Since both girls were born at 39 weeks everyone figured Sebastian would be the early as well, if not right on time. December 22nd came and went with no baby in sight. I had been feeling really crampy and having braxton hicks all the time for over a week so I will say I was very upset on Christmas Day when he has still yet to make an appearance because I was so excited to have a newborn on Christmas.
We had a fun, quiet Christmas morning and that evening around 7:30pm the girls were playing with their new toys, Charlie was taking a nap on the couch and I was halfway watching a show and browsing on my phone. Kayleigh asked for help with something so I stood up and instantly felt like I was going to vomit. I ran to the bathroom, but nothing happened. I started feeling more sick so I decided to take a shower to see if it would help me feel better, but I kept feeling worse. I woke Charlie up and told him I was going to bed.
About two hours later I woke up and barely make it to the bathroom before I threw up nearly everything I had eaten, and then diarrhea hit. I tried to lie back down (by this time it was 10pm) but I started getting these super painful, stabbing, sharp pains in my stomach. I tried to ride them out but between the pain and constantly running to the bathroom it was just too much and I was trying so hard not to cry. About 11pm I finally threw in the towel and called my doctor - I didn't think I was in labor but I knew something was wrong and was worried about the baby. The stomach pains had only gotten worse and, honestly, they were worse than any contractions I ever felt. Doctor told me to go to the hospital, so we called my parents and left as soon as they arrived.
We got to the hospital around 12:30am and I checked into Labor and Delivery, where I got sick again (the nurse barely got me a pan in time to throw up in!). They wheeled me up to Maternity Triage where they took my vitals and hooked me up to machines. Thankfully by this point my stomach pains had started to die down and I didn't feel like I was dying anymore. Then they decided to check my cervix and told me a huge surprise - I was 5cm dilated and having contractions every 2 minutes. Baby was coming this morning! I had no clue I was even having contractions because I wasn't feeling anything!
They transferred me up to the delivery ward and by this time I was feeling better - no more stomach pains and I stopped throwing up but I still had some diarrhea. By around 1:30am I was hooked up to all the machines, got my antibiotics since I was GBS+ and they left us to rest. Charlie managed to fall asleep on the couch but I was just able to doze. Around 3am they came in to tell me that baby's heartrate had been dropping pretty low everytime I had a contraction (which, by the way, I was JUST started to feel pain from) so they wanted to break my water and place internal monitors. They checked me out and I was 6cm. They asked if I wanted my epidural placed before they did this since I wouldn't be able to walk around anyway so I said yes. By this time Charlie woke up and he said he was feeling sick, too.
They got my epidural placed. The lady who placed it did an awesome job - it was strong enough I couldn't feel any pain but weak enough I could feel like legs and pressure from the contractions. Just how I liked it! The doctor came in and broke my water and commented how much fluid I had. She sat there for about 5 minutes while it just gushed and gushed - she was so surprised that it kept coming, but it was nice and clear so she wasn't worried. Once that was finished, she checked my cervix (Now 7cm!) and placed the monitors and I chilled out for another hour. It was about 4:00am by now.
Now, I had food poisoning, remember? With the epidural placed, I could no longer control anything down there, so... yeah. I had an... accident and had Charlie call the nurse in for me (The poor guy was so sick at this point, too) and I was so apologetic while she cleaned me up and changed the sheets. She was so sweet and kept telling me that it wasn't a big deal but I felt so bad for her because... well it wasn't fun that's for sure.
By now I could tell what they were talking about his heart rate dropping because now I could hear the beeps get slower and slower every time I had a contraction. It was very worrying hearing the beeps slow down so much. A little before 5am, The nurse came back in to check on me and I was 9cm and said she said she'd come back in 20 minutes to check on me again. Not even 20 minutes later I went to call her in again because I realized I was feeling a lot of pressure and sure enough, she said baby was RIGHT there and she went to call the doctor and started getting everything set up. Charlie was looking so worse for the wear and I think at this time the worst of his food poisoning was hitting and he was really trying to keep it together long enough to see baby born.
I realized that although I couldn't feel my legs, I could still feel the contractions, pain and all. I tried to hit another dose of epidural but it didn't do anything except make my legs more numb. However it was time to push, regardless that I could feel everything, so I pushed. It. Hurt. I could feel almost everything and honestly, it really freaked me out but at that point all you can do is keep going.
Sebastian Miles was born at 5:23am in just two pushes, weighing in at 8lbs 6oz. He gave a little cry and they placed him on my chest, then he started turning purple. He was so purple, and it was getting deeper and it was really scaring me. The nurse was trying so hard to stay calm and get him to breath while he was on my chest, but I told her she needed to take him to go ahead. She whipped him over to the heating bed and started suctioning his mouth and he started crying after a minute, which was the most glorious sound I've ever heard.
Doctor also gave me the surprising news - I didn't tear even a bit. I tore pretty bad with Alexis so I figured, with as big as Sebby was, that I was definitely going to tear. My doctor also asked if I was feeling any better and I mentioned yes, it was food poisoning and he goes, "Ah, well that explains a lot." (He stopped me from pushing for a few seconds to clean me up down there and I didn't think about it at the moment. Ain't birth beautiful haha!) Also, I was 5 minutes outside the window for getting the antibiotics for being GBS+. FIVE MINUTES. So they had to double check Sebastian to make sure he didn't get it, but he was perfectly fine. For the record, you're supposed to have the medicine 4 hours before birth for it to be completely effective, so it was 5 minutes under 4 hours since I had gotten all hooked up. I can't say exactly how fast my labor was this time since I never knew when labor actually started, but it was pretty fast.
So there you have it, labor and food poisoning. It was just as fun as it sounds but it makes for a pretty funny story after the fact. Sebastian is doing awesome and nursing like a champ.
