Our Family: Clayne

Disclaimer: I'm not editting this or censoring for those who may be worried about "too much information," so just be warned! :)

I went to my Doctor appt. on Tuesday, the 11th, and he said that I was 50% effaced and dilated to a 2. So I had him strip my membranes, just in case. Then nothing happened, which wasn't a huge surprise considering I was only 37 and a half weeks. Then on Friday I went back in to have him strip my membranes again because Jeff realized that he had Monday off of school so it would be a great weekend to have a baby. At that visit I was a 2 and a half and 75% thinned out. So I left there pretty hopeful, but again, I was only 38 weeks so it was a long shot. I went walking that afternoon with MarJean (my mom-in-law) and was having contractions every 10 minutes, but the minute we stopped walking, they stopped.

That night I got up around midnight and realized that the mucous plug had come out. So that made me really hopeful because with Elea, that didn't happen until I'd been having contractions for 5+ hours. So I had a few contractions, but forced myself just to fall asleep, thinking that when I woke up in the morning, I would start moving around and they would probably start up again.

Yeah... not so much. When I got up that morning, I called my mom to let her know, just in case, because if I went into labor, she was going to need to find a flight sometime over the weekend. And I called my sister because that's just what I do. She gets pregnancy updates more than she probably wants. :) Since it was a 3 day weekend anyway and there being a possibility of me going into labor, her & derek and the girls came out to St. George for the weekend.

So anyway, Saturday goes by with a trip to costco so that I could walk, and a walk around the neighborhood, both accomplishing nothing except putting me in a really bad mood. Sunday morning came and still nothing, so I decided I would quit thinking about it because it was just making me ornery. But at the same time, the clock was ticking and Angie was going to be leaving the next afternoon. That night, Shanna, my sister in law, brought some essential oils over for me to try. I don't know the exact blend, but if you rub them on your feet and the acupressure points that are supposed to induce labor, they help get things going. So Jeff rubbed my right foot with the oils and I started feeling some contractions almost immediately. But once again, when he stopped, they stopped.

Later that night, before we went to bed, he tried again, rubbing my right foot with the oils and I started having contractions. Then I rubbed my own left foot, and nothing happened. So I tried rubbing my right foot some more and the contractions kept coming, every 10 minutes. When I went to the bathroom before getting in bed I saw that I had bled some more, so I knew the contractions were actually doing something.

I ended up staying up all night with contractions every 10 minutes or so (while Jeff slept). Around 3 a.m. or so, I got up to take a bath because I was feeling stir crazy laying in bed. I was reading a book and realized that after getting in the tub, I didn't have a contraction for 20 minutes. So I hurried and got out and they immediately started up again. I got back in bed until around 4:30 or so, I think, and then decided to take a shower and do my hair, etc., to see if getting up and moving would speed things up a bit.

And it did.

By the time I had showered and blow-dried my hair, they were coming every 5 minutes or so. That's when I realized that my house was not ready for my mom to come and me to be gone. So I threw in some laundry, called my parents, and then went to wake up Jeff. He called his parents so that his mom could come stay with Elea. Once they got there, Jeff gave me a blessing and we headed to the hospital. The contractions were about every 3 minutes at that point. I think we got to the hospital around 6:15 a.m., but I'm not positive. I got a hold of Angie and we decided to have her just come to the hospital right away, because we didn't know how far along I was, etc.

At the hospital, they put me in the room and strapped on the monitors and told me I needed to lay in the bed with the monitors for 20 minutes. Can I please say that I really dislike the 20 minutes (which turned into more like 30) that I am stuck in the stupid bed. My contractions were feeling stronger at this point but being stuck in the bed made it harder for me to relax and escape mentally during each contraction. If that makes sense. So finally the nurse checked me and I was at a 4. Sometime around 7:15 ish, they let me get up and walk and said they needed to talk to my doctor and "see some progress" before they could officially admit me. So once I got up and walked around, Angie started timing the contractions and they were coming every couple of minutes at this point. This pregnancy, I hadn't spent the time "practicing" the relaxation techniques from the hypnobirthing book like I did with Elea. I didn't listen to any of the visualization CDs or anything either, I was just going into it hoping that it was like riding a bike, once you knew how, you knew how. So with each contraction, I would just stop and put my hands against the wall and rock back and forth. I felt the contractions 100% in the front of my hip bones this time, every time. I don't know how long we wandered the halls of labor & delivery, but Doctor Chalmers told them to admit me.

He came in around 8, I think, and I was at a 6, and Clayne was at a 0 station, so he broke my water. At that point I started using my ipod and listening to Enya. I alternated between standing, using Jeff as support or sitting on the bed, with the bottom of the bed dropped down like a giant chair. They started hitting, hard and close together. There was a few times that I was close to crying- I was having a difficult time staying on top of them. Finally, I stopped turning off the music between contractions because by the time I took out the earbud and hit pause, a new one was coming. They brought in a birthing ball, I attempted to sit on it and immediately had to stand up because it didn't feel right. I felt pressure for the first time, but just for the split second I was on the ball.

Okay, so like I said, at this point I was listening to my music and had pretty much gone to never-never land in my head so I'm fuzzy on the details. But, around 8:45 (according to Angie's blog) after sitting back on the bed, the nurse checked me and I was a 7.5. But not feeling pressure. Then 25 minutes later she checked me again and I was at an 8+ so she went to get Dr. Chalmers. All of a sudden, I started feeling a ton of pressure. I shifted over onto my left side because sitting up, I felt like I was going to crush Clayne's head.

All of a sudden I felt the urge to push and had felt so much pressure that even though I was trying not to, my body was pushing anyway. So I started to panic because with Elea, I felt a ton of pressure and the urge to push for an hour before I was dilated fully, and was able to push. So, hearing that I was 8+ and my body pushing, I was afraid it was going to hurt Clayne, or something else not good. I had taken off the ipod and Jeff was telling me not to push, but my body was pushing, and it felt like I was pooing all over the bed. I asked Jeff if I was, he said no. Angie had run out to get the nurse because she could tell things had progressed WAY fast so another contraction comes, my body is still pushing even though I'm trying not to, then I hear the nurse say, "I only have one glove on!" and the next contraction Clayne was born.

Oh, did I mention that only 3 minutes had gone by since she'd measured me at an 8+?

I didn't realize that when I felt like I was pooing- it was actually little Clayne coming out and after that 2nd contraction, as Angie and the nurse ran back in, his head was already out! So yeah, my doctor was there to deliver the afterbirth and put 1 stitch in. Lol. I'm so grateful Angie was there to get the nurse because Jeff was in a complete panic and pretty much frozen by my bedside. If they hadn't gotten back in the room, right when they did, Clayne would have landed on the lowered bottom portion of the bed!

If we end up having child #3, I think I'm going to prepare myself to deliver the baby myself, just in case!

So there it is. Clayne Jeffrey Oliverson was born at 9:17 a.m on January 17, 2011. He weighed 7 lbs. 2 oz. and was 19.5 inches long. He has a head-full of dark hair like his older sister and hair all over his body, just like his Daddy!