A child is born: David Hyrum Garding's birth story

My son David Hyrum was born on 11/22/2015 at 12:39am. He weighed 7.7lbs and measured 20 inches.

My due date was 11/25/2015 according to the ultrasound tech’s measurements and 11/29/2015 according to my doctor’s pregnancy wheel/gestation calendar. So depending on which one you ask I was either 3 days early or 7 days early.

The day I went into labor, I was planning on going to my sister, Kristi’s, house 40 minutes away for my niece’s birthday party. When I woke up that morning everything was normal, but early on I felt like something was different. I didn’t think I was in labor, but some part of me was feeling anxious. At one point I was sitting down playing on my computer when I felt a little “squirt,” I would say, of water. I went to the bathroom to see what was going on. It was just a small amount of fluid – no odor or color. I thought it might be my water, so I went back to my computer and searched the internet for answers.

The internet advised me that I should lay down flat for a while. After laying down for a while, if I stood up and felt more water, then that would mean it’s my amniotic fluid. If not, most likely a false alarm. So I did that and no more water trickled out. So I thought – hmm must be a false alarm.

My other sister, Kassi, met me at my house so we could carpool to the birthday together. I told her about what had happened but since the internet didn’t cause me any alarm and I wasn’t experiencing any contractions yet, we didn’t really worry about it.

We loaded up all the kids in the car. Because I was still feeling anxious and since I was so close to my due date, I decided to bring my packed bags with us. I had packed a bag for myself as well as for my son, Ben. My sister and husband thought I was crazy when they saw me loading my bags into the car, and I honestly didn’t think I’d be using them either, but I really don’t like being caught unprepared. Better safe than sorry!

My sister and I started on our trip and about 10 minutes into the drive I started feeling contractions. I didn’t know at the time that they were contractions, but now I do! I just thought I was cramping up a little bit or experiencing some gas. My sister asked me if it felt like my stomach was “tight” and I said yes. After it happened several more times, we both realized that I was having small contractions. I started freaking out. If I was in labor, I wanted to be close to home. Especially since it was Saturday right before Thanksgiving so there was a lot of traffic on the road. I’d never gone into labor naturally before so I had no idea what to expect. I was a bit hysterical during that car ride.

Remember how I said I liked to be prepared? Well the night before, I had downloaded a couple “contraction counter” apps on my phone. I pulled up one of the apps and started timing my contractions. My contractions continued to grow in intensity as we drove and were pretty consistently spaced. They were a bit uncomfortable, but not too bad. The app I was using is programmed in such a way that it calculates the intervals and frequencies of your contractions for you and alerts you when it’s time to get to the hospital. Well, about 10 minutes away from Kristi’s house my app told me “get to the hospital!” I really started to panic when that popped up. My sister was laughing at me, but she was also extremely supportive the entire drive. Even though the app had already told me I was in labor and to get to the hospital I continued to time my contractions once we got to Kristi’s house.

We got to the party in time to see Jetta open some presents and blow out her candles. I’m pretty sure we had missed some of the games. I was sitting in her living room trying to calm myself down and focus on timing my contractions. After about the 4^th or 5^th alert to “go to the hospital,” my sisters told me I should call my OBGYN and see what he thinks.

I called my doctor and explained what was going on. He told me that, especially with this being my 2^nd child and because I was about an hour away, I should go ahead and head to the hospital. He would meet me there.

So after being at my sister’s house for maybe 20 minutes, we got back in the car and headed to the hospital. I called Doug as we drove to let him know I was in labor and was heading to the hospital. He was pretty shocked when I told him.

I got to the hospital, they were expecting me, they observed me for about an hour I was 100% effaced when I got to the hospital and about 3cm dilated. I believe it was about 6:30pm or so at this point. They hooked me up to the belly monitors and got an IV started (still the worst part of labor, in my opinion). They checked me every so often, and every time told me thing were moving right along and I kept dilating more and more. At some point between 3 and 5cm they offered to have the anesthesiologist come in and give me an epidural since he was available and of course, I said yes because I’m not a hippie like you other crazy mommas out there. (haha just kidding! I love you ladies! More power to ya.) Eventually, right around midnight I felt the urge to push. I called the nurses in and sure enough, I was ready to go. They got my bed all cleaned up and prepped and called the doctor in to deliver the baby.

He came in, told me to push. I pushed. The head was out. I pushed 2 more times and his whole body was out. They said I pushed for 39 seconds. No tearing, didn’t even break a sweat. It was amazing! I couldn’t believe it.

After everything was said and done, I learned that David’s head had been so far down on my cervix that they had to work a little bit to break my amniotic sac and when they did, it was just a trickle not a gush. (which is partly why I think I felt the trickle earlier in the day. I think my sac had technically broken already but his head was covering up the hole so it couldn’t come out.) They also told me the cord had been wrapped around his neck and so he had come out pretty blue/purple, but he pinked right back up as soon as they got the cord away.

All in all, the pregnancy itself was a breeze (other than the serious back pain) and the labor went perfectly. Now I have this perfect little boy in my arms every day who coos and smiles and smells so sweet. I don’t know why my children are so much cooler than everyone else’s children, but I mean – they have good genes, so it makes sense I suppose. J

Happy belated day of birth David Doodle!