He Who Comes With the Peaches

Cal Tanner Swan
Born September 4th 2016, 6:29am
7 pounds 5 ounces
20.5 inches long

It worked!  From now on canning peaches is my new go-to to induce labor. :) Ha! I'd always secretly hoped we'd have a baby over Labor Day weekend, but I never really believed we would, and I was mentally gearing up for the 12th.. The way it went down it couldn't have worked out more perfectly if I'd planned it myself. 

Saturday night Aaron and I went to be around 10:30pm feeling satisfied with  that we'd accomplished to much to get ready for the baby, and with big plans to finish up a few more things on Monday, after after a peaceful Sabbath Day. 

Ollie came in at about midnight with leg cramps. He snuggled in bed with us for a little bit while I rubbed his legs, and then took him back to his own room, sang him a few songs, and retucked him into bed. 

I had just dozed off again when I had a contraction. And it was not one I'd classify as a braxton hick, but an actual "real" contraction. My eyes popped open. 1:13am. I'd been having braxton hicks off and on all day, so I figured this was probably just a continuation inspired by being up with Ollie, and that they'd die down in a bit. I didn't wake Aaron. 

1:23am

1:33am

1:43am

I was out of bed and feeling tingly, nervous energy. The kind I always feel when it's "time". I woke up Aaron. Logically, I knew that only four contractions, and ten minutes apart at that, was not enough to say they were "consistent" and that we should head to the hospital. But my instinct knew, and I think Aaron's must've too, because he hopped out of bed and started getting dressed. We'd both decided we were going to the hospital, without having to verbalize it. 

What to do with the kids though? Especially since we didn't know if the hospital was going to admit us or not.

Being Labor Day weekend, both mine and Aaron's parents were out of town. Luckily we have awesome neighbors. We called ours across the street, who Aaron home teaches, and she came right over.

The drive to the hospital was totally clear, which was a relief, because there has been a lot of construction on that route lately. My contractions had eased up and were very short, but were now coming about every five minutes. I thought they might peter out before we got there. Also, something different, my body was shaking uncontrollably, like I was standing outside in the middle of winter with no coat on. Usually, that doesn't happen until after the birth. It wasn't painful or anything, but it did make my muscles more tense, and since my jaw was tight and chattering it was hard to talk to Aaron. 

We got to the hospital in record time, found a front row parking spot (another relief, because the hospital is also under construction), and went right up to Labor and Delivery. The receptionist who checked us in had the same birthday as me. :)   She asked a bunch of questions about my pregnancy and what number of baby this was. Then she asked how far apart my contractions were and what my pain level was. I told her my pain level was about a half. She looked confused and asked what? I told her my pain level was only about a half, in other words I wasn't feeling really any pain yet. She gave me another look, so I quickly explained, "I go fast. I'm not in pain now, but it will escalate quickly. Dr. Anderson told me to come in at any sign that I was in labor." That seemed to satisfy her. But I think it's funny that the same thing happens with every baby.  

They took me back to a room to check me. I was dilated to a 4. The nurse said that typically the policy is that they don't admit you until you're dilated to a 5, but since this was my sixth baby, and since I have a track record of progressing quickly, she was going to go call my doctor and see what he thought. She said most likely I would be staying though. And she was right. 

As soon as we knew we were being admitted, Aaron called his brother Kelly, who lives in American Fork, to see if he'd be willing to go stay with our kids. Kelly is basically a saint, and he agreed with no hesitation. I was relieved to know that our kids were going to be well taken care of, and was able to relax and focus on the event ahead. Aaron called both sets of parents, and both said they'd be heading for home in the morning, and they'd see us in the evening. (Aaron's parents were 8 hours away, and mine were 6 hours away.)

 

When I've delivered at Payson in the past, they required that I run a bag of saline through my IV before they would call the anesthesiologist to come give the epidural. For someone who progresses quickly in labor, it takes a relatively long time to drip a bag of saline through an IV, and usually by the time the anesthesiologist gets there, I'm in a bit of pain, and wondering if I'm going to end up going so quickly that I won't have time for the epidural. 

So when the nurse asked if I wanted the epidural yet, I said yes, thinking it was going to be a long process, and that by the time it actually got there, I'd be ready. Turns out they do things differently in Provo. The nurse called the anesthesiologist right away, then put in my IV, and by the time she finished doing that, the anesthesiologist was there, ready to go. Consequently, I had zero pain during labor and delivery. And I have to admit, it was pretty wonderful. In fact, it might have even been pleasant, except that I was still shaking uncontrollably. They gave me a warm blanket to wrap around me, and that helped some. 

The anesthesiologist was one of the nicest guys, especially considering that it was 3am. He was a curly, gray-haired guy whose oldest kids were around mine and Aaron's age. He was personable and friendly and talkative. He started off talking to the nurse about the BYU game, and when he found out both Aaron and I had attended BYU, we started talking about going to football games, and rivalries. Somehow that conversation turned to baseball, and the World Series, and the mormon guy who could be the MVP this year. We talked about our favorite teams and which stadiums we.d been to. The anesthesiologist was a Cubs fan and jokingly said he didn't like the Mets (my team) because they had beat the Cubs out of the running to play in the World Series in Back to Future year. That made me laugh. And I told him, better a Mets fan than a Yankees fan, to which we could both agree. :) He ahs kids and grandkids in Texas, so we talked about Texas for awhile. It made me miss all my wonderful friends who live there. Then we talkeda bout engineering degrees at BYU, and how one of his sons was trying to decide which engineering field to go into. Anyways, he stayed in there about an hour chatting with us, before they called him to go to a different room. It was a really enjoyable conversation and made the hour pass quickly. When he left the nurse commented that she'd never seen him be that chatty before. She said he's always very nice, but that that was the first time she'd seen him stay so long in a room with a patient. That made me happy, thinking that maybe he appreciated the late night company as much as we did. 

  

A little while later, I started getting a bit dizzy, and my vision was blurry. Aaron called the nurse in, and she said I was probably just laying too flat on my back. So I rolled to the side and she propped me up, and almost immediately it was better. Aaron and I tried to listen to an audio book on my Kindle to pass the time, but listening to the reader was more annoying than distracting so eventually we turned it off, and I just had Aaron talk to me. His voice is soothing, and it helped me forget about shaking so much. 

The next two times the nurse checked my progress I was only at a 4.5 and then a 5. She said my contractions has slowed down a bit, and that the baby was "bouncy" which means his head wasn't all the way engaged into the birth canal. She said they couldn't break my water until his head was all the way engaged, or else he might pull away and there was risk that the cord would wrap around his neck. She had me roll over onto my side and put something called a peanut ball in between my legs. It's big like an exercise ball, only shaped like a peanut. I'm not sure how, but it's supposed to help baby get into position. She also started a very low dose of petosin in my drip line. And since I was at a 5 and Dr. Anderson was in Payson, she was going to call him and have him be on his way. 

I felt a little bit sheepish. Here I was telling anyone who would listen about how fast my labors go, and here I was lying in a bed not making hardly any progress at all. Aaron gave me a blessing, that things would go smoothly, that the baby would come out active and well, and that I would feel a sense of peace and calm concerning the birth. 

The nurse came in with Dr. Anderson, it had been 20 minutes since she'd told me I was at a 5. She checked me again and I was at a 9.5 and completely effaced! That's the fast I've been talking about! She was surprised. Dr. Anderson broke my water, and then went to get his scrubs on. The nurse left and said she'd come check on me again in 30 minutes. Aaron and I just gave each other a look as we sat alone in the room. I've never been left alone after my water had been broken before. Usually they baby came very quickly after that, and I was wondering if Aaron was going to have to deliver him if no one was coming back for 30 minutes. 

Luckily, the nurse came back within 5 minutes, with some supplies for the delivery, and noticed that she could see the baby's head. She called Dr. Anderson in. He came in, looked at me, said, "Yep, there he is. Don't push." And turned around to get his gown and gloves on. When he turned around, Aaron and the nurse looked at each other, and both took a step closer to me, as if to put their hands out to catch the baby. Just then Dr. Anderson turned around, he hadn't put his gloves on yet, he only had time to pull his sleeves down over his hands, and catch the baby, who just slipped right out. :) I didn't even push. 

  

Cal was born at 6:29am. Which means my labor was five hours and sixteen minutes long, about the same length of time I labored with Ruby. And Cal came out squirmy and screaming! They put him up on my belly right away so I could look at him, and Aaron walked over to see him and he peed all over Aaron. I've never seen that happen before, it was so funny! And it was a lot of pee, too. Enough that they had to change the blanket on my bed.  Aaron followed Cal to the other side of the room as the nurses weighed him. After a minute Aaron said to me, "Well, he must be Cal, because he doesn't look like a Calvin." (For more in-depth about this decision, see this post.)

So here he is, my little "Late summer harvest" baby. I'm dubbing him He-Who-Comes-With-The-Peaches. :) 

Cal Tanner Swan

7 pounds 5 ounces

20.5 inches long

 

They moved us from the Labor and Delivery floor to the Mother and Baby floor, almost right away. They said that the new policy at the hospital was for Mom and Baby to stay together as much as possible. So instead of taking Cal away to bathe him, someone was going to bring all the bath stuff to our room downstairs, and bathe him in our room with us. Cool! I've never got to see any of my babies have their bathes before. Usually Aaron goes with them to the nursery to watch while I just wait around. It was fun to see. And the nurse giving him his bath was really nice and we just chatted about life, and kids, and what-not.

We checked in at home with Kelly to see how things were going. He said he had everything under control, and that Esther was bringing their two boys down and they were going to take all seven kids to our church. I told you he was a saint, and Esther too, haha! Brave souls. But seriously, I am so grateful for them for taking care of our kids. My biggest stress with each labor is always what we're going to do with the other kids while we're at the hospital, and Kelly and Esther made it so that it wasn't an issue.

Later in the afternoon, my mom and Kerry came to visit before they headed to our house to relieve Kelly and Esther. While they were there, Aaron ran home and got our kids so they could come up and meet their new baby brother.  After our kids left, Aaron's parents came to meet Cal too. So he's gotten to meet all the most important people in his life, his parents, his siblings, and both sets of grandparents. What a lucky kid.  :)

 

Cal kept doing this little groaning-moaning thing, that sounded sort of like a squeaky door hinge. All of his nurses mentioned it. They called it "singing" and were concerned that he was having trouble breathing. They did an oxygen test on him about every other time they came in. But he always passed the test with flying colors. One of the night nurses said she would feel more comfortable if the respiratory team came and had a look at him, just to make sure. I was agreeable, not because I was worried, but I figured it couldn't hurt, and then we would know for sure that all was a-okay. It was. In fact, I think the respiratory team thought we were a little silly. They took one look at his red color and said, he's fine, look at him. They did listen to him breathe for a minute, and declared that he was just a noisy baby. I was fine with that. It was fun to go for a midnight walk down the nursery and chat with the nurses. I usually don't get to leave my hospital room while I'm there.

Cal was a great sleeper. He gave us a four-and-a-half hour stretch and several two hour stretches the first night. And the nurses left us alone at night pretty much. I guess that's the advantage you get when you are on baby number six, the nurses don't feel the need to come in every hour. :)

All of our nurses were great though. I noticed that lots of them stayed in to chat with me. It was nice to have real conversations with real adults. I felt like I've been lacking adult interaction on a regular basis for such a long time, haha! It was wonderful to just chat with other women about their kids, and their grandkids, and baby names, and hobbies, and holidays. Maybe because the lady with six kids was some kind of small anomaly, but many were curious about our other kids, how old they were, what their names were, what they thought about their brother, etc. I even had one nurse, when she found out I'd had three of our kids naturally, ask what my feelings were about having a natural child birth at a hospital, and if I thought hospitals were good about creating a good experience for mothers who wanted to go natural. I told her I couldn't speak for everyone, but that all of my birth experiences natural and medicated, had been wonderful. The hospital staff has always been very supportive of my choice, either way. At any rate, my experience with the nurses and staff this go around was very friendly. I enjoyed connecting with so many different people.

 

We came home Monday afternoon to a clean house and happy kids. And dinner. My mom and Kerry are amazing. :) Kerry went home Monday night after dinner, but my mom stayed until Thursday. She is super woman, not only did she keep our house clean, entertain five wild children, and make sure my water was always full, but she made bread AND cinnamon rolls, and canned a whole bunch of peach syrup so the peaches from my tree wouldn't be wasted. I love moms. And mine is one of the best. It was sad when we had to drop her off at the train station on Thursday. I wasn't ready for her to go yet. 

But we have also had amazing friends and neighbors. People have brought us meals, hot loaves of bread, taken our kids for play dates, dropped me off lunch, written sweet cards and emails, sat by my kids in Sacrament meeting so that Aaron could take Ruby out, done my calling for me, and one wonderful friend is even taking my oldest three two mornings this week so they can do school with her kids. That is love right there. I feel very blessed to live where we do, and to be associated with the people we are.

And my sweet little Cal...so far he's a really mellow baby. He's not fussy. He eats and goes right back to sleep in about 2 hour stretches, although we've had a few 4 hour ones. Sometimes he's just awake and peaceful. He can be a little tricky to burp, but it doesn't seem to bother him if he hasn't. He wakes up slowly, a little grunt or two at a time, it takes him a long time to work up to a cry. My gut feeling is that he's probably a Type 2 like his dad and his brother Ollie. But since he's still in sleepy newborn phase, I don't want to say anything for sure. Also, I feel like it's really hard to facial profile a newborn, because they are always changing. At any rate, I'm glad he's here safe and sound.