Birth Story By Featured Mama: Christina

Just one more baby I told my husband. I just want to enjoy a tiny fresh baby one more time. My previous pregnancies had been uneventful, uncomfortable perhaps, but uneventful. I got pregnant not long after we started trying and experienced the typical morning sickness and discomfort I was expecting and then I reached 33 weeks and it all took a sudden turn. I woke up with terrible, and I mean debilitating back pain, and chalked it up to the baby laying the wrong way. By Wednesday at my regular prenatal check, I was concerned enough to mention it to my midwife. Everything looked okay, so she sent me on my way with the advice to drink more water and to call if it got worse. By Thursday afternoon as I was teaching my second 80 minute lecture of the day, beads of sweat were rolling down my face from the pain. I called and we drove into labor and delivery for a check, where every nurse sympathetically mentioned that sometimes babies just lay the wrong way and us moms have to suffer. But to be sure, they wanted to run a few tests. Fast forward an hour or two and I was being admitted with a 1 cm kidney stone on my left side, given morphine, and scheduled for surgery to insert a stent the following day. The stent would stay in until I had a chance to heal after the delivery and when it was safe to blast the stone. After a rough recovery, a urinary tract infection, and five long weeks of constant pain and discomfort that had to be controlled with pain medication, I was scheduled for an induction two weeks before my son's original due date. The costs were simply beginning to outweigh the benefits of staying pregnant. I had wanted an all natural birth and was registered to deliver at a within hospital birthing center. In the hopes of sparing my son even more medication, the induction started with rupturing my membranes and a full day of walking the halls of the hospital. My labor finally took off at 9:30 pm, just when everyone was getting ready to settle down for the night.

By 2am my sweet Miles was born with only a little pain relief from the whirlpool tub. He was perfect, huge, but perfect. The tiny newborn I was expecting turned out to be a 9 pound, 5 ounce moose of a baby who knew how to latch on an eat the second he arrived!

I didn't have the pregnancy of my dreams or end up with the tiny fresh baby I was expecting, but now that the stone is blasted, the stent is gone, and my rather big baby is 2 months old, I couldn't feel more blessed or more in love! Written by Christina about her precious baby Miles Due Date: Thursday, April 10, 2014 • Birthday: Friday, March 28, 2014