Killian Jack McCue is here!!
He was born on November 12th at 12:09 AM.
He was 8 pounds, 6 ounces and 21 inches long.
As most of you know, we had some trouble getting through a pregnancy and had lost 3 babies before Killian, each requiring surgery. I'm not religious, but I'm thinking that someone decided I deserved an easy pregnancy after all of that. Thankfully, an easy pregnancy is exactly what I got. I was sick for 2 weeks, and then it completely dropped off. And it wasn't even that bad. I wasn't sick constantly. I threw up once a day. That's it. The worst things I experienced were being exhausted and sore. K was pretty good to his mommy while he was in there.
From the beginning, I told him to punch and kick as much as he wanted and needed to, to let me know that he was ok. He heard me, because he's been a mover from the beginning. It was exactly what I needed to get me through, because I may have been a little paranoid. Seeing and feeling him move around was one of the coolest and weirdest things I've been able to experience. It's still hard for me to believe that the little boy who is here today was the one that was beating up my insides.
My tranformation was pretty dramatic. I gained a little over 40 pounds, but I'm only 5'2". My knees are still trying to recover from carrying around that extra weight.
9 Weeks & 1 Day
36 Weeks
Killian ended up being a week early, but I guess I gave up on pictures a few weeks prior. I was so tired and uncomfortable. Trevor got a couple really embarrassing pictures of me towards the end.
I was SO ready! I had been telling him for weeks that he could come out anytime.
On the afternoon of November 11, I woke up to some pain. I sat on the couch next to Trevor and whined for a little bit. I was keeping track of the pain with a contraction counter. They were about 5 to 7 minutes apart, so Trevor decided to call the hospital. We chose a doctor in Grand Rapids, so we had about a 40 minute drive ahead of us. It took a while for anyone to call back so we just said fuck it and left. That car ride was awful. I was wiggling around in pain and it's hard to really do that in a car. The car ride seemed to take twice as long as it should have.
As soon as we got to the hospital, they wheeled me in and hooked me up to some machines. I was 2 cm dilated and my contractions were now 4 minutes apart. They were working on getting a room ready for me, so we just had to wait for a bit. I was progressing pretty quickly though, so they needed to speed this shit up. After about an hour, I was now at 4 cm and my contractions were 2 minutes apart.
Not long after I got into my room, they were giving me my epidural. I was in so much pain, I couldn't speak to anyone and I was just miserable. I was also terrified of the epidural, but honestly, it wasn't bad at all. I don't know if I just had an amazing doctor who really knew what he was doing, or if I was already in so much pain that it didn't really phase me. All I know is that when that medicine kicked in, I felt SO. GOOD. My dad said he knew right when it kicked in because I was talking and smiling. Now we played the waiting game.
Nurses were constantly coming in to check me and turn me. K's heartbeat was dipping every now and then, so we had to move to a new position. At one point, they put me on all fours and broke my water. Super weird feeling, especially since I was numb. After that, everything moved so fast. In about 2 hours, I was completely dilated and my cervix had completely thinned out. So we were thinking it was go time. We were wrong.
When the doctor checked me, he decided that he wanted the baby to be lower before I was truly ready. I pushed for 3 hours and he didn't move at all. There were also a couple of issues. I couldn't feel any pain from the contractions themselves, but the pressure I absolutely couldn't stand. I was crying so hard and begged the doctor to just take him. Also, K's umbilical cord was up by his shoulder and every time I pushed, it got pushed against my pelvic bone and cut off his supply and his heart rate would drop. I was exhausted and worried about him, so I was hoping they would just give me a c-section.
Trevor went into the hall to talk to the doctor. We needed options, because I had no more energy. We decided that a vacuum assist was what we were willing to try. Thankfully, that worked great! It didn't take too long to get him out and I was pissed I hadn't agreed to that earlier. They put him in my arms for just a moment and then took him away to clean and measure him. Trevor really got to hold him first because they were busy stitching me up.
Not only did they give me an episiotomy, but I ended up with a 3rd, almost 4th degree tear. (If you don't know what that is, just ask me. I wouldn't recommend googling it.) They also turned off my epidural as soon as Killian was out, so I felt every bit of them stitching me up. AWFUL! And it seemed to take forever too. The recovery from this was really hard. I couldn't really get out of bed the entire hospital stay, so Trevor took care of everything with the baby as far as diapers and whatnot. I wanted to help, but I couldn't. I struggled to walk for a couple of weeks and it hurt and was uncomfortable to sit down. I truly think K should have been a c-section.
While my birth experience may not have been great, I would do it again because I got an amazing little boy out of it. My connection with him was not immediate, but it has grown into something absolutely amazing. He makes me smile and laugh every single day and I want him to always know how much we wanted him.
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