you know that feeling when you're five days past due and feel like you're never going to have a baby? i do. so i was trying everything to get him out. walking? didn't help. spicy foods? nope. sex? actually gave me contractions so that was my best bet. i told justin the plan that Tuesday afternoon: we are having sex and going to the RSL game. i know, i'm very romantic. this is going to work, i told myself (though i didn't really think it was going to work). but guess what? it worked!
I started having contractions when we left home for the soccer game at 6:30 on tuesday night. stopped at in-n-out on our way, had contractions the whole time. and on the drive up. and at the game. they were about a minute long and 3-4 minutes apart. i spent the first half wandering around the stadium, walking through the contractions. my son and his soccer team were playing scrimmages at half time so i wanted to stay at least til then. thought my water had broken but that ended up not being the case. once he finished, justin and i left for the hospital while ezra and colter stayed at the game with my parents.
we went home to freshen up, get our stuff, and make sure this thing was really happening. contractions remained consistent so we headed to the hospital and checked in around 11:15pm.
the nurses checked me and i was still only 1 cm and 60% effaced. they said they would check me again in an hour but if i hadn't gone up at least 1 more cm then i would be sent home. i spent the next hour being frustrated and pessimistic, crying because i couldn't do this anymore. justin told me it would be fine and all work out and i basically told him to shove it. but the nurses came back in at 12:30am and i was now at a 3 and was admitted to the hospital. i couldn't believe it was really happening, and have no idea how my body changed so drastically in such a short amount of time after making no progress for weeks. i made the nurse promise "no backsies" and followed her to the labor and delivery room.
i had expected this birth to go similarly to my last birth, where i was able to labor in the bathtub and relax enough to not need an epidural (thank you hypnobabies!). i asked to get into the tub as soon as we got to our room but they said i needed to be continuously monitored and would need to find the waterproof monitors, but they never actually tried to find them. i was right around a 4-5 when baby's heart rate dropped and they had to hook us up with an internal monitor. they broke my water at the same time and that moved things even more quickly along. i asked to get in the tub again but they wanted to wait to make sure baby's heart rate was stable. i tried to labor in every position you can imagine and just wasn't ever able to get comfortable enough to relax like i did last time. contractions were getting much more intense and it was getting harder and harder to stay on top of the intensity. i asked (or maybe demanded) an epidural but there really wasn't time for one. i was ready to push, if only to give myself something to do during the contractions besides squeezing the life out of my husband. pushing was also intense (and full of screaming) but finally something came of all of this.
after 286 days in the womb, 6 days later than his expected arrival date, 3 hours after being admitted to the hospital, at 3:45 am, 8 pounds, 5 ounces and 21.75 inches of baby finally made its way into the world and our family. our third son. we call him Trey.
it took a while for me to regain my strength after pushing him out. 2nd degree tears left me getting stitched up for a while. they cleaned and measured and evaluated Trey and then Justin held him and walked him around until I could take him. breastfeeding started off pretty well and i just fell in love with him instantly. 
i don't recall sleeping much that morning. my parents brought the boys to us later in the morning. they were both really excited and colter kept admonishing everyone to "be quiet!" and was so dang cute. 
we love our Trey! everyone has said he either looks like Justin or Ezra. I think his eyes will be blue. he has mom's long fingers and toes, a full head of hair (what?!) and the sweetest smile in the world.
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