GANNON BEAU’S BIRTH STORY

Today is my baby boy’s first birthday *insert ALL of the mama tears here* ….and what better day to share this story with you!?!

I apologize in advance for the length of this post, but In order to tell this story accurately, I feel the need to explain the days leading up to June 30, 2017.

Plus I’m going to be selfish and include every small silly detail that I can remember, because 20 years from now I want to look back at this story and be vividly reminded of how it all really went down.

So without further ado…. here’s the long winded, far from glamorous, slightly embarrassing, but TOTALLY AMAZING story of Gannon Beau’s Birth-day.

It all began on Wednesday, June 28, 2017. A beautiful summer day, approximately 7 days after I had left my favorite job at a nice little law firm in San Diego. I had been spending these last few days of my pregnancy preparing the home, nursery, and hospital bag for baby’s arrival.

On this particular day, I had plans to get out of the house and pamper myself a little with a pedicure and a fresh haircut before becoming a busy new mom.

However, I never made it out the door.

Instead I woke up with this annoying constant urge to pee, even when I didn’t have to. This sensation became increasingly more uncomfortable throughout the day, so I decided to call off my pampering plans and stay home to rest.

As the day went on, the feeling became more and more intolerable. I couldn’t get comfortable in any position, whether it be sitting, standing, or laying down. Baby boy felt like he had literally dropped into my vagina and my walk had officially turned into a waddle.

After a long day of 5,268 trips to the bathroom (okay, not really but it was a lot!), bedtime finally rolled around. As I tossed and turned in discomfort, I quickly realized that getting any sleep just wasn’t going to happen.

At 12:26am, I finally gave in and called nurse connection. The triage nurse thought it’d be a good idea to wake up hubby and go to the hospital to get checked out.

Aaron and I left the house at 1:00am and arrived at the hospital at 2:00am, after two quick pit stops on the side of the road so that Aaron could stick his head out of the driver side door to throw up. (What the heck, right!?) We aren’t exactly sure what was going on with him that night. He likes to blame “sleep deprivation” *eye roll,* but I like to tease him and say it was nerves (haha)!

By the time we reached triage, Aaron was feeling better but I couldn’t stop running to the restroom every two seconds, in fear of peeing my pants.

We spent 4 hours in triage.

After peeing the bed twice (so embarrassing! But Aaron was super sweet and snooped through the hospital room drawers to find me fresh pee pads so I wouldn’t have to tell the nurse I wet the bed), an IV to hydrate me, negative tests for a UTI, a scan of my bladder, countless trips to the bathroom, and LOTS of monitoring baby…. we were surprised to learn that I was actually having consistent contractions 2-4 minutes apart the entire time and I had no idea.

“Do you feel that?” the nurse asked. “Feel what?” I replied. “I just feel like I’m going to pee my pants!”

“You’re having a contraction,” she said.

The nurse’s best guess as to why the contractions were feeling this way to me was just that baby boy was so low down he was smashing my bladder.

At 6:00am, we were discharged. The nurse was unable to reach my cervix to check for dilation and since my contractions weren’t strong enough to put me in agonizing pain she thought it’d be best for us to go home for a few hours and keep my 12:00pm appointment that I already had scheduled for that day with Dr. O’Hara, in hopes that he would have better luck checking me.

So it’s now Thursday, June 29th 2017. We hung out at home in the living room for a couple of hours, just to turn around and drive back down the hill for our doctors appointment.

We arrived at the doctors office early and officially starting to feel the contractions in my lower back. We were exhausted and anxious to hear an update on our progress.

When we finally saw Dr. O’Hara, he seemed to have trouble checking my dilation as well. He explained that Baby Boy’s head seemed to be pushing my cervix back in a way that was making it very difficult to get to. (I still to this day don’t quite understand what he meant by that, but okay.) He did mention, however, that he was shocked to see how low baby’s head was for a first time pregnancy. “It’s no wonder you’re feeling pressure and discomfort,” he said.

The good news was, little man couldn’t possibly get any lower without coming right out to meet us! But even with that being said, Dr. O’Hara predicted we still had another 3-4 days before we could expect to meet our sweet boy.

“Psssshh… we’ll see about that!” I thought to myself.

As we were getting on the elevator leaving the doctor’s office, I remember turning to Aaron and saying, “There’s no way I’m staying like this for 3-4 days. This baby is coming, I know it.”

Around 5:00pm, we decided to go walk laps in the yard.

Or rather, I decided to walk laps in the yard while hubby agreed to ride the fifty in circles around me singing, “fat girl in a little dress,” to the tune of “fat guy in a little coat.”

After 12 very uncomfortable laps around the yard (stopping every other lap to waddle in the house to tinkle), we called it quits and headed back inside.

At 9:00pm SHARP the fun began!

(I suppose if someone were to ask me how many hours I was in labor, this is where I’d start the clock.)

We had just crawled into bed to FINALLY get some shut eye (keep in mind, at this point it’s been around 38 hours since I’ve had any sleep), but just as Aaron had rolled over and fallen asleep, the first rough contraction came— then another!

I breathed through the pain, then quickly collected my phone and pillow to head out to the couch. This was it! I knew it. I figured I’d try to tough it out on the couch for awhile before waking Aaron so at least one of us could get some sleep.

By 11:20ish, I didn’t want to do it alone anymore. I woke Aaron with a, “hunny, it’s time,” and he shot out of bed like a cannon. Quickly gathering his notes from the child birth preparation class we had taken 2 weeks prior, along with a pen, and an envelope from an old piece of mail to write on.

We sat together on the couch breathing through every contraction as Aaron timed and logged each and every one just as we had learned in class.

Around 12:30am, after almost 3 and a half hours of contractions 2-3.5 minutes apart, we moved into the bathroom.

Aaron ran me a warm bath and I continued to labor in the tub. Shortly after being in the bath, contractions really started to pick up. We knew at this point, it was time to head to the hospital. Aaron gave me my phone and told me he was going to load our last minute items into the car and get the chickens food and water. “I’ll be right back and then we’ll get you dressed and out to the car. I have my phone on me, call if you need me!” He said.

And of course, as he’s in the backyard filling the chicken’s water, inside, things take a turn for the worse.

[WARNING: this is where things get a little gross!!]

So I’m in the tub, cringing through a horrible contraction when all of a sudden it hits me. I’m going to puke. I’m in the middle of a contraction, jumping out of the bath to reach for the bathroom trash can.

I start throwing up into the trash can and then, damnit!! Zero bladder control, I pee on the floor.

Just as the contraction ends, I’m on my knees, wet, naked, and hunched over the trash can in a puddle of pee. Fumbling with my phone trying to call Aaron. By this time he’s just finishing up in the backyard, answers his phone, and is running back inside.

He walks back into the bathroom to me half in the tub, half hanging out over the edge, puking into the trash can again. My sweet husband pulls my hair back and waits till I’m finished, then quickly cleans up and helps me out of the tub and into our bedroom.

I quickly throw on the comfy clothes I’ve had laid out for days for this specific occasion, and out the door we go! (Aaron already had the car running and pulled up to the front door, with the passenger door open!)

I get in, he hands me my trusty vomit catcher (the bathroom trash can), and away we went! For our FINAL drive to the hospital.

As we’re pulling out of the driveway, I text my mom and dad to let them know it’s “Go Time!”

As we’re coming up to the Dye Rd./Main St. intersection, there’s huge trucks and bright flashing lights — road work!

It’s the middle of the night and we’re the only car on the road. A Caltrans worker stops us and comes to the window. He tells Aaron that it’ll just be a few minutes and Aaron politely replies with a simple “okay” (as I’m burning a hole through him with my glare and breathing through contractions in the passenger seat).

When the Caltrans worker walks away, I turn to Aaron and say, “Okay!?!? How about, MY WIFE IS IN LABOR, MOVE!”

In that moment having contraction after contraction, I was thinking to myself, “what if we don’t make it to the hospital in time? Did we wait too long? Am I going to have a freeway baby?” HA!

As the Caltrans guy finally flags us through the intersection, Aaron putts around the corner, then all of a sudden flips the hazard lights on and floors it!!

I kid you not, I spent the rest of the entire drive praying there were no cops out to pull us over for a speeding ticket!

We arrived at the hospital at 2:05am, cutting our drive time in HALF compared to the previous night’s commute. (Go Aaron!)

We fly up into the drop off loop, Aaron throws the Optima in park and runs to get me a wheelchair. When he comes back, it’s happening AGAIN! I’m throwing up and have pee’d my pants during another intense contraction. (Thank goodness we brought that bathroom trash can!)

Aaron wheels me into the hospital, up the elevator, and straight to the triage window. The nurses take one look at me and can tell I’m really in labor this time. They buzz open the doors and the triage nurse from the night before greets me with a, “welcome back!”

Aaron ran to park the car, and by the time he gets back I’m stripped down into a hospital gown, they’ve checked my dilation (5cm), and I’m back in a wheelchair being shuttled up to our labor and delivery room.

By 2:30am, we were settled into our room and by 2:45am the anesthesiologist came in to give me my epidural.

Boy! Was I relieved to see him. Not only was I in immense pain, but I was shaking uncontrollably thanks to the influx of hormones and adrenaline. The shakes never did go away, but the epidural did it’s job and took care of those insane contractions in my lower back!

Meanwhile in the waiting room, my parents and brother had just arrived ready to meet their first grandchild/nephew.

After getting my epidural it was catheter time (uggghh, I hated that part). While getting my catheter, the nurse checked my dilation again (3:20am: 6cm).

We hung out with my parents and brother for a bit, chatting and taking photos as we waited for things to progress. Somewhere around this time, the triage nurse reappeared to return our bathroom trash can, haha!

Around 4:00am we thought we’d try to take a little nap while we had the chance. Aaron managed to get some sleep but again, it was impossible for me.

Even after getting my epidural for the pain, the pressure from the catheter and the anticipation of meeting our baby boy robbed me from any chance of getting rest. So instead, I laid there listening to the buzzes and beeps of the fetal monitor.

Everything from this point, up until push time, was pretty uneventful.

At 5:30am I was 8cm dilated.

And by 8:20am Dr. O’Hara had come in to check on us and I had reached complete dilation — 10cm.

This is it! 8:42am: Push Time!

Pushing turned out to be much more difficult than I had envisioned.

I pushed with all of my might for 3 hours.

Our sweet boy’s head was RIGHT THERE! We could see his beautiful dirty blonde hair!! I just couldn’t quite get him to fully crown. (Keep in mind, by this time it had been 53 hours since I had gotten any sleep.) I was so incredibly exhausted that I was starting to doze off between contractions.

At the 3 hour mark of pushing (11:42am), Dr. O’Hara and my labor and delivery nurse, Nicole, decided a vacuum-assisted delivery was our best option.

I was devastated to say the least.

I had felt like a complete failure.

With tears pouring down my face, I had begged to keep trying for a little longer. Dr. O’Hara explained that I had already been pushing for a very long time and at this point in my labor it seemed as though I had stopped making progress. If I were to continue pushing on my own and not make further progress we could run the risk of putting our little guy in distress. “The safest and best option right now is to just get your baby out,” he said.

Dr. O’Hara went on to tell me that he’s done many vacuum assisted deliveries and it wouldn’t hurt the baby. “If you let me help you, I promise, you’ll have your baby out and in your arms in a matter of 10 minutes!”

I was hesitant, heartbroken, and extremely disappointed in myself for not pushing him right out all on my own.

But ultimately, the goal was to get our baby out safely regardless of how it needed to be done. After hearing what Dr. O’Hara had to say (and a few encouraging words from my mom and Aaron), I agreed to the vacuum-assist delivery.

I blinked and the room filled with people.

Five more nurses entered the room, and the next thing I knew, everyone was prepping for the delivery of our sweet baby boy. In a matter of seconds, it was time to push again. This time with help from the vacuum extractor.

First big push with all of my might and the suction cup popped off baby’s head.

Second big push with all of my might and the suction cup popped off, again!

THIRD big push with all of my might…. “OH MY GOD, OH MY GOD, OH MY GOD!” I screamed.

And here came Gannon Beau Brothers!

Making his grand debut Friday, June 30, 2017 at 11:53am. 11 days early!

Dr. O’Hara plopped our beautiful screaming baby on my chest as I sobbed at the sight of our perfect son. All 6 pounds 12 ounces and 18.75 inches of him.

I just couldn’t believe it! After 38 weeks 3 days of pregnancy, and 14 hours and 53 minutes of labor… he was out, he was here, and he was in my arms.