Cade Milton was born on Friday, October 28, 2011 at 10:47 a.m. weighing 7 lb 13 oz. & 19.5" long.
At 37 weeks and some odd days, in the wee hours of the morning I woke up feeling a little strange & made the requisite pregnant middle of the night trip to the bathroom. Strangely I was bleeding which was both unusual & alarming. After convincing Michael to wake up we decided to call the midwife on call to figure out what to do. At that point I wasn't have regular or painful contractions but the blood had me on edge. She called back after a while & wanted me to go to Labor & Delivery. I asked if I could wait until normal office hours - after figuring out what to do with the girls since that hadn't been planned yet! - but she was worried that morning traffic might be a problem if by that point I was in serious active labor.
After a quick shower Michael called Diana, my wonderful friend who came to save us in the middle of the night, to come to the house to be with the girls & then take them to Miss Robin's house to spend the day. I called my parents & texted my sisters to let them know we were heading into hospital. I still wasn't completely convinced that I was in labor though since neither of my other labors began anything like this. Michael finished getting the last minute things for the hospital ready I hopped in the shower. While I was showering the contractions began to pick up a little - being more painful & coming closer together. Diana arrived as I got dressed. I came downstairs, made a list of important phone numbers & the girls' schedule and tried to eat something while I talked to her for a few minutes. Apparently this was pretty amusing because I'd be chatting along like a normal person & then just gasp (contraction!) then continue on as if nothing was out of the ordinary! Eh, third time, no problem, right?
We left for the hospital somewhere around 5:30 am. And stopped for gas on the way to the hospital. Yes, again Michael's car didn't have gas. At least I didn't have to pump it myself through contractions! We parked in the deck & walked inside together. I checked in to triage & they checked me out. Yep, pregnant! Yep, in labor & at 6 cm! It was a very different experience than at IMC in Salt Lake. There I went directly to the room where I delivered & my midwife came quite quickly & stayed with me for nearly the whole process. Here I was in a triage room for what seemed like a really long time & only saw L&D nurses who, while very nice, weren't my midwife. They also insisted that I get a hep lock in case I would need IV fluids or antibiotics during or after labor/delivery. That I was not happy about, but honestly figured it wasn't worth fighting and I just wanted to get to my real room.
Once there - no idea how long it actually took - one of the midwives arrived. I was checked again & had dilated a little further. She left to check on some other patients & I was taken care of by the most wonderful labor & delivery nurse. She got me juice & made sure I was comfortable. Michael got out the baby names book & started reading me names. We had just started seriously talking about baby names the week prior & were no where near close to a decision. Between contractions he called out a gazillion names & I shot most of them down or gave him dirty looks. I don't think I was on my best game for name deciding at the time. By about 10:30 am I was in pretty constant pain with contractions coming right on top of each other. Our wonderful nurse checked me & said that she was next to sure that if the midwife would break my water baby would be born. My water was broken by my midwives for both Cassidy & Kalea so I knew she was probably right.
She was barely out the door to go call the midwife when SWOOSH, water breaks! From that point it was just a flurry of activity. Nurses & the midwife flew in getting gowned up as they ran, lights pointed in my face (to which I told them to turn those things off!), me puking on poor Michael (two out of three deliveries = puking right before delivery!) & someone telling me not to push. Right. As if I had any control over that. With no real pushes, just my experienced body doing what bodies do, Cade was born! I don't even think it was five minutes from when my water broke. I guess when he was ready to arrive, he was ready. Michael was the first to tell me that we had a son. A son!
