Here he is! Our newest additon to the family! I want to share about his amazingly quick delivery!

As stated in my first post introduceyourself (to view it click here), I wanted to introduce our newborn son. I had such an amazing delivery experience that I just HAVE to share.

GBS POSITIVE NEWS
This is our 4th child and each time I have had a natural birth. I wanted to bring my children into this world healthy and alert as possible. I was very sad when I learned at 37 weeks I was GBS positive. I have NEVER experienced this before with any of the first three pregnancies. For those of you that may not be familiar with GBS I will briefly explain what it is. GBS stands for Group B streptococcus which are common bacteria often found in the vagina, rectum or urinary bladder of women. Normally these do not harm or raise any concern but when you become pregnant this bacteria can become colonized and turn into an infection. Women who test positive for this are at risk for passing this bacteria to their babies while giving birth. GBS is dangerous for a baby to have and in some rare cases some newborns have died because of it. So the solution is to administer antibiotics to the mother during labor so that she can protect her baby.

When my midwife told me I would have to have antibiotics I was devastated. I never take any medications during labor. She told me I would at least need 2 doses before the baby was born for us to be in the clear. I immediately went home and did my research to try and find other ways around this. I tried a few home remedies like using garlic, drinking kefir probiotics, apple cider vinegar rinses, soaking in essential oil baths etc. It may not clear the entire infection but the less bacteria the safer our baby would be. I asked my midwife if I could be retested after a week. She told me there are no false positives but there are false negatives. I did not want to take a risk on my baby and in the end I agreed to get the antibiotics when it was time to deliver.

EARLY LABOR
Starting on Monday July 18th, I started noticing my Braxton Hicks contractions were getting stronger. By Thursday I knew I was having "real" contractions. So on Saturday I called my midwife because my contractions were 4 to 5 minutes apart for a full hour. She told me to go in and get checked. When I got to the hospital around 2:00pm I was only dilated to a 1. We stayed up there instead of going home because it takes 30 minutes for those antibiotics to get into your system. They wanted to keep an eye on me just in case labor progressed fast. I walked around the first floor of the hospital most of the day to only have dilated to a 2...BUMMER. We decided to go home so I could labor in comfort.

THE REAL DEAL BEGINS
We got home about 10:00pm, got the kids in the bed and prepared for a long night. By 3:00am I couldn't sleep through the contractions any longer. I told myself I am not going back to the hospital right now just so they can tell me I have only dilated to a 3. So I decided to lay there and do my deep breathing through every contraction. By 4:30am it was getting more real and I woke my husband up because I was dehydrated and needed water. I went to the restroom to check myself because it started to feel like my water was going to bust or something. Sure enough my mucus plug was coming out and I called my midwife immediately. She told me to get to the hospital as soon as I could.

HERE WE GOOOOOOO
We arrived about 5:30am to get rechecked in and boy was I in serious pain. My husband had to speak for me at this point because the contractions were so strong and only 2 to 3 minutes apart. They took me to triage and the nurse said I was dilated to a 5. They told me to get changed quickly as they had to get me in the delivery room to start the antibiotics.

When we got to the delivery room all of the nurses were in there setting everything up and getting my IV prepped. They put me on the monitor to keep track of my contractions. At this point I didn't realize this yet but I was dilating at a rapid pace. From the triage room to the delivery room I had dilated from a 5 to a 9 in about 10 minutes. My midwife came in and asked how I was doing and I remember telling her "it hurts, I don't know how much longer I can do this." She said "but it's almost over. You'll have a baby in your arms real soon." Because I didn't know I was at a 9, I'm thinking to myself yeah right, I'm only at a 5. I know I have about an hour or so left to go through this hard part of labor.

I had about 3 strong, long and painful contractions and then my water broke. I yelled for my husband to grab my hand and not to leave me because it hurt like the dickens. The next thing you know I felt like I had to use the restroom...I'm talking about the serious kind. It wasn't what I thought but it was my baby's head crowning. I pushed maybe 5 or 7 times and he was out in exactly 4 minutes after my water broke. My midwife told me if we didn't arrive when we did we would have delivered this baby at home by ourselves...OMG I can't even imagine what that would have been like...YIKES! This was the QUICKEST delivery I have ever had. The best part of it all was that he came so quick they didn't have time to administer the antibiotics. He came out fine, no infection, no worries, no extra monitoring but a healthy baby boy. I was able to have the quick, non-medicated birth I prayed for. Thank you Lord for Mercy!!!

Oh and one last thing, there was something Extra about him...extra digits! Yep, 6 fingers on both hands and 6 toes on both feet. My daughter was the same way, a poly-dactyl baby.