Hank Roman House :: A Baby Story

July 22, 2014

Hank Roman House :: A Baby Story

Hank Roman House

June 20th

10:39 AM

8lbs 9oz

20 3/4th inches

My eyes opened and that anticipated thought crossed my mind: "Is this it? Is it really happening?" within a few seconds, the feeling had gone away. I had heard that contractions felt like menstrual cramps, but I couldn't be sure - I hadn't had any up until now. I pulled out my phone to open my contraction timer just in time for the feeling to start again. Another cramping sensation in what used to be my uterus area, but had transformed into a big baby. Yes. I think this is it. I think it's starting...

And it was. 9pm on June 18th was the beginning of a very long and tiring yet unbelievably rewarding 37 hours.

Contractions started that Wednesday night. In the beginning they felt like a mild form of period cramps. They were irregular - every 8-15 minutes, lasting 10-20 seconds long. A few hours later, I was tired of laying in bed, awake, waiting for the next contraction to start, so I moved to the living room, turned on Netflix and continued to wait. Since my parents live a 5 hours away, I decided to give them a heads-up call - at 2am - letting them know that we were likely to be heading to the hospital that morning. By 5am, my contractions were 2-5 minutes apart. By 6am, our bags were packed, we were showered and on our way to the hospital. We checked in at the ER and I was wheelchaired up to Labor and Delivery. Two monitors were strapped to my belly: one to track Hank's heartbeat, the other my contractions. A nurse came in to check how dilated I was. No progress. I was, however, about 80% effaced. We stayed for another hour and walked around trying to get the baby moving, but there was no dilation.

We went home from the hospital around 10am. I tried to eat some lunch, take a nap and continue moving around. The contractions continued, growing in intensity and frequency. We (combination of Hunter, mom and dad) took 5 trips around the block and by the end I was leaning on Hunter through each contraction. By 8pm I could hardly stand through them and talking was not an option. They were 2-3 minutes apart and about 1 minute long. I did find it somewhat comforting that contractions peak half way through, so really you only have to endure 30 seconds of pain until it decreases. Sometimes, though, the contraction never decreases back to normal so you essentially go through multiple contractions with little to no relief. Those were the worst.

We traveled back to the hospital at 9pm. This time it was me, Hunter and my mom. After reaching L&D, the nurse checked and I was 1cm dilated (which was very disheartening), but an hour later I was at 2cm. We got to stay! We were moved to a large room where the two monitors were put back on me. I was given an IV and asked if I'd like an epidural (to which I said YES PLEASE). After two bags of IV fluids and a few rounds of pain medication to ease the contraction pain, the anesthesiologist finished his emergency surgeries and gave me an epidural around 2:30am on Friday the 20th. My nervousness and hormones left me shaking, almost uncontrollably, but as soon as the epidural started working, I felt like I was in a dream!

The epidural makes the pain go away, but you can still feel almost everything. Let me explain: I could still feel my belly contracting and I could still feel Hank moving around, but nothing hurt. It just felt like my belly was getting very tight and it was still a bit difficult to breath at the top of the contraction, but no pain. I went in and out of sleep for a few hours. I remember the doctor coming in to break my water, but when she went to check my dilation (7cm), she broke it without any help. From that point on, everything went pretty quick. Before I knew it, the contractions were so strong I was having a hard time breathing through them and the nurse was sitting me up in hopes to help the baby drop, which it did. Hank dropped down and after a minute or two, I felt like I needed to push.

Someone got the nurse and the pushing began! Every time I felt a contraction starting, I took a deep breath, pushed for a 10 count and repeated 2 more times. I found the pushing part was actually easier than just sitting through contractions because it gave me something to do. This lasted about 30 minutes until we needed to wait for the doctor. I was told to stop pushing, but at that point, there's no stoping! Hunter was on my left holding my leg (which was completely dead from the epidural) and my mom was on the right (with the leg I could actually move). The last 15 minutes of pushing is a blur - before I knew it, the doctor was pulling Hank (and everything else) out, and he was plopped onto my belly!

Everything was so overwhelming: my mom congratulating me, Hunter crying, Hank screaming on my belly, and the doctor doing what she does. Needless to say, the meeting of our first child wasn't exactly what I had expected. I was crying from all the emotions that I couldn't even tell the nurse Hank's name! As I looked at Hank, the baby that I've been carrying around for all this time, feeling him kick, his hiccups, his little body through my skin, it was all so surreal. So amazing. So miraculous.

We are so incredibly in love. More love than we could ever imagine. Every time I look at Hank, I could cry thinking about how much I love him. And to think that before Hank was born, I thought I knew how much God loved me, but I was wrong. I, an imperfect human, love Hank with my human love, so how much more does a perfect God love me with his infinite Godly love? It is beyond me. We love Hank, but pray that he knows that the Lord loves him more - more than we could.