Ridge's Birth Story

As soon as we made the cross country trip to move out here(I was 7 months pregnant) my energy took a nose dive.  I didn't feel like taking my normal walks and I lost my appetite.  I'm not sure why, but that's what happened.  So when week 38 rolled around I was beyond ready to have the baby in my arms, more than ever before !  Andy had sensed that I would go early so my mom flew out a week early.  There were lots of wildfires in our area which led to camp being done a week early too.  All these were green lights for me to commence natural labor inducers(=  I called my friend here in town and asked her to make me a delicious castor oil smoothie.  I knew that if it wasn't time for baby to come out it wouldn't matter what I did.  So the next morning (Thursday, Aug 14th) I bought some bananas and dark chocolate and headed to her house.  She did the lowest amount of castor oil, raw milk, dark choc, bananas, and instant coffee, delicious(;   We hung out for a little bit then I headed home.  Things 'kicked in' around 11, but with castor oil it's hard to tell what's what...  I laid down with the boys and could just feel contractions rolling in every 10 min or so.  With labor I always doubt it's the real thing.  I'm just waiting for things to completely stall out.  They didn't! Around 3 I took a little hike with River around the property.  By 4 I called the local Dr. and asked if he could check and confirm that this was the real thing.  He let me come in at 4:45 and said it seemed like early labor.  Our hospital ended up being an hour and a half away so I needed to be sure this was the real deal.  I called Andy after and said, 'Let's feed the kids, get things situated and then head up to the hospital.  This was the pic I took right before we left.

We got to the hospital around 8:30 and my labor had intensified over that mountain road.  At that point I was having to breathe through contractions and they were coming every 2-3 minutes.  My midwife took a nap from 10:30-12:30 while we walked the halls, watched the late show with Jimmy Fallon while I bounced on the yoga ball.  Don't get me wrong it was uncomfortable, but still not 'I'm going to die pain.'  She came in at 12:30, broke my water and that's when you envy everyone else in the room.  They're all calm and your just trying to find a position to stay sane in.  At 1:30 ish am I could tell it was time to push.  I knew he was sunny-side up from having back labor.   This adds a bit of trickiness to pushing, but I basically decided he would be born by 2 by shear will if nothing else.  That small window of time is awful and amazing all at the same time.  Nothing like knowing you're about to meet the newest member of your family.  By some miracle he was born right at 2!  I spent Friday to Sunday in the hospital, awesome!  He seems to be calm, but let's you know needs. For some reason I'm co-sleeping which I've never done before, but I think we're going to get tough this weekend and move him to the bassinet, fingers crossed!  Ridge Allen is a sweet addition rounding us out to a family of 7!