Birth Story

It's been more than two years since the birth of Max, and I'm finally sitting down to write down his birth story.  I hope I can remember everything, though I'm sure I'll be adding anecdotes in the future as I remember them.

I'll just jump into it!

Leading up to Max's birth, we knew that he was breech and I was trying everything that I could to get him to turn around.  Every once in a while I thought that he had, but we found out about his being breech so late in the pregnancy that he didn't have much room to move around.  We did an external version (our poor boy went into distress for a little bit, causing quite a scare for me.  Plus, it hurt!), I got a door and lay upside down on it for long periods of time, went to the chiropractor, and I even tried putting cold things on top of my belly in hopes that he'd turn to get away from it.  Nothing worked.  But, I still had hope that he would eventually turn the right way.  My neighbor had a baby who flipped as she went into labor with her son...why couldn't that happen with Max and I?

Waiting for him to turn did cause some stress, especially as his due date approached.  Our lovely midwife didn't offer us much advice, wanting us to make the decision as to what was best for us.  I didn't want to schedule a c-section and wanted to wait as long as I could, in hopes to go into labor naturally.  But, my mom had purchased her plane tickets already and had a small window of time that she would be in town.  If I went too far past my due date, she wouldn't be able to stay to see our new boy!  These choices were constantly in my head, and being the fickle, indecisive woman that I am, I had a hard time making any definite decisions.

This was my mindset as Matt and I left to go on a Sunday afternoon drive.  I was 40 weeks and 6 days pregnant with no plan of action. We had a book we had been reading (the first book in The Sword of Truth series by Terry Goodkind) and we both had a desire to get out of town in order to get our minds off things and to explore the greater area that we live in.  That morning we went to his nephew Marcus' First Holy Eucharist and Confirmation (Matt was his sponsor) and the rest of the day was free.

After Mass

The drive was really lovely - the weather was perfect, the views were breathtaking and beautiful.  It was so nice.  On the trek back we started talking about our birth plan, as this was the week we would have to make a decision on what to do.  I brought up all my concerns, the pros and cons of both sides (as I'm like to do), and Matt patiently discussed them with me.  By the end of the trip, as the sun was setting, we had decided that I would call our midwife in the morning to schedule a c-section for the middle or end of the week.  We wanted to give a little bit of wiggle room, in case Max wanted to come himself, but we both felt that scheduling a c-section would be best, so that my mom could be there for the birth.  I felt so at peace with our plan.  It all seemed like the right thing to do, and I was able to let go of the little bit of guilt that I had with accepting a c-section as a possibility...

Looking huge.

An aside: For the most part I had no strong conviction against having a c-section, especially since that was all I knew growing up, as Travis and I were both c-section babies.  But the people around us made it seem like c-section was such a big deal.  I had wanted a natural birth and was a little disappointed that I wouldn't be getting that, but it seemed that the people around me felt worse about it for me than I did.  Because of that, I felt like I had to do everything in my power to get Max to flip around.  Without that outside pressure, I probably would have been less concerned about it, and Max might have had an earlier birthday.  Social pressure affects me so much!  Looking back, I'm so glad things happened the way that they did, but I also see how external pressure affected my decisions.

Little did we know that we'd be meeting our boy soon

By the time we got home it was about 8 pm.  The feeling of peace and acceptance did me a lot of good - it was what needed to happen in order for my body to relax enough to begin labor. It seemed like the moment I walked through the door to our apartment I started having a contraction.  I had been having braxton-hicks for several weeks and was already 2cm dilated, but they were never really painful.  What I felt then wasn't that painful either, but it was enough to notice, so I made a mental note to keep track of them.  We settled in for the night and turned on the TV while Matt turned on that infamous game, League of Legends.  Watching something on the TV was good for me, because it helped the time go by.  As it did, I noticed that I was still having regular contractions.  They were only a little uncomfortable still, but they came fairly quickly after one another, less than 10 minutes apart (my mind is telling me 5, but I don't remember for sure).  After about an hour of keeping track I told Matt about them, which got him incredibly excited.   He poured himself a drink - could this be the night?!

I reflected that my midwife and I didn't really have a game plan if I was to go into labor naturally.  How long was I supposed to labor at home before I went to the hospital?  I would have stayed at home a lot longer if I knew that Max had flipped, but as far as I knew he hadn't.  I get a little hazy around here. I believe I called labor and delivery around 9 and explained to them what was going on.  The nurse told me to keep on monitoring my contractions and that I should call back after I had been having regular contractions for a couple of hours.  I think I called again around 10, at which point they instructed me to take a shower and come in if the contractions were still regular afterwards.  After getting off the phone the second time I immediately called my mom, who was 2 hours away visiting with a friend.  I felt bad that I was pulling her away, especially if this turned out to be a false alarm, but I didn't want to chance her missing the birth, nor did she.  I explained to her what the plan was and what had been going on and she immediately got in the car to make the 2 hour trip to us.

After getting off the phone I jumped into the shower, praying that the contractions stayed.  They had been slowing down a little bit when I was on the phone and I was afraid that the shower would slow them down even more.  I hadn't had any false labors before this, like many other women, so I was preparing myself for the worse.  Thankfully, after the shower was done they continued to be about 5-7 minutes apart.  At about 11pm I made the decision to go to the hospital.  I informed Matt that we should get going and started to pack my hospital bag.  As I was packing I started to question whether or not I should really go in, but as I was walking down the hall with bag packed, my next contraction hurt.  Almost instantly they went from 1-2 on the pain scale to a 4 or 5.  This confirmed my decision to go, and I started walking around the house impatiently waiting for Matthew to get off his dang computer!  He was in the middle of a game that requires about 45 minutes of committed playing time and was almost done, but couldn't just stop, at least that's what he told me.  After getting the house tidied up, the dog put on the porch, and a couple more painful contractions I became much more blunt and told him that we needed to go - NOW.  Thankfully he got the message, closed his computer, and got ready.  He realized how hungry he was (we hadn't eaten since the early afternoon) and asked if we could get a burger before going to the hospital.  I agreed, and we were off.  

It was a dark and stormy night...It really was!  The wind began to blow and we spotted lightening in the distance as we got into the car.  It was an ominous, exciting way to leave to go to the hospital - the universe knew something big was going to happen that night.  We stopped by his parent's house, a block away from us, and let Matt's mom know that we were going to the hospital (she had plans to join us).  As we left I had a contraction in the car, which was even more painful than they were at home and much less manageable.  I could not sit in the car for an extra 10 minutes while we got food - I informed Matt and we made a b-line for the hospital.  

Official

We left off the story here.

I'm not a fan of long-distance relationships (is anyone?), but when you want to get to know someone, talking over the phone is an amazing way to do that in no time.  I don't know that there was one day Matt and I didn't talk throughout that whole summer, despite my full-time work schedule and Matt's taking classes and driving thousands of miles to Idaho and California.  And when we talked, we TALKED...for a minimum of two hours, though it was often more than that.  When you're talking for that length of time as frequently we did, we were almost forced to talk about deeply personal things right off the bat.  So by the time we saw each other again in August we were heads over heels for each other and knew we were incredibly compatible.

Skyping with Matt

However, I wasn't completely sure Matt was interested in me (I was an idiot).  I also had a fear that Matt would be one of those smarmy guys who might never make things 'official' and we'd transition into dating instead of making it official.  I didn't think he would be the kind of guy to do that, but as we can already see, I wasn't the most logical person at the time.  Fortunately we only had a single day together where we were 'just friends'.  I think he helped me buy a mattress and move into my new apartment off campus that day.  That afternoon he promised that he would take me on an adventure - an adventure he had talked about for at least a week but wouldn't divulge any information about...basically it was a date without calling it a date up front.  I was so excited and nervous, especially since I was in the dark about what was to happen.

We spent many a night playing poker - before and after we were dating.

To start off the night we stopped by good ole' Kroger for an alcoholic beverage (Lambrusco, if you must know) and then headed towards an old rusty bridge that he wanted to drive on which was closed (thanks be to God!).  For part 2 of the date we crossed the bridge into West Virginia and traveled down the river towards Wheeling.  Previously Matt had found an underside of a bridge on a random road that he wanted us to have 'the conversation' under.  He wanted to be inconspicuous and act like he had found the bridge on accident.  To try to get us there he feigned that he needed to go to the bathroom and was going to try to look for one while we were driving.  To his disappointment I actually did have to go to the bathroom, so he had to pull over at a McDonalds.  Almost two minutes after we were back on the road he told me that he needed to go again - which started making me suspicious.  He turned onto a road and drove down it a little bit and 'happened upon' this bridge going over a little stream.  He got out and left me in the car for a bit, which convinced me that something was definitely going on.

I am the Rock Band Champion

When he retrieved me from the car he told me that there was something cool underneath the bridge that he wanted me to see.  I eagerly got out of the car and followed him down the slope and rocks to get underneath the bridge.  And to my amazement, Matt had lit at least 100 little tea light candles and had placed them all along the beams of the bridge.  It was so beautiful!  I'm so sad that neither of us took pictures that night.  We actually found the bridge a couple of years later and there were still candles underneath that Matt had left!  If we ever had a spot, that would be it.

But back to the story...

Things get a little hazy here - maybe from the wine we had or from my nervousness about being asked if we could date each other.  Either way, we did have wine (one of us broke a glass, I think it was Matt), I said yes! and we had our first kiss underneath the bridge.  It sounds romantic (at least to me it does) and it was!

This kiss wasn't as romantic.

In our twitterpated state we finished the night by looking for fireflies, eating Chinese food down the hill from campus, and watch the Sponge Bob Square Pants movie on the floor of my apartment.  That might not sound as romantic, but I think it describes us and our relationship perfectly.

Our Love Story

Ok - So I know I am not a regular blogger, but I couldn't resist documenting our own love story, now that Grace has extended an open invitation to linkup with hers....it's going to be long and drawn out and probably only contain relevant-to-me-information, but this is for posterity's sake. I'm never short-winded when it comes to these sorts of things.

At my first apartment off-campus in Steubenville, on Oak Grove St.

To set the scene...

I, an Alaskan (no real reason to mention this...) and an almost-engaged-but-dumped-for-the-priesthood-depressed-young-woman decided to go to Franciscan University to study Theology, since what else was I supposed to do now that I wasn't going to get married and have a bunch of babies?!  Since I "couldn't ever imagine meeting someone else that was perfect for me" (so dramatic!) I had come to the resolution that while at FUS I would be a single, mousy lady who studied all the time and made some cool girl friends to hang around.  No dating (why would anyone want me at a school with an overabundance of ladies?) and no fun.  Why I even went under these terms, I'm not sure.  But the important part is that I did.

Making burgers at the St.Francis Festival for the household 'Equites Lux Sacra'.

The first two weeks of school were....lame.  I wasn't meeting people that I was interested in developing a friendship with, all the people I had known there (2) were dating each other and NOT available, and I just wasn't fitting in with the Charismatic crowd (I had Traddie tendencies).  But lo and behold, after August I found a group of people who I liked!  And one guy who I like liked (and NOT my future husband).  This guy was NOOOOoooOOoOOothing like my ex (or Matt), but I liked him and developed a HUGE monster crush.  My life revolved around making excuses to hang out with him and our friends, hoping to have chance meetings on campus, and being bad and sneaking into his and his roomate's room with my roommate, because we were just all 'friends'.  How quickly my previous resolution flew out the window!

After a induction ceremony in the chapel at Bonaventure.

But, another guy in our circle of friends (que Matthew, my future husby) was also starting to hang around us (actually, just me) as much as possible - going to Lord's Days with the guy's household (as my roomie and I were also doing), asking me to study Español with him, making food for us and opening his house to us that was off campus and therefore exotic and exciting for this gal, etc.  I, however, was absolutely not interested in him because I had him!  But, I would occasionally mention Matt to my cousin (my bff) when I'd call and liked him as a friend and as a person....just not as a dude to date.

Bucca di Beppo, Spring Formal

Eventually, winter formal came rolling around and I was wishing and hoping for my crush to ask me.  It was definitely within the realm of possibility - I was pretty sure feelings were mutual, and all my friends were dropping hints for him to ask me...but HE DIDN'T.  As I was waiting, day after day, Matt came up to me in the library one day, and bypassed all the smalltalk and flat out asked me if I'd go to the formal with him.  Since I was a good Catholic girl I couldn't think of an excuse and I couldn't lie to him, so out of guilt and lack of plans I begrudgingly said yes.  The worst part was that my crush, after hearing this, DID ask me to the dance...but I couldn't just dump Matt!  I had principles!  I was dreading the night, but we actually did have a great time.  I felt incredibly comfortable, we were dancing so horribly that multiple times that night I laughed out loud, and Matt only asked me to slow dance once.

As the year progressed we continued to get to know each other better: He took me (along with his sister) to see The Fiddler on the Roof with the real Tevia from the movie (we both grew up with the musical and I was so excited to go, which is the only reason I said yes); we had some good conversations, and we were seeing each other more frequently in our circle.  I was also getting more and more disappointed in the lack of any sort of romance with my other guy.  I knew he liked me, but he just was a pokey puppy and didn't do anything.  Dumb.

We got lost in Pittsburgh trying to find the hotel.  Eventually we found it and posed in the parking garage!

As the year was drawing to a close Matt's dateability factor continued to go up as the other guy's was sadly sinking. One night after being dropped off at Bonaventure, (wallowing in depression because Matt had beaten my crush to asking me to Spring formal by asking me a month and a half before the dance) I asked my friend Zach (my cousin's future husband) why Matt was dumb.  He retorted that my crush was the dumb one and  that if Zach could choose any other man to be like, he would choose Matt.  Right then the Heavens opened up and a whole new light shone on Matthew.  Why of course!  Matt did meet way more 'requirements' of a future husband than my crush did, I did feel much more comfortable around him and had a much deeper friendship with him than I had with the other guy...I suddenly realized that Matt was right there the whole time - slowly pursuing me, being persistent and not accepting defeat, while this other guy did nothing to fight for me or even gain me!

And so I opened my metaphysical door to him and tried to do whatever I could to let him know that I was interested.  I didn't want him to lose heart!

At some point in all this, my cousin Maria made me watch Sense and Sensibility with her over the phone, because she was convinced that our story was like Marianne and Col. Brandon's.  I'm not a big Jane Austen lady, but it seemed to me that the stars were aligning and pointing in Matt's direction.

Drinking and bowling during Grad Week.

So I put myself out there, trying to be more receptive to him...and it worked!  He seemed to get the gist and at the end of the year we decided to keep in contact with each other throughout the summer.  Thus began the   daily 3 hour skype/phone calls and daydreaming about our future lives together. By the time we were back at school we pretty much knew we were going to get married...it just was a matter of time!  But that's another story that I'll type out some other day.

Helping some friends move. By the next time I saw him, we were in love!