It’s a Boy! Our finale to the Ox Family came 10 weeks ago today! I have a lot to say about how my pregnancy went this time around and all the emotions of adding a 6th baby to our family but I will save that for another post. For now, I want to focus on baby’s birth day before I forget 😛
I have a total of close to 3 pictures of my belly throughout my whole pregnancy but this was the last one a little less than 2 weeks before baby came! Just ignore the messy mirror, room, and crazy kids.
Just like when I was pregnant with Nolan (#2), I knew the whole time that this baby was going to come early. I joked about it all the time, mostly because my husband had a couple work trips in those last few weeks and I kept telling him that the baby would come while he was gone. Luckily that didn’t happen but it was pretty close!
The day before, my midwife and I were planning my induction day and I told her a couple times that it wouldn’t matter because the baby was coming before 39 weeks anyway. She laughed it off though lol
That night, I tucked the bigger kids into bed and joked with them that my water was going to break that night and they would wake up with a baby brother or sister. I bounced on my birth ball for a little, had some tea, and we went to sleep.
At around 1:30 AM I woke up to pee. I shifted to make sure I peed all the way (LOL for low babies that make it difficult to pee) and felt a small gush of water. I thought it felt like my water broke but I joked it off and got up. It didn’t feel like my water was leaking so I assumed it was pee and went back to bed. About 10 minutes later I decided to get up again just to be sure. When I stood up that time, my water broke completely. I hobbled back to the bathroom and yelled to Mac to wake up. I said, “Mac get up, my water broke” and he said ” Shut up, you’re lying”! Almost every time my water broke in the middle of the night, he’s uttered a similar phrase and they’re some of my favorite labor memories LOL
I hyperventilated for a bit, panicking that we actually had to bring a 6th baby home and we weren’t ready because it was almost a month from what my doctor’s said my due date was. After Mac calmed me down, we called my mom to come be with the kids so we could head to the hospital. We packed up our things while we waited for her to arrive. The older kids had their final soccer games that morning, so we weren’t sure if she was going to be able to be with us at the hospital this time around.
We arrived at the hospital and my contractions weren’t regular so we decided to sleep and make decisions when we woke up. But the nurses were excited to have a surprise gender birth! Because this was almost a month early, I never planned what I wanted this labor and delivery experience to be like. I didn’t know if I wanted an epidural or if I wanted everything to progress naturally. After I woke up, I decided I wanted to start pitocin. My body works pretty well with pitocin and usually things go pretty quickly and smoothly.
We started pitocin at 7AM and contractions got regular after that. Since this wasn’t my first baby, the nurses and midwives left us alone quite a bit and that was nice. I decided to get an epidural around 8:30 AM. I wasn’t in much pain but I like having it at the end, and I like actually enjoying labor LOL. I was going to need an epidural or a spinal after birth anyway for my tubal surgery so I decided to get it.
We could see the contractions getting bigger and closer together on the monitor. I was around 5 cm at about 11:30AM. We were facetimeing with my mom and the kids on and off all morning at their soccer games. That felt really special because we felt like we got to be a part of their day and they were a part of my labor! We were sad to miss their last soccer games but we were able to watch a lot of them while I was in labor.
When we weren’t on Facetime, Mac and I talked and hugged and enjoyed the morning. It was a peaceful and special time. There were no doctors or nurses coming in and out. It was quiet and we were able to have these last few hours to ourselves while we waited for our final baby. It was soooo precious and I loved it.
Even though I was 5 cm at 11:30, I knew things were close. I told the nurse that was with us that things were going to go quickly after that. She kept trying to call the NICU team in just in case since baby was preterm but they weren’t there yet. The midwife and nurse helped me flip on my right side and use a peanut ball and 30 minutes later, I was at 9 cm. We facetimed with my mom at Josiah’s soccer game and I cried when my midwife said I was at 10 and I could start pushing. I was so overwhelmed that this was the last time I would ever do this and it was my favorite part 🙂
I pushed twice and helped pull my baby up at 12:12PM.
I peeked at the gender and waited for Mac to see for himself. We were so caught up in looking at the baby, Mac forgot to check until the midwife said what do you have? I saw Mac look down and cover his face and laugh a moment! LOL We had our 5th boy! Both of us had a feeling it would be a boy and it was so fun to watch his face as he found that out! I’m glad i didn’t shout anything when I saw it as I pulled baby up. The nurse announced it to my mom as we were on Facetime but we kept it a secret until all the kids were at the hospital after my surgery.
Cooper Everett Oxford was born at 12:12PM on October 28, 2023 and weighed 7 pounds 6 oz at 36 weeks and 2 days. He didn’t have any trouble breathing, his blood sugar was great, and he was our only baby out of all 6 that didn’t have jaundice. He started doing these whimpering breaths that were a little concerning but that was mostly because he came out so quickly, the fluid in his lungs didn’t get a chance to get pushed out like it normally would.
His siblings came to visit him shortly after that and only one of them cried when they found out it wasn’t a girl again. ALL 5 of them were SO set on naming him Everett (we have no idea why or where the name even came from) LOL so after a day or two of us trying to figure out a name, after we landed on Cooper, we told the kids that they could pick that as his middle name! It was special having them be a part of naming him, even if that wasn’t our intention at first!
He has been a great baby these last 10 weeks and we are so excited to see him grow up with his 5 siblings!
