I know I know, I should've done this much much sooner but my sad little blog is pretty low on the priority list right now. At any rate, here he is, our third child and second son, sir Thomas Wilder Frost!! He will go by Wilder following in the tradition of his father (whose first name is Robert) And he really was born on Christmas! What are the chances I ask you. With Ezra being born on leap year, and this little guy on Christmas I'm beginning to think I can have a baby on any day I choose! Although alot of people would say they would never choose to have a baby on those days (and I can see their points), in my eyes it makes them all the more special. My Grandma Davenport was born on the 4th of July and to me it always made that day twice the party. Anyway, more on birthday celebrations later, this post will be about Wilder's birth story.
Now, as you may or may not remember, Wilder's original due date was Jan 3, but he was always consistently measuring about a week bigger so we knew there might be a chance of him coming earlier than that. It made planning our holidays a bit tricky because we always go north to spend time with our families who live about an hour away from Provo. Eventually we decided we would just do everything the way we normally would and if we had to rush back to Provo then so be it. Things never happened so fast with the other two that I was worried about the drive, I knew we would have enough time before things got unmanageable.
Christmas eve morning I woke up around a quarter to five feeling a little crampy. I knew I wouldn't be able to go back to sleep, so I waddled out to my parents tv room to watch some shows. Then I noticed that I was having some consistent contractions, about 10 minutes apart. I waited a couple hours before telling anyone, I wanted to make sure they weren't going anywhere. Around 7:30 I woke up Brock and told him I thought we might have a Christmas Eve baby on our hands. He reluctantly got up to get in the shower. (He's never shown the proper amount of excitement in these situations, in my humble opinion, but at least he lends his calmness during the actual labor). I think he might have been hoping the baby would come right after Christmas and not mess with the festivities.
We got ready, but things weren't progressing rapidly so we decided to wait a bit just to be on the safe side. It was a little bit of a dilemma because we didn't want to drive down an hour just to be told it wasn't real labor and have to drive back. Then in the afternoon they started to get closer together, about 7 min apart. We decided we'd better go, while they weren't too intense yet, but seemed to be speeding up. Naturally on the drive down they slowed down, and by the time we got home I was only having 2 or 3 an hour. "Great." I thought. I was afraid maybe this wasn't the real thing and we were wasting time and gas. By now it was in the evening and my mom suggested I call the hospital and see what they said. I did, reluctantly. I figured they would tell me what I already knew which is, when they're 5 min apart or starting to get intense, that's when you come to the hospital. To my surprise, the nurse told me since it was my 3rd child we should come in so they could check things. I guess sometimes things can happen quickly when it's not your first.
Off we went to UVMC me, Brock and Lizzi my little sister, who has been our trusted camera woman since the birth of Esther. When we got there I had to put on the sexy hospital sheets with snaps and they hooked me up to some monitors, explaining that they'd have to watch me for at least an hour. I was also dilated to a 1+. So something was happening, but not very quickly.
They let us walk around the halls for a bit, in the hopes that walking might speed things up some. The first hour came and went, and things had progressed a little so they kept me another hour. Right when everyone thought they were going to send us home, the contractions started to change. They were coming faster and getting more intense. After talking with the Dr, the nurse said we could stay. They would start me on the pitocin, and I could get an epidural if I chose to. Earlier in this pregnancy I had thought maybe this could be the "natural" birth my romantic mind had always pondered having. However, I never made up my mind one way or the other which meant when it was go time, it was give me that damn epidural time! And can I just say, that I think epidurals are wonderful. They turn a painful, uncomfortable experience into a calm happy one.. at least for me. I respect and admire women who can do without one, but I don't think I have it in me to be one of them.
So, epidural, check. Pitocin, check. Now we just had to wait. We all took a nap. The next thing I know, my Dr is there checking to see how dilated I was, and wouldn't you know it, I was fully dilated, fully effaced and ready to go! This was around 2:40 in the morning. All the help arrived and got me ready to start pushing. And I did. I think we pushed through 4 or 5 contractions and then we got to meet this little guy for the first time.
I was in love (as all mothers are) immediately.
He was born at 3:20 in the morning on Christmas day. He weighed 8 lbs 9 oz, and was 21.5 inches long, our fattest baby yet. Our little Christmas Wilder. Overall this birth experience was probably the easiest and now that he was here I felt like I was in heaven. Being in the hospital after having the baby is always the honeymoon time for me. You've got nurses to bring you pain medication and juice, you've got excited visitors bringing presents, and best of all you've got this:
I'm always on some kind of high after I have my babies- not feeling like I need any sleep, just a little bundle for me to hold and smile at. Our families came Christmas morning to meet him, Esther and Ezra were pretty excited to see him for the first time. Unfortunately Esther had come down with a cold the day before so they both wore masks and didn't get to hold him until later.
We had a Christmas morning of sorts. My mom and sister talked the kids into only opening one present at home and saving the rest to open at the hospital. The nice thing about having him on Christmas was the hospital was slow and quiet, so I felt like we got very good treatment and care. The downside was nothing was open, even the hospital cafeteria. I think my family ended up eating at Beto's. We checked out early the next day so we could have our postponed Christmas Eve dinner at my parents that night. In a way, I felt like Christmas came and went this year without us. But it doesn't make me sad, because now we'll have twice the fun on Christmas every year, for many years to come. All in all it was a perfect birth and a perfect baby. We all love him very much. Now here's some more pictures:
The End.
