Ezra's Birth Story

In honor of Ezra's first birthday, I wanted to post a condensed version of Ezra's birth story. If you really want to read the whole thing, leave a comment or e-mail one of us and we'll send you a copy.

(Paraphrased sections are in brackets [].)

The Tuesday night after Ezra's due date Natalie started having contractions that hurt. They woke her up every ten or fifteen minutes all night. She started getting really excited that this was it, but by morning the contractions had stopped again.

Wednesday night the contractions started up again every ten or fifteen minutes. But this time she started having back labor painful enough that she was never able to fall asleep. By morning the contractions were still pretty consistent, but still only 8 to 10 minutes apart. It was the first of many times Natalie told me she didn't think she could "do this". The contractions were now so strong that I had to give counter-pressure on her back through each contraction. [We went to the doctor, but they sent us home because she was only dilated to a 1.]

By Thursday night the contractions were still only 8-10 minutes apart, but the back labor pain got even worse. That night neither of us slept. It was without a doubt the worst night of (no) sleep of my life. Every time I was just about to drift off to sleep Natalie would jump out of bed which was my cue to jump out of bed too and give her counter-pressure.

By Friday morning Natalie was exhausted from not sleeping the two nights before. I was pretty tired myself. We didn't know how much longer we could go on. Friday afternoon I suggested to Natalie that we go to the park to walk around to see if we could speed up the contractions. I told Natalie that if we could just walk long enough to make the contractions come five minutes apart we would go to the hospital again to have her checked out. I seriously doubted that she would actually be in labor, but it gave her a goal to work towards. After about two hours of walking the contractions were, on average, about 5 & 1/2 minutes apart. We decided that was close enough so we drove over to the hospital fully expecting to be sent home. [To our amazement she was a 5 and they admitted her.]

At 8:00 p.m. a new nurse came in to check Natalie's progress. I (correctly) guessed that Natalie was going to have a marathon labor so I whispered to the nurse that even if Natalie hadn't made any progress she should stretch the truth a bit just to keep Natalie's spirits up. The nurse must not have heard me because she told Natalie she was still a "good 5."

At around midnight Natalie started to shake during the contractions. Stacey, our amazing doula, got really excited about the shaking and said it was likely a sign of "transition." So she hurried to get a nurse to have them check Natalie again. This time I think the nurse realized she needed to give Natalie a little encouragement so she said Natalie was about a 6. [At this point we discovered her water hadn't broken all the way, but they refused to wake the doctor to come in to break her water.]

Around 4:30 a.m. (Saturday) Natalie still wasn't making any progress and was literally about to run out of steam. She desperately needed some sleep, but still refused the nurses' offers for drugs. Stacey suggested to Natalie that she ask me for a priesthood blessing. I of course obliged. I don't remember the words of the blessing, but I do remember the very powerful assurance from the spirit that everything would be OK. Literally minutes after the blessing Natalie fell asleep. The contractions kept coming, but they slowed down a bit and eased off enough that Natalie was able to stay in bed through each one (which she had never been able to do all the way back to when they became painful three nights earlier). And then after each contraction she fell right back asleep. This pattern lasted until about 7:30 a.m. which gave her just enough rest to get her through the long day ahead. I have no doubt it was a miracle from God.

[At 9:30 a.m. the doctor finally made it in to break Natalie's water. She progressed to a 9, but never got any farther so they decided to have her start pushing anyway in hopes that she would progress far enough that the baby could be delivered.]

At 1:30 p.m. Natalie was ready to start pushing for real. I distinctly remember thinking that there was no way Natalie could push for more than one hour. An hour and a half tops. Besides intermittent sleep for 3 hours the previous night she hadn't slept in three days. (I was beat too.) [She ended up pushing for 3 hours.] Ezra was born at 4:31 p.m. on Saturday almost exactly 24 hours after we were admitted to the hospital. He weighed 7 lbs, 1 oz and measured 19 1/2 inches long.

The scariest and happiest day of our lives.

[As we documented on our blog last year, Ezra had breathing issues and had to be flown to Albuquerque to spend one week in the NICU.]

He is now a healthy, happy little boy and we're so glad that he is part of our family.