Guest Birth Story: Tamara from Arizona November 30, 2012 15:25

We're excited to feature our first guest birth story - from Tamara in Arizona. Her little bundle was born in June and we are so excited she shared her family's beautiful story with us. Congratulations Tamara and family! 

Little Babe Caden's Birth Story, written by his mother:

Today as I write this Caden is 7 days old. Happy first week of being a part of our family! Josh and I are so love with him and just sit and stare at his beautiful baby face. He has the cutest feet, nose, and the tiniest ears, honestly I could keep going on about how cute all his little features are. As promised here is a more detailed post of Caden's entrance into our lives. 

If you have been following my blog in a previous post I had mentioned that our air conditioning unit had stopped working and we were in the process of dealing with the insurance company to get it replaced. Josh and I were desperately trying to get a new unit installed before Caden arrived and had already been told by our home warranty they would not replace the unit but to call our home owners insurance because the unit would be covered by that policy. We placed a call to the insurance company and were told that our deductible would be $1000 to replace the unit and they could send a claims representative to our house in five days. Yay! Josh and I were so happy that they were going to replace the unit and waited for our appointment Wednesday, June 6th. In the meantime we packed up our most needed belongings and crashed over at my parents house. 

During this time we had our 37 week appointment with the OB and an ultrasound. Everything with the baby was looking great and I was so happy to be able to see pictures of him at the appointment. 

On Wednesday morning we made our way to our house to wait for the representative to come during our two hour time slot. He showed up an hour late and then told us that our unit would not be covered. I could go into more details about this but all I am going to say is that we had horrible customer service and will be switching all of our insurance policies to another company. When we found out we were going to need to pay for the unit out of pocket our next concern was being able to have the new unit installed before Caden arrived (little did we know how soon that would actually be). I will forever be thankful for my friend Jenn Fragosa and her text message about Leavitt Air Conditioning, www.leavittair.com. Craig the owner came out to our house in 40 minutes after I called him wrote a quote and let me know he could have the unit installed by Friday if I let him know by Thursday morning. 

Josh had already gone back to work at the fire station and I headed over to my parents house for the night. My parents were already home from work and had headed out to a concert at the Marquee when I arrived at their house. I made myself a green smoothie had a banana muffin, took a shower and headed off to sleep. I woke up around 10:50pm needing to go pee and after I was done another rush of liquid came out into the toilet and the water was really cloudy. Thinking it was a little odd, I proceeded to wipe and when I looked at the toilet paper it was a light pink. This is about the time I started to realize what might actually be happening was probably actually happening. Thinking my parents were still at the concert I called Josh at work told him what was happening and we decided he would come pick me up and we would go to the hospital. While Josh was on his way over I called the doctor and she told me it was best to go to the hospital to determine if it was in fact my water that had broken and not an excessive amount of pee. 

When Josh came into my parents house a little after 11pm I heard my Mom from upstairs asking what was going on. I had missed hearing them come back from the concert and they had been home the whole time without me knowing. My Mom looked a little in disbelief when I told her I think my water had broken and we were on our way to the hospital and would call her when we found anything out. We had to stop at our house before going to the hospital because my bag and Caden's carseat were sitting by our front door ready for us to grab when we would need them in a few weeks. 

We got in to the hospital and were sent into the triage area for labor and delivery. Thank goodness for pre-registering all my information 3 months ago, it made for a much smoother check in. I was then hooked up to the monitors and checked to see if my body was prepping for the baby to be born. They ran some slides of the fluid to see if it was amniotic fluid. The first round came back with nothing showing the nurse my water had broken, but because of the amount of fluid she saw she retested and this time it showed my water had indeed broken. The nurse then checked to see how far I was progressing and told us I was 2 cm dilated and 80% effaced and that they baby was really low and she could already feel a good portion of his head. When Josh and I heard this we knew we were going to get to meet our son sooner then we had anticipated. 

I was then moved to delivery room where I would have Caden. The rooms at Banner Gateway are so nice and large. It was around 5am when we were settled and called my parents to let them know we were going to be having Caden a little bit earlier then we had thought. My friend Catherine had given me the great idea to bring food for the nursing staff at the hospital so we asked my Mom to pick up bagels on the way over to the hospital for the staff. They were very appreciative. My Dad, Evan (Brother), and Rhiannon (Evan's girlfriend) also came around the same time. I ate some popsicles, drank lots of water and rolled around on an exercise ball to stretch out my hips. I also did some yoga poses as well :).

My family hung out with me until about 11:30am when the nurse came in to do another exam to see how I was progressing along and at that time I was 4 cm dialed and 90% effaced. This is where I started to become uncomfortable. 

Josh and I decided it would be a good idea to keep everyone out of the room at this point so I could really start concentrating on relaxing and breathing during the contractions. I knew I wanted to have Caden without any medication and Josh knew that in order for this to happen I would need to stay completely focused and engaged with what was happening to my body.  My Grandparents made a quick stop in to hi and then it was the nursing staff, Josh, and my Mom left in the room. At 12pm I asked to use the hydrotherapy tub to see if that could alleviate some of the discomfort. Getting in the water did feel pretty nice but after 15 minutes I needed to change positions again and decided to head back into the room. 

From this point on it took everything I had not to cry and loose focus on my ultimate goal of having Caden without medication. When 2pm came I was so nauseated I began vomiting and the nurse asked if I would like some medication to help me from being sick. She also hooked up my IV drip at this point to keep me from becoming dehydrated. I told her the IV bag was fine but I would wait on the anti-nausea medicine and if I still was getting sick I would reconsider taking it.  Thankfully I did not get sick again and did not have to consider taking the medication. At 2:30pm I was checked again and I was 8cm dilated, I was so happy because I knew I was getting closer to be able to push. I was on my hands and knees at this point and Josh and my Mom were pressing down as hard as possible to help relieve some of the discomfort in my lower back. (As a side note: The next day they were both sore from pushing so hard on my lower back.) 

Throughout the morning Josh had been in contact with Craig (Air Conditioning) to see if he would be able to come and install the new unit on Friday. He explained that we were at the hospital getting ready to have the baby and were hoping he was still available. Craig said that he would get back to Josh later in the day with the exact time he would be available to install because it would depend on when the crane was available to lift the unit up to the roof. We were so thankful at this point because we knew that sometime on Friday we would have a new ac unit and would be able to bring our baby home to a cool house. 

At 3:20pm the urge to push was so overwhelming it took everything in me to try to fight it off.  Craig called back around this time to let Josh know that he would be at our home at 6:30am the next morning with the crane to install our new unit. A special thank you to my Grandpa (Caden's Great Grandpa) for going over to our house Friday morning so our new unit could be installed. I am so glad that my Mom was in the room with me because when Josh had to step away to take that call I had a really painful contraction and was so thankful she was with me. 

Josh and my Mom were an incredible support duo.They talked me off the edge of a complete emotional meltdown several times. The nurse started to get me into the stirrups when I informed her I would not be using them and wanted to use the squat bar instead. If you have never seen this before the end of the hospital bed lowers down and a bar is placed above that you can grab onto. The squat bar and my doctor (Dr. Brass-Jones, Center for True Harmony and Wellness) appeared at the same time and I can not even begin to describe how good it felt to be able to start to push. Six minutes later Caden Joshua Buschel was officially and litteraly squatted into the world and caught by Josh. 

We love that our doctor allowed us to have the exact birthing experience we had hoped for. When Josh handed Caden to me I was so happy and all the pain I had felt was nothing to the amount of love I had for this little person in my arms. He was so perfect and I could not stop looking at him. I really felt like the two of us were the only people in the room at that point. 

From the time my water broke to Caden's arrival the whole process took about 16 hours with only 6 minutes of actual push time. I did have to get stitches because I tore and I am still recovering but each day I feel improvement. Josh and I are so thrilled to be parents and can't wait to share more pictures of our adventures into parenthood on the this blog.

 

 

You can read Tamara's blog at: http://www.theworkoutmama.com/