19 short months after Baby #1 arrived, we were ready to welcome our second baby.  It was mid-August in the desert and I was HOT.  Baby #1 arrived 9 days early so I had it in my head that Baby #2 would be similarly early despite the fact that the doctor told me on numerous occasions that that’s not how it works; just because one baby comes early doesn’t mean that all the others will too.  But I had it in my head that Baby #2 would arrive 9 days early because, well, that’s what I wanted to happen and I thought if I wanted it hard enough, it would be true.  Well I was wrong.  9 days prior to my due date of August 16 came and went and Baby #2 was still snuggled inside my enormous belly.  8 days early.  No baby.  7 days early!  No baby.  6?  Nope.  Still no baby.  Everyday felt like an eternity.  This baby was clearly going to stay in there forever.

On Wednesday, August 10 I went to the doctor for my weekly visit and I cried the entire time. At that point I was 39 weeks 1 day pregnant and was more or less convinced that the baby was never coming out. The doctor assured me that I would not be pregnant forever and she even suggested that I set up an appointment to be induced. She was on call that weekend and suggested we do it on Sunday. That made me cry even harder because I did not want to be induced. I left the appointment saying I’d think about it and let her know by Friday whether I wanted to be induced on Sunday.

Also at this appointment the doctor assured me that I wasn’t going to have a baby that was anywhere near 10 pounds. That just seems worth mentioning.

The next two days I struggled with what to do. I really wanted to avoid being induced but it didn’t seem like the baby wanted to come on its own. The next date my doctor had available for induction after August 14 (which was two days before my due date) was August 27 which really seemed like an eternity away.

On Thursday night we went to one of the local casinos to see the Hot August Nights cars. We walked around for maybe an hour looking at the cars and I was really dragging by the time we left. The baby was just so heavy! That night as we were lying in bed I told my husband that I had decided I didn’t want to be induced that weekend and wanted to instead wait it out and see if the baby would come on its own.

Friday morning as I was making Baby #1 her breakfast my water broke. 4 days before my due date.

My husband had gone to work for the morning so I texted him that I thought my water had broken and he should probably come home before too long. Then I called my mom to come down since she was going to stay with Baby #1 while we were in the hospital.
I took a shower and got everything together. We got to the hospital around 11 AM and they confirmed that my water was indeed broken. I was only 1 cm dilated and I wasn’t having any contractions so I decided to walk around for a while to see if that would help get things going. My doctor said that I had to start the Pitocin by 1 PM, so my husband and I walked around the maternity ward until that time. I still wasn’t having contractions so around 1:30 PM, the nurse hooked me up to the Pitocin and shortly thereafter I started to have contractions.

They don’t let you walk around once you start on Pitocin, so we watched TV and lamented the fact that we had made the rookie mistake of not eating anything before going to the hospital. What were we thinking?! We watched TV and I breathed through the contractions.

Every once in a while, the nurse would come in and check me. I was slowly progressing and around 4:30 PM I decided that was enough with the pain, so I asked for the epidural. The anesthesiologist came quickly and soon the pain was mostly gone except for very intense pressure in my bottom. They gave me another dose and soon enough not only could I not feel any pain, but my legs were so numb that I couldn’t even move my toes.

The doctor came in just after 5 PM and checked me and said I was 7 cm dilated so now we just had to wait. To pass the time we continued to watch A Few Good Men.

Around 7 PM I asked the nurse if there was anything I could eat. She said I could have Jello and she brought me two little tubs of cherry Jello. I ate one right away and just about then the doctor came in and said it was time to check me again. She had a suspicion that it was time to have a baby. I looked at her and said, “Well then I’m going to eat my other Jello.”  She was not amused.  That didn’t stop me from eating the other Jello.

Upon further inspection, it was determined that I was indeed 10 cm dilated so I ate my Jello and got ready to push.

When the doctor told me to put my legs in the stirrups I had to tell her that I couldn’t even move my toes, never mind lift my entire leg. She said that I could try pushing but if I couldn’t do it then they would have to turn my epidural back. I could tell that she didn’t think I’d be able to do it. Something you may not know about me is that I am slightly competitive and a pretty good way to get me to do something is to tell me that you don’t think I will be able to do it.

The nurse walked me through my “practice push” and I heard her say to my husband, “Look at that!” The head was already out. It is worth mentioning that while the head was already part way out, I could still feel the baby’s bottom up near my ribs!  The baby was in an OP presentation (face up, rather than the preferred position which is face down) which from my understanding means a harder delivery and often ends in a C-section, but for me it meant three more pushes and less than 10 minutes until my husband announced, “It’s a boy!”

I’m pretty sure the strength came from a combination of sheer willpower and the Jello.

The doctor and nurses were all amazed at how big Baby #2 was. They kept saying they couldn’t wait to weigh him and they couldn’t believe that I had pushed him out considering not only his size, but also that he was OP.

At first he was holding his breath which caused him to be blue like a Smurf. Seriously. The first several pictures my husband took of him, I had to delete off the computer because I couldn’t bear to look at them, never mind actually share them with anyone else.  Blue babies look downright terrifying. He started to breathe though and after a few minutes he turned pink and all was well. Baby #2 was here, happy and healthy (and thankfully no longer blue).

I had texted my mom at 7:40 PM to tell her that it was time to push and 11 minutes later Baby #2 was here!

He weighed 9 pounds 14 ounces and was 22 inches long (so much for the doctor’s prediction that the baby wouldn’t be anywhere near 10 pounds).  While I was pregnant we had called him The Meatball (my dad was actually worried for a while that that’s what we were going to name him.  We didn’t).  But after he was born we decided that he was really more of a Meatloaf.  Or a pot roast.  And, as it just so happens, Pot Roast is a nickname that has stuck with him for the last 5 years!