The Gailey's

Landon Ferrel Gailey's Birth Story

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My doctor told me on Thursday, June 28th, that if baby boy didn't come by Monday that we should induce. That would make me 40 weeks and 3 days. Nate and I felt she knew best and we trusted her input. We agreed.

All weekend I did everything I could think of to try and induce labor myself: walking, bouncing on a yoga ball, eating spicy food, eating pineapple, drinking castor oil, etc.

Nothing worked. I didn't get a single contraction.

I was second on the waiting list to be induced on Monday, which, in my mind, meant I wouldn't get called in until at least late afternoon/evening...if not, the next day.

I had packed my hospital weeks before, so I was just planning to shower and gather everything after the hospital called me with a room ready.

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Monday morning, I got up at about 8:00am and let Nate continue to sleep. I asked him how long he wanted to sleep and he told me to wake him up an hour and a half before we had to be to the hospital (if he wasn't already awake.)

Well, my phone rang 30 minutes after I woke up and it was the hospital. I was expecting them to say something along the lines of "We should have a room ready for you today/tonight around___" but instead, she said "We are about ready for you, can you be here at 9:30am?" I told her yes and rushed upstairs! I woke up Nate and told him we had to be there in an hour. With that short of a notice we were running around to get ready. We showered, gathered our things, got the car packed, said goodbye to my family at home, and hit the road. We were running a few minutes behind but I was determined to have food before I couldn't any longer. We stopped by Einsteins next to the hospital and got breakfast sandwiches and orange juice.

We got to the hospital and realized we didn't remember where we were supposed to park. We drove around the whole hospital then finally parked where we do for my appointments. After we parked I realized we were on the opposite end of Labor & Delivery. We stayed though and headed upstairs with all of our stuff; I felt like we were going on vacation.

We got checked in at about 9:40am and they asked me to take another urine sample. I had to take one at every single doctors appointment and I never understood why. Were they checking if I was still pregnant?

When I was going to the bathroom I could hear a man's laugh from all the way down the hall and through the door. When I was done and got back I asked Nate if that was him laughing. He told me that he was joking with the check in lady. They have big canvas pictures on the walls of new babies photo-shopped onto flowers. He asked the lady, with a straight face, "Where do they grow these giant flowers?" Nate is really good at pretending to be serious so the lady kindly started to explain, "I think they actually use Photoshop to make it look like they are giant flowers." Nate lost it when the lady was so nice and tried to not act like Nate was that ignorant. She was nice to not laugh in his face :) He thought that was so funny and so did I when he told me. We all laughed as she walked us back to our room.

We settled in, I got in my hospital gown, and waited for the nurse to come in. Everything happened so fast from the phone call at 8:30am till being in the bed at the hospital that luckily I didn't have time to sit and worry about things. I was grateful for that because that's all I've been doing for the last week.

The nurse came in and told me she was going to put my IV in. I panicked! I was looking LEAST forward to the IV in my hand. I knew it was going to hurt SO bad. I'd rather have something stick in my where I at least have a little fat to ease the pain. I am a baby, I HATE needles. She looked at my arm but my best vein was in my hand. I held Nate's hand at looked at him while she did it. It hurt and felt so uncomfortable. I felt like if I moved a centimeter it was going to get pulled out. Yuck.

The nurse started my Pitocin at about 10:30am and it was just a waiting game after that. I figured we would be waiting a while because I hadn't been progressing on my own very much the weeks before. Sure enough, each time the nurse checked me I wasn't progressing very quickly.

My doctor came to visit at about 12:30pm and checked me. She told me that because she thought it would be a while, later that night, that I should probably go ahead and have lunch. I was pretty excited because if you know me well, you know my relationship with food. The nurse brought in the menu and I ordered a grilled chicken caesar salad. It wasn't that good, but I was glad I had food to get me through the day and night. Each nurse that came in and saw me eating told me I was really lucky- that didn't normally happen.

Nate and I continued to wait, as I snacked on ice chips (the good crushy kind), suckers, and popsicles. I forgot to bring dvd's but luckily A Walk to Remember and The Notebook was on tv. It kept us occupied.

At about 4:00pm, my contractions suddenly got pretty bad. 20 minutes later my water broke...WEIRD feeling. I looked over at Nate and said "uhhh, I think something is coming out of me..." It started out slow, and then more and more. Nate went and got the nurse and I told her I think my water broke. She checked me and sure enough, it had. I was glad it wasn't just me peeing myself :)

My contractions got even worse and my nurse asked if I wanted the epidural. I told her that morning that I wanted to wait as long as possible to get it because I wanted to feel the contractions. She said that was fine but not to wait too long because once it gets bad enough to where I am tensing up, I am actually not allowing myself to dilate. So she ordered the epidural at about 4:45pm.

The anesthesiologist came in. I couldn't even look at him in the face because I was so nervous. Luckily I didn't have to. I arched over and he started to numb my back. Afterwords he started with the epidural needle.

couldn't

get

in.

It was, like the IV, painful and uncomfortable. But worse. It literally felt like he pushed a huge fishhook in my back and was pulling on it. Then he started like hammering it in with his hand. Nate and the nurse both had to comfort me as I started crying. I'd say it took him a good 2 minutes to finally get it in. Ouch.

Nate and I continued waiting and I dilated about a centimeter ever hour and a half or so. Apparently the medicine made me a little weird. I had a few laughing outbursts that I couldn't control. One thing I remember that caused this was when I was flipping the tv channels and landed on the spanish channel. It was a short fat guy with a belly shirt on. Nate looked at me like I was the weirdest person ever...but I knew how funny it was :)

The nurse had to take me off of the Pitocin a couple of times because baby's heart rate was dropping. I also had to wear an oxygen mask to help with it.

At about 10:30pm I was able to feel my contractions again for some reason, and they were painful. Nate went and got the nurse and told her what was going on. I didn't think that was supposed to happen. So she checked me and told me that I had gone from a 6.5 to a 9 and the baby dropped 2 stations, all in about 45 minutes. That was why my contractions were painful again. Because of that, the anesthesiologist came in and pumped more medicine in me than I could with the button myself.

Nate updated our families and mine was on their way. The nurse then texted my doctor.

I finally started pushing at about 11:35pm. This experience was different than I thought it would be. It's definitely a weird feeling trying to push when you can't feel much. I kept asking the doctor if I was even doing anything. Once he was low enough where his head could be seen, the doctor and nurses said he had a ton of hair! That made me excited. As weird as it is...I have been wondering what I could put on him so he didn't look like an alien, since girls get to wear headbands and bows. But I knew that if he had hair, that wouldn't be a concern for me :)

I pushed and pushed and could finally feel him. Even though I knew the epidural took away the pain, for some reason I still thought that once he was coming out it would hurt really bad. It didn't, at all. I am glad though that the epidural didn't take away my ability to feel him come out. That was pretty neat and encouraging.

While pushing, I kept telling everyone how hungry I was. I think I would have been fine except for the fact that pushing so hard made my stomach tense up so tight. Pushing also made my head hurt, it felt like it was going to explode. But I was fine that that was the only pain I was feeling. I did, however, have a minute of nausea and thought I was going to throw up. I think I only spit up a little and the feeling went away.

I pushed for about an hour and 15 minutes when he finally was born at 12:51am, July 3rd.

It was the most amazing experience I have ever been through. When my son was put up on me for the first time I couldn't hold back my tears of joy. He was beautiful. Even though his head came out the shape of a cone :) , he was the most beautiful thing I had ever looked at. He was perfect. I finally had my family - daddy holding me and me holding our baby boy. I couldn't have been more thankful for our healthy son, who came out at 8 pounds, 9 ounces, 21 inches long and with a head full of blonde hair.

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I also couldn't be more thankful for Nate. He was so wonderful and supportive through the entire experience. He constantly told me how great I was doing, how proud he was of me and that he loved me. He told me how worth it it would be to finally have our son here. I love him so much and couldn't ask for a better husband.

I was happy with my doctor and nurses as well. They were so encouraging and also told me how well I was doing.

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Nate's parents were waiting outside. Nate went out to let him know baby had arrived, and Nate said as soon as he saw his mom he started to cry. I know they were all so happy.

Once they got me all patched up and baby all clean, we got to have our first feeding. He did so well - later turned out he did a little too well if you know what I mean. Ouch.

While I was breastfeeding, my father-in-law was kind enough to go down and get me some food because of how starving I was. He got me a cheeseburger, fries, yogurt, and boston creme pie. I only ate the burger and fries right then, but it was the best meal I had ever had. At least it was in that moment.

My dad made his way up from his car where he was waiting for the green light from us. He hugged me and kissed me and told me he loved me. Then he got to meet his new grandson.

After everyone met our son and left, Nate and I had some alone time where we talked about what names might fit him. Our top two names, Carter and Parker, got thrown out real fast. One look at him and we knew those names weren't for him. We narrowed it down to Landon and Mason and ended up leaning towards Landon. We both felt at peace with that name for him.

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I was so happy that both of our parents and my sister were there to meet our baby boy. I also had my sister missionary there to document the experience. I don't think I could have asked for a better labor and delivery.

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After a bit, the nurses got me ready to move to my postpartum room. My legs were still completely dead so it was difficult to get into the wheelchair. Even though the nurse held me and put me into it, I felt ridiculous. My left leg ended up staying numb for a long time. Nate had to help me in and out of my bed and to walk.

One of the nurses came in shortly after we transferred rooms and bathed our baby boy. She couldn't get over his amazing hair and ended up styling it into a fo-hawk with a toothbrush. It was the cutest thing ever!

Our son became pretty popular among the staff when word spread of his amazing hair. Every staff member that came into our room over the next two days commented on his hair - including the cleaning lady. The day we left the hospital there was a random nurse we hadn't met, that was outside and helped us with his carseat. When she looked at him she said, "Is this Landon?" She knew who he was just by looking at his hair!

We loved the way it looked in the fo-hawk do that Nate kept it up. He has had a fo-hawk ever since!

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Our hospital experience went well. I had some great nurses that were always getting me water and willing to help with anything I needed.

The food there was okay, but we really loved their cheeseburgers and pumpkin cheesecake mouse. Mmmm! We even ordered the mouse for breakfast the next day :)

We had lots of visitors that we were happy to see. We appreciated all the love and support from everyone.

Our little family was finally together, and I couldn't have been happier. My heart overflowed with love for my son and my husband.

I look forward to us all growing together.

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He's here!