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We have a son! William Gary Selb was born on Saturday, June 23 at 3:58pm. It is hard to believe that William has been part of our family for a month already and Rob and I continue to joke about how we cannot tell if it has felt like yesterday that he joined us, or forever. What we do know is we have a sweet, cuddly, and very mellow boy to add to our sweet, cuddly, and typical toddler Zoey.

The Short Version: William arrived very quickly (only 5 minutes of pushing!) as a healthy and long baby at 9.1 pounds and 22 inches after about 10 hours of labor.

The Long Version:

The week of William’s due date was super busy. Rob, Zoey, and I both had activities, meetings, and visits that we did not want to miss. Thankfully, William made his arrival at 40 weeks and 2 days, right at the end of the week when all of our scheduled items were over.

Since I did not go into actual labor with Zoey, but was induced early, I was both nervous and excited about experiencing contractions and laboring at home for a while. I was extremely hopeful about having a redemptive birth experience that involved actual contractions, the rush to the hospital, and not having multiple IVs. Though I do have to say that waiting for labor to begin is exhausting. The anticipation of it all started to grate on both Rob and I as we tried to determine if each twinge was a possible contraction and it was go time.

Throughout Friday night, I could not really sleep (as was the norm for the past month or two), but this sleeplessness felt different somehow. More like anticipation and preparation rather than just discomfort from being so large.

Saturday morning, we were all up before 6 (thank you toddler schedules), and went out to breakfast at our local diner. I had told Rob we should go to breakfast now while we still could and just in case something happened today. While we were at the diner, I started to feel some tightening and sharp pains in my back. I was not convinced that this was labor and we just enjoyed our early meal as a family of three.

When we got home, we took a walk around our block to the park, which is about a mile. If this was real labor, I did not want to get to the hospital too early just to be turned away because I was not dilated enough. It would be too much rigamarole with dropping Zoey off at a friend’s house and driving to the hospital, which was 45 minutes away. I wanted to be sure our hospital visit was the real deal.

During our walk, I decided to start tracking the contractions I was pretty sure I was having on an app I had downloaded the night before. Almost immediately, the contractions were about 40-50 seconds and 4-5 minutes apart.

Once we got back home, I told Rob to start packing because I was certain this was the it. At this point, I was having to focus on the contractions, lean over a table, or get on all fours to sway and breathe through them. Yes, they were hurting, but it was kind of fun in a weird way to get through each one. I was just so excited to actually be experiencing them.

Rob and I both took showers, packed a few things for ourselves, and got Zoey’s stuff organized to stay with some very kind and gracious friends of ours. Right before we left the house, I called the nurse hotline to warn them I was on my way to the hospital. When I told the nurse on the other line that contractions had been consistently 50 seconds long and 4 minutes apart for the past 2 hours, she got a bit frantic that I was not already at the hospital. She told me that if I felt the need to push in the car, not to, but to pull over and call 911.

While I knew I still had plenty of time, the nurse freaked me out a bit. Rob had been trying to get me out the door quicker throughout the past two hours, but again, I did not want to leave too early. Rob let our friends know we were on our way with Zoey and off we went.

The first step at the hospital was triage to hook me up to a monitor to both show contractions and track the baby’s heart rate. This was new for us, as with Zoey we went immediately into a delivery room.

We spent about an hour in triage and it was clear that these were real contractions. At 6cm when we arrived, I had to stop talking to get through each one. In the car, I had asked Rob to remind me to work with my body during each contraction rather than fight through it and he did a fantastic job of calming me down through each one and keeping me focused on progress rather than pain.

Once we transferred to the delivery room, we met our very seasoned and kind nurse who delayed putting in my IV to let Rob and I do our thing. I was able to sway, walk around the room, breathe, and have Rob provide counter pressure to my back during each contraction.

At 8cm, the anesthesiologist came in to give me my epidural. I was handling the contractions pretty well, but did not want to push without the drugs. When the needle first went in, I jumped pretty hard. Luckily, the anesthesiologist was very steady and calm and was able to reinsert the needle in the same spot a second time without me jumping.

Once the epidural kicked in, we were able to relax and hang out. I briefly napped, but mostly Rob and I just talked, solidified our different gender names, enjoyed our alone time and imaged who we were about to meet.

Two hours later, there had been no progress and the doctor broke my water. Almost immediately after that, the contractions came on hard and I could feel them through the epidural to the point where I needed Rob to do more counter pressure on my back. When the nurse returned after 10 minutes, I told her I was ready to push but was shocked at how quickly that feeling had come on.

As the doctor and nurses got the room ready for delivery, it seemed like they were taking their time as I squirmed through the now intense contractions and the overwhelming need to push. At this point I was holding back from pushing. Also during this time, I started shaking like a leaf and feeling extremely nervous. With Zoey, I had pushed for 3 hours, was on oxygen, and could not concentrate on what I was doing due to the heavy drugs I was on. I was completely terrified that the same thing would happen this time and as the nurse gave Rob and I directions on our jobs during pushing, my legs were noticeably shaking the bed.

The doctor readied me for a practice push and as the next contraction hit, I bore down. It was instantly met with excited exclamations of, “Look at all that hair!” I was in complete disbelief that they could see the baby’s head already since it had only been one push.

In the next five pushes and one half push, our son was born! Rob and I were both in shock at how simple getting him out had been and Rob joked that I did not even break a sweat. It was incredible that I could actually feel William arrive as I was actually present in the moment and completely alert.

I had asked for immediate skin to skin as part of my general birth plan, but our doctor and a different nurse worked on slightly cleaning him up before they placed him on my chest. It was all I could do not to grab him out of the doctor’s arms and swat the nurse away in the probably 60 seconds it took them to do their work. Meanwhile, the doctor was shocked at how big William was since earlier he had predicted a 7 pound munchkin.

Two hours later, we moved to mom and baby. William quickly proved himself to be a strong baby, passed all his tests, slept decently, and just loved cuddles. We spent two days in the hospital soaking up our alone time with William before coming home to adjust to being a family of four!

Brooke Selb

I’m Brooke Selb, a Personal Trainer and Health Coach specializing in helping busy moms and moms to be to easily juggle mom life with family friendly recipes, and easy exercise routines to help you achieve your fitness goals that fit in with your already busy life with sound nutritional advice.