4.06.2009

Isaac "Big Bend" Wilson

Isaac was born on Friday, April 3, at approximately 6:30pm. We're not completely sure of the time because we were on Big Bend at Wydown when he made his arrival.

I had planned from the beginning of this pregnancy to have a natural birth if at all possible. I had a great doula to support me and I read fabulous natural childbirth books. I was informed, I was inspired, and I was hoping I could pull it off. The last 2-3 weeks of my pregnancy were a roller coaster of lots of contractions, including two false alarms, one of which we even went to the hospital for. I was so ready for this pregnancy to be over! On Friday morning about 4am I had the first of my big contractions, but I only had one. This continued all of the morning, 1, maybe two big contractions an hour. I had to breathe through them and afterwards I felt kinda crampy and back-achy. I knew real labor was going to happen that day, but I knew it was going to take a while. At about 3pm I laid down for a nap and around 3:45 a big contraction woke me up. From that point on they began coming more consistently, probably 7 minutes apart or so. They hurt, but were manageable. At 10 till 5pm I called my dad and asked if he could come soon as I thought we should be thinking of heading to the hospital soon. He had to pick up my mom from work because one of their cars was in the shop. They couldn't get there until 6pm. My contractions were coming around 5 minutes apart, but I thought I could make it one more hour before we went to the hospital. I didn't want to get their too early, or heaven forbid for labor to stop again as it had the week before. So, I said 6 was fine. About 10 till 6pm I had two enormous contractions and realized we had waited too long. I thought for sure we'd make it to the hospital, but thought I'd have him pretty much upon arrival. We got into the car about 6:05pm and I had to get in the back on my hands and knees because labor was so intense. Just as we started going I started dry-heaving and I thought to myself, oh no, this is what happens when you're in transition. But surely we'll make it. We got no more than a mile down the road before my water broke and when it broke I thought I felt his head descend. I reached down to check and sure enough, I could feel his head, he was crowning. We were stuck in rush hour traffic and though were only about 2 miles from the hospital, we were not moving. I had no choice but to pull off my pants and get ready for him to come. Jason called 911 and kept telling me not to push, but there was no choice in it. He was coming and coming fast. With one push half of his head was out, and seconds later another push and his entire head was out. It wasn't more than a minute more and his body came out in one big push. I had a body pillow with me in the car and had placed it underneath me to help catch him. As soon as he was out I pulled the pillow forward and there he was, blue, but moving. Jason pulled onto a side street and I wrapped him in my shirt. The 911 dispatcher told us to flick his feet to get him to breath. I was rubbing him and flicking his feet and trying to keep him warm. He wasn't crying loud, but he was moving and responding and opening his eyes. It took about 2 minutes for the ambulance to get there and they transferred Isaac and I to the hospital. I delivered the placenta there, they warmed up Isaac and we were both good to go!