Calvin Tyler arrived at 2:45 AM on Monday, January 12th. I was pretty certain labor was approaching throughout the weekend, but just tried to push it out of my mind as I didn't want our boys to share a birthday. Well, around 1:00 on Sunday (Caleb's birthday), I knew that we would be lucky to not share a birthday. Contractions were coming pretty regularly and getting painful. We called our friends Kyle and Anne to come watch Caleb and headed to the hospital. We checked in around 3:00 and I was only dilated to 1.5 cm and contracting every 3 minutes. We walked for an hour and I progressed to a 3 so we were admitted. Around 8:00 that night we had no more progress and were beginning to get discouraged that maybe this wasn't the real deal. My doctor came at 11:30 that night and broke my water. She was a bit hesitant as she arrived during a spell of no contractions. Throughout the entire labor I would have three back to back contractions and then eight to ten minutes off. She went ahead and broke my water and that got things moving. Contractions became more intense, but manageable. We kept walking the halls, but around 12:15 I couldn't walk anymore. We tried to keep moving some and I did everything to avoid laying down in the bed. By 1:00 contractions were intense and I was in some serious pain. Fortunately, I was still having the same pattern of three or four contractions and then some time off. We used the birth ball and all sorts of different positions and I was doing ok until 1:45. I had been putting off getting checked because I didn't want to get discouraged to hear I hadn't made any progress. The nurse insisted that I get checked then and much to my surprise, I was a 6! She called the doctor and told the doctor she'd better head to the hospital now. Thank goodness she did. Within ten minutes I was feeling the urge to push and she checked again...I was a ten. The nurses got everything ready for delivery and I (not so patiently) waited for the doctor in what was the longest 10 minutes of my life. During this time they called the doctor to check where she was and fortunately, she was close. She came running in still getting her gear on and I immediately began to push. We aren't exactly sure how long I pushed, but we both think only four contractions and baby was out. The doctor told me to reach down and grab my baby and helped to lay him right on my chest. It was wonderful. He laid there for about 20 minutes before they took him to clean him up. He got cleaned up and began nursing shortly after that like a champ. While this labor was still intense, it was way better than Caleb's! And not that we plan to have more children, but if we did, I would do natural again. I felt so much more in control of what was happening and I'm convinced that all the moving and walking we did is what made him come out so quickly/easily. I'm pretty sure we walked nothing short of seven hours that evening!
I wish I could say our stay in the hospital was as wonderful as the delivery, but unfortunately I came down with influenza Tuesday morning and couldn't hold Calvin. Caleb was freaked out by the masks and hardly came to see me Tuesday either. It was hard not being able to be with my boys, but we all made it home Wednesday afternoon and fortunately no one else has gotten sick.
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