Deacon's arrived when I was 37 weeks, 6 days pregnant, so just short of 38 weeks. Considering all we went through to cook Deke that long, we were extremely happy with how far we made it. And, I say "we" here because I couldn't have done it without Eric's support and without him holding down the fort at home while I laid around in bed.
So how did Deke end up being born on Monday, June 10 (instead of his scheduled c-section on Tuesday, June 11)? On Saturday, June 8, I started having these weird cramps that I had never felt before. They weren't timeable or regular, so I tried to dismiss them. However, by Sunday, they were getting worse and were happening every 6-8 minutes. After trying to ignore them all day, we finally decided shortly before P&F's bedtime to head to the hospital, especially because I also wasn't feeling the baby move very often. So, we dropped P&F off with Eric's parents and visited L&D for what seemed like the zillionth visit of my pregnancy.
When we got to the hospital, the nurses hooked me up to the monitors, and I was indeed having minor, semi-regular contractions. However, in a crazy twist of irony after dealing with the cerclage and bedrest, the contractions weren't changing my cervix, and it was still long and closed. Dr. Tran, the doctor on call from my practice, gave me IV fluids and kept me on the monitors for several hours.
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Around midnight, she decided that I wasn't in real labor and decided to send me home. We had mixed feelings about this--these contractions hurt a lot, and I couldn't imagine dealing with them for another 30 hours until my c-section. However, I also wasn't mentally prepared to deliver that night. Just as we were making peace with the idea of going home, Dr. Tran came back and said she was rereading the notes from my previous L&D visit when I also reported reduced fetal movement. Since I had now reported that twice, she changed her mind and decided that tonight would be the night. She didn't want to risk sending me home again and having something go wrong. We'd be meeting our baby shortly.
In just a matter of minutes, the doctors and nurses had the OR prepped and ready for me. The anesthesiologist came to meet with me, and thankfully, he was so incredibly nice and did so much to calm my fears. I knew he'd be okay when he was wearing a Boston Strong lanyard around his neck, and he told me was a marathon runner too. After meeting with him, they took me to the OR and then brought Eric into the room. About 20 minutes after that, at 1:10am, I heard one of the sweetest sounds of my life--a loud, angry scream from a little baby boy. The nurses cleaned him off, weighed and checked him, and then let Eric and I see him. He was perfect.
After having a few minutes to see him, Eric went with Deacon back to recovery while they stitched me up. A while later, they wheeled me back, where the three of us got to spend some precious time together while the heavy drugs wore off.
And just a few hours later, we got a room in the maternity ward and caught a few Zs before starting our life as a family of five.
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