Calydays

Wade’s birth story, although my favorite story to tell, isn’t one that was glamorous or perfect. Let me say that I thought I was going to be a woman who absolutely loved pregnancy and had everything go smooth and perfectly. HA HA HA!!!! Pregnancy wasn’t my favorite, if I’m being honest. And I’ve promised to bring you honesty. I wasn’t “glowing” or thriving in the fact that I was growing a human. Pregnancy, for me, was HARD. And pretty much nothing went my way. You’ve been prepared now.

When I found out I was pregnant, I was, at first, beyond scared. I had just started nursing school and I was working towards finding my “why”. Garrett never failed to promise me that it was going to be wonderful, and that it was a blessing. I quickly came around, and I was so excited to be a mom. I began imagining a nursery, what our baby would look like, who they would become, and all the things that come with new mom territory. So along came the “morning sickness” which was truly all dang day sickness. That didn’t go away until I was like 34 weeks pregnant, so that was really fun. NOT. Anyway. We had to wait F O R E V E R, so it seemed, for our first appointment! I was 10 weeks when we had our first appointment and got to see the little peanut in my stomach and hear a little heartbeat. It was the cutest and best day. We opted to do a blood test to find out the gender at 12 weeks!

So after getting the blood test done, we waited ten business days to find out what we were having! Garrett “knew” we were having a boy, but I had this weird hunch that it was a girl because we were both longing to have a little boy, and you know how that goes. Welllll, we were in the midst of prepping for the wedding, and I was in the middle of the liquor store getting all the alcohol for the wedding when I got the call telling me we were having a little BOY! I started crying in the middle of the store. I called Garrett immediately and he was SO EXCITED! Looking back, I’m really thankful I wasn’t “showing” yet in the liquor store because crying in the middle of it with 2 baskets full of alcohol was already weird enough. Haha! We decided on Wade’s name while we were honeymooning. We were walking the beach in Galveston and asking what we liked best. “Gage, Wade Brooks, or Wade Garrett”. We decided on Wade Garrett Seagraves and I still think it’s the best name ever.

Over the next few months we completely renovated and moved into a new house an hour away from where we were currently living, and I wrapped up my first semester of nursing school. Still having serious sickness, all the time, lucky me. On September 25, I fell down the stairs (it was only 2 of them off of our porch) at our house and I was having a little back pain. So my midwife told me to go get checked out. Wellllll, what do ya know, Wade was trying to come for the first time! I was only 30 weeks so it was obviously not ideal. I ended up having to stay in the hospital for 2 days while they monitored contractions and got them to eventually stop. I was put on a “light” version of bedrest that still allowed me to cook, use the bathroom, shower, go to school, etc. but no heavy lifting or anything like that!

Wellll, come 34 weeks, my dogs decided to run away from home. Let me just say that we live on 120+ acres, and are surrounding by nothing but wooded land and thick trees. Garrett was gone fishing 2 hours away and nobody was here to help. So I went looking all around for them. I went down to the “bottom of the hill”, which is about a mile away from our house. I had ridden a four-wheeler down and thought I would just strap their leashes (they had them on when they ran away. I was letting them go potty and tripped and let go and off they went) to my wrist and ride the four-wheeler back. Another HAHA. They kept trying to run into the road. Sooooo, I had to WALK them back. UPHILL. At 34 weeks pregnant. I got them back to the house and I was so freaking tired, but I had to walk back down and get the four-wheeler because I had left it in someone’s yard. Yikes. If you haven’t figured out where this little side story is going, let me tell you.

Again, Wade decided he was coming. For sure this time (we thought). I went in for a check-up and my midwife immediately sent me over to the hospital because I was dilated to a 1 and 80% effaced. The hospital hooked me up to the monitors and I was in active labor. They began giving me medicine to stop the contractions and told me to get comfortable because I was going to be there a few days. This stay was more scary than the first for us. Baby boys, especially white boys, are known to have “wimpy boy syndrome” when born early. Their lungs have a harder time working and they usually have longer NICU stays. I was only 34 weeks so it was cause for concern. They wanted me to make it to at least 36 weeks. During my four day stay, we met with the NICU team who discussed what the plan would be if Wade came, we saw multiple fetal doctors and I became high risk. I was on complete bedrest, and it was horrible, but I couldn’t risk getting out of bed and progressing things. I had a catheter, but it was so painful, so they ended up having me us a bedpan. I told you my pregnancy wasn’t glamorous. Y’all. I had NOTHING ready at home. No nursery ready, no carseat, no clothes, baby necessities. I was slacking and hadn’t had a baby shower yet. At 35 weeks, I got to go home, but I was on total bedrest with only bathroom privileges. This required me to have to withdrawal from my second semester of nursing school, too.

At 36 weeks I had another checkup where my midwife informed me she had to go out of town for a funeral, so she didn’t want to lift my bedrest and risk me going into labor. At 36+4 she told me I could start doing things like bouncing on the ball, eating spicy foods, sex, etc to get labor going! Woo! I was over pregnancy and just wanted to meet our baby boy! She figured it would only be a day or so before I had Wade. Well, again, what do ya know, he NOW decided he didn’t want to come! Of course! Lol. This kid has beat to the sound of his own drum since the beginning. At 37+1 weeks I went in and had a membrane sweep. I was dilated to a 2 and 100% effaced. I had to be dilated to a 4 to be admitted! So we came home and I thought I was in labor, so we went back to the hospital. Nope. Sent back home, again. The next morning, at 37 weeks and 2 days, I woke up around 2 am in a lot of pain. My back was K I L L I N G me. But I figured it was just fake and ended up going back to sleep. I woke up again around 4 am and took a bath because I was hurting. Garrett got up around 5 to go to work. Before leaving he asked if we should go to the hospital but I told him I wanted to wait. He got 15 minutes down the road before I asked him to turn around. His words? “It better be real because if not work is going to be really mad.” LOL. Talk about triggering a pregnant woman. Haha. I laugh about it now, but I wasn’t happy about it then. So he came home and loaded us up and off we went. When I got to the hospital, the same nurse that was there the night before that checked me, checked me again. She told me things were definitely progressing, but I was still only a 3, so I needed to go walk around the hospital for 2 hours and come back. She told me I was definitely having a baby today! Garrett and I decided we wanted to wait until we were for sure admitted and settled and knew what was going to happen before calling anyone. Off we went! We probably walked 324 laps around that hospital. A serious cold front/rain storm moved in the same morning so of course we couldn’t walk outside. Towards the end, I was having to stop every 1-2 minutes because the contractions were soooo bad. They were mostly in my back! So we went back up, they checked me again, and I was dilated to a 5! By now it was close to noon! They moved me over to the room I would labor in and asked if I wanted an epidural. YES PLEASE. *Side note, looking back, I really think I could’ve done it without. I was super thankful I got one, but I think I’m strong enough to do it without. Maybe that’s just in my head but the woman body is so dang strong and beautiful!

I got my epidural, and didn’t feel a thing! It didn’t take long before I couldn’t feel any contractions or pain. It also didn’t take long for it to slow my rapid labor! So they started me on pitocin to get things going again. By now, family was trickling in little by little and we were talking and laughing. Around 3pm they came in and checked me again and I was dilated to a NINE! Wade was coming soon!!!! Bad side was… my midwife still had patients to see and couldn’t get out of the office until 4:30 pm and still had to drive to the hospital. She told me to hold him in, but I knew I was going to have to use another midwife to deliver Wade. They sat my bed straight up and told me they’d be back in an hour. So everyone began gearing up for what I requested for labor. I wanted my oils ready, my diffuser going, ice water, and a snack! An hour passed so quick and towards the end I kept telling them I thought he was coming and I was ready! And I was! By now, I could really feel the pressure and pain of labor and asked if I could get a little more epidural (it’s on a tap type of thing where you press a button and it releases more medicine). Well, it was, of course, too late! So here we went without!

At 4pm they came in and got everything ready for me to start pushing. A few minutes later, we began. This is the part of my pregnancy I actually feel like went smooth and easy for me! I pushed for a grand total of ten minutes before Wade made his grand debut! My midwife, nurses, Garrett, and mom were all so amazing! My midwife took things really slow with me, she used a lot of oil to stretch me as we went, because I was terrified of tearing or an episiotomy! My mom, sister-in-law (who photographed the birth), and Garrett all had instructions to watch for scissors and take them away if they saw them! Lol. My last few pushes Wade was stuck. And I could feel the ring of fire they talk about. After a couple more contractions, he was here! He was perfect and beautiful. He was crying and immediately got to lay on my chest. It was the absolute best moment of my life. Garrett and I were on cloud nine! Coming in at 19.5″ long, 7 lbs 7 oz on Tuesday, November 13, 2018 at 4:18pm, our baby boy was here. Our lives were changed forever in the best way possible! And I didn’t tear at all! Hallelujah! Sorry for the TMI, but it’s a birth story, so what’d you expect?

We spent almost two hours with just the three of us bonding and cuddling and enjoying being a new family. Our families came in a little after and they all saw him and left us to be alone! Everyone was so respectful!

The next couple days I felt like I had a really easy recovery. I wasn’t in a lot of pain and I was able to walk around and felt really good! Wade really just wanted to sleep. I knew I wanted to breastfeed him and everyone was really on me to wake him up and feed him every 2 hours, which is probably normal. But I trusted Wade to tell me when he was hungry. He would eat for 5-7 minutes every 3-4 hours. I had nurses telling me I was starving him, or that I was going to cause him to stay in the NICU for losing too much weight, but I just knew I was doing what I was supposed to. In typical Wade nature, he only lost 5% of his body weight, and we got to go home to breastfeed when it worked for him. Lol. Typical body weight loss is 10% and if it’s more than that, they keep them longer. So basically Wade was a rockstar.

He’s been a rockstar every day since. He still nurses every 3-4 hours for 5-7 minutes. He still beats to the sound of his own drum. And he is still the biggest and best blessing we have ever gotten. I hope I never forget the way he came into the world and the way I felt seeing him the first time. But wow, watching him grow is the best thing. I can’t wait to see who he becomes.