got to sleep the entire night. By morning, I still wasn’t sure if today was the day, so Chad got up and went to work. I told him he could go as long as he could be, “on call” and ready to come home if the baby decided to come.

I got up for the day around 7 am when Ryder woke up and luckily I had Luke around to play with him because my contractions were starting to hurt more and about every 15 minutes there would be one where I had to sit down and breathe through it. I was able to email my sister Riley a few times since she happened to be online for her P-day, and I told her that I was pretty sure the baby was coming. If not today, then sometime in the next couple of days. She was ecstatic for me, but had to go before we knew for sure what was happening. By about 9:30, I knew it was time to go to the hospital so I texted Chad and told him he needed to come home. Initially I was pretty easy going and told him that as soon as he could come would be fine. He told me to cross my legs. Completely helpful. To which I told him to hurry. Then his response was, “I’ll drive like a bat out of hell.” That Chad, he’s so poetic.

About 45 minutes later, Chad walked through the door and I was REALLY ready to go. The contractions were extremely painful and about 6-7 minutes apart by this time. We threw Ryder and Luke in the car and started driving down to American Fork. In case they were going to send me home again, we wanted Luke and Ryder to have a chance to get out of the house. We dropped them off at the park down the street where Kenna was going to pick them up once she got out of class, and headed to the hospital. I waddled my way into the hospital and we took the elevator up to the 4^th floor. There was another couple in the elevator going to L &D, but they were much more calm and collected than we were. She was going in for an induction and looked comfortable and relaxed while I was a mess; hunched over and holding my belly just trying to breathe through the pain. I guess we can’t all be glamorous. When we go to the third floor, the other couple picked up the phone and said they were there to have a baby. They must have asked her if we were with her because she turned to look at me and then responded in the phone, “nope, but it looks like she’s here to have a baby too!”

By the time we got checked in and put in a room, it was about 11:30 am. The nurse got me a gown, connected me up to the monitors and checked me- I was at a 5! She said she would go call the doctor and make sure they were on board for the baby to come today. She said she would be surprised if they wanted to send me home at a 5, but because I was only 36 weeks and 4 days, she had to check anways. Sure enough, the docs said I could stay, we were having the baby today!

I was pretty uncomfortable at this point, but I was happy that this was not a false alarm. This was the real deal! Chad settled in on the plastic couch by the window with his Bluetooth headset and laptop and went to work. I waited for the nurse to come back and sent out text messages to all our people, letting them know we were in the hospital and ready to go! Chad tuned into his conference call while the nurse was doing her admit questions and initial assessment. At the end of which she asked, “When would you like your epidural?” Without a moment’s hesitation I responded that whenever they were available, I was ready. About 10 minutes later the nurse anesthetist came in and started the epidural. Having had one with my first labor, I knew what to expect, but the immediate relief still came at a bit of a surprise. The nurse anesthetist then became my favorite person of the day. That woman is a miracle worker. I am definitely a believer in the medical phenomenon that is called an epidural. I was happy, comfortable, content, and unlike my last labor well rested. Everyone should have a baby in the afternoon after sleeping at least a semi-decent night’s sleep the night before.

For the next 45 minutes or so, I lounged comfortably in the hospital bed. I watched an episode of Bones on the iPad and waited for the nurse to come back to check my progress. Chad was having a successful conference call and all was well. At around 1:30 pm she came back for a check. I was shocked when she pronounced that I was at a 10 and this baby was coming! I tried to call to Chad but he was a little absorbed in his call. I finally caught his eye, gestured a number 10 with both hands and told him he HAD to go get the camera out of the car. It was baby time! Unfortunately, the doctor from Valley OB who was on call also had 2 other patients who were delivering at the same time, so the nurse said to try the best I could to not push and hold that baby in. Apparently the girl next door was in excruciating pain so he was going to deliver her first. After a little wait, he finally came in and started chatting us up while he was setting up. He asked what we were having and when I said boy, he said, “Well that’s good because then when you are out places your husband will have to take both boys to the bathroom while you get to wait in peace outside.” He had all sorts of pearls of wisdom.

Finally it was time to start pushing. I pushed for about 10-15 minutes and then he was here! The doctor had to do a slight episiotomy, but at that point (and with an epidural on board), you tend to not really care about anything except getting that baby here! At 2:12 pm, Drew Burton Bennett was born. He was 7 lbs 1 oz and 20.5 inches long. He was very blue, but they put him right on my chest for some skin to skin. There’s just something magical about getting to hold your baby for the first time. To finally get to see your baby that you’ve been carrying for 9 months and hold them close. There’s nothing better in the world. That baby came straight from heaven and he was now mine. Forever he is my baby boy.

After a minute or two, he was still not pinking up, so the nurse took him to the warmer and the respiratory therapist gave him a little bit of blow by oxygen. He had some initial grunting and a little bit of a hard time breathing, but after a little bit of oxygen he started to look a lot less like a blueberry. They decided to send him down to the nursery and do a CPAP trial to see if it would help him keep his sats up. Chad got to go with them and they wheeled him out of the room. For the next hour, I waited for them to come back. Down in the nursery, when they went to try the CPAP, his sats had already improved on their own, so they just monitored him for another half hour to make sure he was doing okay. Chad was there for his first bath and then my L&D nurse insisted that they bring him back up so I could see him. I got to hold him for a good half hour before they moved us downstairs. I tried to feed him, but by this time he was so zonked out from the whole birth experience, it just wasn’t happening. That’s alright though, because snuggle time is just as important. With a squirmy, active 2-year-old Ryder at home, it was crazy to hold such a little, quiet baby.

They finally moved us down to the mother/baby unit and we got settled in. Chad called McKenna and an hour or so later, Kenna, Luke, and Ryder came to see the new baby. We hadn’t quite decided what his name would be, so for now he was just “baby”, but that was okay. The first time he woke up to eat, it took about 25 minutes to get him to latch on, but luckily my experience at the Special Care Nursery came in handy and I was able to get him to eat. Every time after that, he took to feeding like a natural. Right off the bat he was awake every 3-4 hours and ready to eat. He was quite the eater. That first night Chad went home to be with Ryder and I had baby Drew all to myself. That next day, we had a few visitors in the morning, and then in the afternoon Chad came back to the hospital to be just the 3 of us. We ordered the room service meals for dinner and had a blast ordering as many desserts as we thought was socially acceptable. Two each. We finished watching the movie Jobs (we had started watching it in St. George, but hadn’t gotten around to finishing it) and then Chad went home for the night.

Luke had watched Ryder that entire afternoon and when Chad got home around 8 pm (they had been alone since about 1 pm), Chad asked him what they ate for dinner. Luke confessed that they hadn’t actually eaten anything since he left. Then Chad asked him when he had changed his diaper last. Luke said he also hadn’t changed a diaper either. Apparently they had too much fun playing away the afternoon! That night, I enjoyed the quite solace of my hospital room and my sweet new baby. We watched cupcake wars and then went to bed. In the middle of the night, they took him to the nursery for a few hours and I was able to get actually a semi-decent night’s sleep.

The next day, it was time to go home. Chad came to pick us up and it was time to face reality. We had our sweet baby Drew and our wild Ryder man in the back of the Subaru with Luke in the middle.  In a matter of a few days, my heart had doubled in size. It opened up and expanded to love this newest boy in my life. I now have 3 boys that I could not imagine loving any more than I do at this moment. They are my everything.