The Birth of Colton Trent Romney

Well a pretty important life change has happened. We had our baby boy Colton! It was pretty unexpected the way it all happened. Just a little warning that this is a long and complicated story.  

I was 37 weeks along and had just started going to the doctor every week to get checked.  I walked in his office on Wednesday the 12th and the nurse started to take my blood pressure.  She had a little bit of a puzzled look on her face and took it again.  She then was asking me what I had to eat that day because it was a little high and sometimes diet can do that to you temporarily.  She thought I was just anxious to be there so they left me in the room for about 20 min to see if it would go down.  Then my doctor came in and rechecked it and it was still really high.  He told me the week before it was 110/70 and this week it was 140/90.  He told me to go down the hall to get some bloodwork done and then call him the next morning after getting my blood pressure taken again.  

The next morning I called him after having it retaken and he said my bloodwork came back clear so we had a couple options.  I wasn't preeclamptic yet, but the high BP is one of the first signs it is coming.  He said we could wait it out through the weekend and go to his office on Monday morning to check my status or I could check into the hospital that day to start the induction process. 

Unfortunately with this timing, Trent had his first set of tests starting that Friday.  If I waited until Monday to go in it would mess up his testing for the whole week.  So we decided to go to the hospital to get everything going.  

This was about 10 am and he told us to be there around 3. So Trent went to school to take a quiz while I cleaned our apt and got all of the bags ready to go.  This was actually pretty funny because when we got to the hospital there was another couple in the waiting room to be induced and they had one little bag and we had seriously enough baggage for a 2 week vacation.  I was almost a little embarrassed how much we had, but oh well. 

We were checked in around 4:30 and ready to go.  At this point I was thinking we'd have the baby Friday morning. Boy was I wrong.  Because I was 2 weeks early, they had to do a cervix ripening where they pretty much stick a little pill up there to get me effaced enough to push him out.  They started this around 8 pm and said they would check me every 3-4 hours and put a new pill in.  I ended up having a lot of contractions (I wasn't feeling them) so they didn't do another pill until 6 am.  

My doctor came in around 10 and we had a little chat.  Basically they weren't really able to check my status because it caused too much pain for me. He wasn't sure if I was progressing or not. He said we could do an epidural so they could check or I could go home and come back the next day.  We decided to stay and get the epidural even though this increased my chances of having a C-section. At this point my mom had arrived so we were calling my dad and consulting with him about what we should do. I think he even called his brother who is an OB to get his opinion. One of the perks of coming from a family of Doctors.

I got the epidural around 1.  I was a little nervous because I thought it would hurt a lot worse than it did. It was honestly the tiniest pinch and not even uncomfortable.  I got very lucky with my Drs.  Mind you that I hadn't had any contraction pains yet.  My OB came back in and checked me and I was dilated to a 3 and 75% effaced! We were so excited. So they got me started on the pitocin and broke my water around 3 o'clock.  

I was progressing pretty quickly and was at a 7 or 8 by 8 o clock.  The unfortunate part was the Colton's head was at an awkward angle and the possibility went up that I would need a C-section again.  The Dr. tried to move him around.  At 10 o'clock I was at a 10 and ready to go.  Unfortunately Colton's head was still awkward and the anesthesia was too strong for me.  I was pushing for maybe 10 minutes but I couldn't feel anything so we stopped and had the anesthesiologist come back and lower my dosage.  

The nurse had me get on my hands and knees to try to move Colton around.  This seemed to do the trick because by 11 we were ready to go again and he had moved enough for me to start pushing again.  

Pushing hurt more this time around because my epidural dosage was as low as it would go.  I drank some apple juice before we started and ended up throwing it all up while pushing.  Note to self: no sugar right before a physically exhausting activity. 

I was getting frustrated because Trent and my mom were giving me positive reinforcement and making me feel like I was almost there, when really I still had a good hour of pushing to go haha. I think I may have told them to stop because they were getting my hopes up too high. 

Then miraculously he finally came out at 12:30 am on September 15th.  He was 7 lbs and 14 oz and 20.5 inches long.  I have to tell you, I told Trent a good month before that September 15th sounded like a good day for him to come so I was excited that my prediction came true! 

They held him up for me to see and then took him over to be dried off and checked.  I was hysterically crying because I was so overcome with so many emotions.  I was mostly excited that he made it out ok and that I was done with the labor haha.

It was such a surreal feeling to suddenly have this human outside of my body.  It was almost like I was in denial the whole time that he was really alive in there.

They finally brought him over after what seemed to be an eternity and I officially met my little boy.  He was crying while they were checking him and then when they gave him to me he suddenly stopped and became very calm.  I couldn't believe he recognized me right away.  It was such an amazing feeling.  It was honestly the true meaning of love at first sight. I was so amazed at how quickly the mothering instinct took over and how in that quick moment it went from everything revolving around us to everything revolving around him.

I am so grateful for the blessing I have to be his mom and for Trent to be his dad. We couldn't be more thrilled about this new journey of parenthood and watching this little boy grow everyday!

Enjoy the pictures of our pride and joy!