Easton Kopper Gates Born June 6th 2010 2:53 AM 8 lbs 5. Ounces 20 inches

WARNING: This is an extremely long birth story so if you're not interested in the whole thing or if you get bored, just skip to paragraph #4.

So for my delivery story I have to first give some background info. For this pregnancy I decided to go a midwife. I talked to a lot of people who had gone to midwives before I got pregnant and decided that it would totally be worth it because the cost was so much less and you get more one on one care. I had no problem with my OB doctor that delivered Iyrlend, I just hated waitING at his office and then paying tons of $ for a short visit. So my plan was to go to a midwife for my prenatal care & then have my OB deliver at the hospital. In the beginning I said I was going to deliver at the hospital cuz I wasn’t ready to give up my epidural yet, but sometime during my pregnancy I decided I wanted to try it without an epidural, mostly because I had hear the recovery was so much better. For a while I even thought about having a homebirth, so I went back and forth but then decided the hospital would be best for me but that I would just try and labor at home as long as possible and hopefully just show up at the hospital to push. I was nervous things wouldn’t turn out how I wanted cuz everyone that I talked to who had their baby at home warned me that it would be hard to have a natural birth at the hospital and everyone I talked to who had babies at the hospital told me I would want an epidural basically as soon as the contractions started.

If any of you didn’t see me the last few weeks of pregnancy I will give you a visual, my belly was so low that everyone had been asking me for at least a good month if I was due any day. On top of my belly being so low and large I had Iyrlend 2 ½ weeks early so the last 2 weeks were so horrible. I went to my OB doc on May 25^th just to have one check up with him since I hadn’t seen him my whole pregnancy. He checked me and told me I was at a 4 almost 5 and 90% effaced. He was sure I’d go any day and I had felt so much more pain, braxton hicks, and so many things I didn’t feel with Iyrlend this pregnancy that I thought for sure it had to be any day as well. I had already been having Braxton hicks for a few weeks at least but after this appt. they just got more and more frequent, the best way to describe my contractions up until the real thing was constantly inconsistent. My doc was going out of town that weekend but was sure he’d see me before then, well instead he saw me a week later at the scheduled appt. I had that no one thought I’d make it to. At this point I was ready to through my whole plan out the window, walk over to the hospital and force them to induce me but thankfully I didn’t. That week was horrible I was just waiting for everything to happen & doing everything I could to make it happen not to mention everyone was telling me what I needed to do to make it happen and everyone was constantly asking if I had the baby yet. So the next week I just chilled out and told myself I was probably going to go past my due date.

Well I guess that was the trick because Sunday morning at 12:45 I woke up feeling crampy but not really thinking it was anything cuz that had been happening quite often. I went to the bathroom and was pretty sure my water broke but it wasn’t a big gush like I had expected so I still wasn’t sure, but I started having some pretty painful contractions so I thought it had to be the real deal. I had been told by my midwife for a while and my doc at my last few appointments that Easton was really low, which was kind of obvious any way, but they both had said his head was way down there so I had hoped that as soon as my water broke he’d just come flying out well that’s pretty much what happened.

We left our house at about 1:15 drove down the road to drop Iyrlend off at my parents and pick up my mom. I was having really strong contractions the whole way to the hospital and once we got there it was hurting so bad I could barely get out of the car. We walked in and I told them my water broke and they didn’t really believe me cuz they said was there a big splash and I said no, then they said are you wearing a pad and I said no, so they took me in the observation room and soon found out that my water really had broken. They too were shocked when I told them I had been at a 5 for about a week and a half. They checked me and I was at about a 6, they said they were going to move me to a delivery room and that’s when my contractions started just killing me. As soon as I got in the delivery room I went in to go the bathroom, my contractions were just on top of each other at this point and I had Zach come in and was telling him I just didn’t see how I could do it and that I wanted an epidural. I couldn’t decide and he wasn’t helping me know what to do so I finally just said this is stupid tell them I want an epidural. He went out and told them and I tried to make my way to the bed. Everything from here on out was just like a big blur to me cuz when I was in the bathroom I was going through transition and I didn’t realize it, I just thought that was the beginning of contractions and it was just going to get worse and go on for a while. Well once I got on the bed they said they wanted to check me and I just kept saying no cuz I was in the too much pain so my mom finally told me they really needed to check me so finally I let the nurse checked me. Good thing cuz as soon as she did she said no time for an epidural you’re complete. I wanted to cry but then realized that meant I was almost done which I had not expected at all so I was somewhat relieved. At this point the nurses started telling me how to breathe through the contractions; they were really so much help. They were worried my doc wasn’t goin make it but as soon as he walked in I was pushing. I had one big long contraction and did four pushes through that one contraction and Easton was out. We got to the hospital at about 1:30 and Easton arrived at 2:53, he literally came flying out and thank goodness cuz after those last few weeks I felt like I had been in labor for a few days.

So everything went just how I had hoped and I am so glad I did it natural because the recovery was seriously like night and day. I felt great from the moment I had him and have felt pretty good sense. We sure love our little man, who doesn’t seem so little already. I think I’m starting to get adjusted to life with 2 kids, super challenging but oh so worth it. Iyrlend loves her little brother and can’t get enough of him just like the rest of us.