Welcome Trenton! (A Birth Story) -

The birth story of Trenton James. He is our little TJ and we are so happy to have him earthside with us! 🙂 I always feel a little overwhelmed once I finally sit down to write a birth story. I usually like to do it soon after the birth but I also need some time to process what happened.

I believe birth stories are important to share because every birth is different and I think that they all can be beautiful in their own ways – even the traumatizing ones. I love reading birth stories – even when I am not pregnant and awaiting the arrival of a little one -although I admit that is what I like to do at the end of my pregnancies to pass the time!

It’s amazing how different each birth can be. I have birthed three boys now and I can say that every single one of my births have not been the same and I would bet that wouldn’t change with any subsequent children! I also LOVE (insert sarcastic tone) that my births seem to get harder when they should be doing the opposite! Regardless, I am proud of myself for how I birthed this baby and I am ready to tell my story.

After waiting and waiting, expecting that this baby would come early like Little Ox #2 (find his story posted below!), the night before my due date, I began having contractions. Although you might think that contractions mean that labor is imminent, that isn’t always the case so I figured they were nothing. I had regular contractions almost daily for the last 15 weeks. Some painful, some not. My doctors told me that I had an irritable uterus that just liked to contract and cause pain even though it wasn’t making me dilate. 🙂 Silly uterus.

I figured these contractions were like all the others – somewhat painful, regular, and I hoped that they were real. I obviously know what contractions feel like, but my other two labors started with my water breaking so I never had to play the “are they – aren’t they real” game before going to the hospital. I brushed them off since they started to fade. I decided that if they were real then we still had lots of time but if they weren’t then we might as well go do something to get my mind off of them.

We decided to play board games at our friend’s house. So at about 9pm we head over there to play games. My contractions stopped and once we arrived at their house, we sat down to play games and I swear my water partially broke. I used the restroom and came back but things seemed normal. We finished our games and left their house around 11pm. As I got in the car, it happened again and that time I was SURE my water was leaking. I still think that it is SO crazy that all three of my births started with my water breaking.

We checked in to the hospital after midnight on the day of his due date. Since I wasn’t having contractions, we decided we would all go to sleep and see what happens. We woke up when the doctor came in at 7am to tell us that she was concerned that my contractions had not started. My water broke at 11pm the night before, so it had been 8 hours with no sign of anything starting soon. This raised concern because there is already a high chance for infection once the water breaks and even more so for me because I was GBS positive. The doctor talked about pitocin, which I was always against and wanted to avoid at all cost (in all my pregnancies) and something I would still like to avoid in the future. With my previous births, contractions started on their own but this time was different. I could feel that they were not coming and I began to get scared of infection so I called the doctor in to start pitocin but only on the smallest possible dose. We started pitocin at 8am and contractions regularly started at 9.

Contractions were 4-5 minutes apart and over the next 3 hours they got a little closer together and a little more painful. By noon I went in the laboring tub to help with contractions. At that point they were 1.5-2 minutes apart and at 1 pm the rest of my water broke and I swear it felt like the baby was coming out because he was so low. I pretty much felt ready to push. They checked my cervix and I was only dilated a 4! I was so confused! The 3 minute walk from the tub back to my room was SO hard and she said since it was my third baby that it could change so fast. And oh man it did!

The next hour was the hardest, most painful hour of my entire life! At like 1:30 I was feeling SO much pressure and kept telling them that the baby was ready, but she checked me and I was still only a 6 but that the baby was ready! He was coming but my body wasn’t keeping up yet! She told me not to push – which was practically impossible, but I tried my hardest not to. In the next 20ish minutes I went from a 6 to a 10 (which didn’t matter because at that point I was going to start pushing no matter what anyone told me). I pushed on my knees twice and out came my baby boy at 2:03pm!

He was SO much smaller than I expected and he looked so much like Josiah did. I still can’t believe I did it. I keep telling my husband that. I am pretty sure I screamed just under 100 times that I couldn’t do it in that last hour. He was so strong and supportive through the whole thing. I swear I was gonna die but he talked me through it and there was absolutely NO way I could have made it through without him! I pretty much went through an entire labor worth of pain in 1 hour! In 1 hour, I went from a 4 to a 10! That is just mind blowing to me! I would rather slowly progress for hours than to have to do that again. BUT I DID IT!

Trenton James (TJ) Oxford

June 12, 2016 at 2:03pm

7 pounds 11 oz