The Grant Gang Adventures: Welcome Lincoln Matthew to the Grant Gang

Welcome Lincoln Matthew to the Grant Gang!

April 14, 2016

1:58 PM

9 lbs 2 oz

21.5 inches

Every pregnancy and delivery has yielded a very different story---and the Caboose was no exception! Without further ado, here is Lincoln's arrival story:

It all begin about 1.5 weeks before Lincoln joined us...I cam down with a HORRIBLE sinus infection and URI...coughing, drainage, sinus pain.......even after all sorts of medications it was still raging when I went into labor. That made everything in labor even more interesting.

Wednesday (41 weeks), 4.13.16, 10:35 pm
Matthew and I lay down to go to bed expecting nothing to happen that night because I had no contractions yet. Matthew said something really funny so I started to laugh REALLY hard and I felt a little tiny gush, "oh no something just happened" I exclaimed. It was so tiny, I was uncertain if it was my water leaking or something else (insert embarrassing pregnancy woes). I went to the bathroom and little more trickled out. Still not convinced I stood up....more. Sat down again....a little more. Now I knew.....it was time. We called my midwife, Heather, to tell her my water was breaking but I had no contractions. She instructed us to wait 15 minutes for fetal movement and if none, to come to the hospital. If I had movement, I could labor at home longer. Either way, the clock was ticking, we had 24 hours before baby should be delivered because of my water breaking.

Wednesday (41 weeks), 4.13.16, 11:10 pm
No movement, so we head to the hospital for monitoring. My neighbor Holly came over until our friend Elissa, who would watch the kids until we had the baby, arrived.

Wednesday (41 weeks), 4.13.16, 11:30 pm
Arrive at hospital. Get checked into triage. We confirm my water DID break *at least some* and they monitored the baby for a while. Everything was ok with the baby but since he still was not moving much, Heather wanted me to stay for monitoring and try to sleep in preparation for delivery. I tried to sleep that night, but the baby had dropped and I was having a lot of back and hip pain. Apparently labor after your water breaks is more painful...who knew?

Thursday (41 weeks, 1 day), 4.14.16, 7:00-10:30am
My midwife arrives, checks me and I am STILL 3 cm (which is what I was at my appointment the previous Tuesday. UGH! Typical of my body to hold those babies in! She explained at the 12 hour mark if I had not progressed much we needed to start pitocin. We spent the remaining 12 hours walking the hospital and bouncing on the yoga ball. I had a lot of painful contractions...a lot of back labor...and was feeling optimistic about progress!

Thursday (41 weeks, 1 day), 4.14.16, 10:30am
I get checked....NO PROGRESS. I was very disappointed to have no *safe* choice other than starting pitocin. Alas, I was stuck to a pole and monitor. After getting my vein blown and difficulties getting any blood from my IV line;had to draw labs from elsewhere, we labored with Pitocin. It was ALL back labor. VERY different than my others. I have done labor with pitocin and no pain meds and I have done labor with NO meds of any kind. Natural 100% med free labor is amazing and incomparable. I was also having a hard time breathing well during contractions because my nose was completely stopped up and I was choking on drainage and coughing. Sometimes I could not even catch my breath and it got a little scary. After about an hour like that I decided I wanted to rest *and breath*. I asked for the epidural.

Thursday (41 weeks, 1 day), 4.14.16, 12:45 pm
Anesthesiologist arrives. They forgot to check my progress. He spends 45 minutes trying to get the epidural in; after five attempts it is finally in. During that 45 minutes, I had to sit totally still through contractions on top of one another and slumped forward squashing the baby. As soon as I lay down I tell the nurse I feel like I need to push and that the epidural is not working on my right side *which is the side the baby had been laying on the entire last trimester*. She halfway checks me and says I am at least 7 cm. She updates my midwife over the phone who decides she is coming to the hospital because Blythe came so fast. I have two contractions on the epidural and the midwife checks me----yep, I was right....time to push. So---the epidural was in a whopping 5-10 minutes. I *THINK* slumping over for so long just put a lot of pressure on him to GET OUT.

Thursday (41 weeks, 1 day), 4.14.16, 1:45-1:58
Pushing begins. His shoulders get stuck and his hand is by his face making it difficult for him to come out...even for a fourth baby with very large babies paving the way before him. Heather was glad his hand ended up being there even though it was hard for me because she could help pull him out :)

Thursday (41 weeks, 1 day), 4.14.16, 1:58 pm
With my eyes still closed tight from concentrating on delivery I hear "Kelly....Kelly....It's a boy" from Matthew and "Yeah that is no small baby, where do you hide these things" from my midwife. I was in complete shock that it was a boy. I just could not believe it.

I cannot begin to describe the rush of emotions when he was born.....the relief, the finality of knowing he is the last pregnancy and delivery and baby, the shock of a boy, the idea of a BIG family and just knowing a new chapter begins. I also could not wait to tell the other kids it was a BOY!