Botbyl Style Aisle: Baby Carson Sawyer Botbyl's Labor and Delivery Story

Carson Sawyer Botbyl's Birth and Delivery Saga!

This post has been in progress for several weeks now, but I'm never able to put the finishing touches on it without some sort of memorable catastrophe striking, whether it's Clara randomly tripping over a hardback book, Carson waking up panicky and demanding his breakfast, or the cat nervously throwing up in the hallway, lovely vivid imagery for you. I vowed to myself that I would definitely, without a doubt, post Carson's Birth and Delivery story yesterday morning, exactly 4 weeks after the event. Here I am, not quite sticking to the promise I made to myself, after several diaper changes, a few minor crying fits, a beeping carbon monoxide detector fixed (Thank you Dad for bringing over batteries), many long feeding sessions, and a much needed brisk walk with my family (last night), posting Carson's Birth and Delivery story during Clara and Carson's double napping session, which is taking place right now for the 1st time! I'm enthusiastically seizing this opportunity to finish and post this, as well as sweep the kitchen floor, and clean our rug using windex, which is apparently awesome on carpet (I will let you know...)

Let's commence with a photo shall we? This is exactly 1 month ago - There he is one day before his official arrival! We're both look extremely snazzy if I must say!

August 5

It all started on Tuesday, August 5th to be exact. Around 12:00 noon, I started having light contractions which continued through lunch. Jon and I decided to take Clara to the mall so that she could enjoy herself in the playland, and I could walk it off a little and clear my head. After hanging out in the playland for about an hour, we decided to go to dinner, at which point my contractions began to get stronger and closer together, about 10-15 minutes apart. We had planned on leaving right after dinner because, aside from the contractions, I had a flute lesson scheduled at our house. Luckily, the contractions subsided enough for me to successfully teach the lesson. The contractions commenced again, and continued as the evening went on, but less intensely, and by the next morning, I felt considerably better.

August 6

Mom and I had made lunch plans with a friend that day, and I felt confident enough to go to lunch. During our visit, I began experiencing more contractions, and upon returning home around 1:45, they became progressively worse. From 3:15 - 4:15, I timed them and they had grown much closer together and were at about 5 minutes apart, at which point I decided to call my Doctor's office, and ask for guidance. Before I could explain in great detail, which is normally how I go about explaining things, the receptionist had immediately instructed us to go to the Hospital and report straight to labor and delivery. I took a quick shower, grabbed my hospital bags while waiting for my parents to arrive to stay with Clara, and we quickly headed to the hospital. We arrived at the hospital around 5:15, and found out I was 3 cm dilated, and a couple other details that I probably shouldn't blog about. Long story short, around 8:00 PM, because I hadn't progressed, they sent us home, and emphasized the fact that we should come right back if things grew worse or if it happened again. That evening, the contractions grew worse, but I decided to give it a little time, and sure enough, by the next morning the pain and pressure had subsided.

August 18th

I went to bed with a little bit of an unsettling feeling. (I hadn't been sleeping for months, so I never really got into a deep sleep, and for the record, I'm still not sleeping) This was the week that my parents would be in Florida and Jon was starting band camp, so I had ingrained this in my brain "DO NOT GO IN LABOR until at least all of this is over!"Yeah...

1:45am I awoke to a strange "POP!" that worried me. What was that? Could I completely have imagined it? I eventually settled back into bed, only to awake again at 4:15 with a couple other labor symptoms, but was still in denial that this could actually be labor - indeed it was! (Sorry Mom, Dad, and Jon!)

Contractions began around 5:30 and by 6:15, they were excruciating, at which point I realized this was the real thing. I took a quick shower, got dressed just as Jon was waking up. I made my best attempt to eat a bowl of rice crispies, just to make sure I had something in my stomach before we left. Jon quickly showered, woke up Clara (poor little thing), we grabbed the hospital bags, and the three of us quickly headed out to the car while I experienced these horrific contractions. Once we were in the car, I called my Doctor's office which of course isn't open that early, but was able to speak to someone, to let them know we were on our way to the hospital, reporting straight to labor and delivery.

Once we arrived, the contractions had worsened, so I could barely even function, and felt extremely relieved when I was finally able to get out of the bathroom where I forced a hospital gown on, and crawl into the hospital bed. At that point, I was already 8 cm dilated, we had found out within the next 10 minutes, so thank goodness we had gotten there when we did. Jon, of course, was a frantic mess trying to straighten things out for his 1st day of band camp, and we had Clara just sitting there extremely calm singing "Moon moon moon..." while our sister-in-law Danielle was on her way to pick her up from the hospital. (Thankyou!!)

This time, I had decided to get the epidural, which I was given around 9:30am, earlier than we had even planned, so that was AMAZING! My handsome little guy was born at 12:47 and the rest is history! He weight 7 lbs, 15 oz. and we finally came up with a middle name...which had taken forever. Carson Sawyer Botbyl! Here he is with one exceedingly exhausted mommy! He slightly resembles a pudgy little blueberry now that I analyze the photo!