Canyon Murphy Potter - May 13th, 2013

Wow, does it seem like I live at a hospital & have babies all day?  In a weird way it does sometimes.  ha ha ha.  

This pregnancy (6th baby, 8th pregnancy) was a doozy for me as far as pregnancy goes.  My body just can't handle being pregnant anymore & thank heavens it doesn't have to.  We are officially done.  We have the 6 little angels Heavenly Father wanted us to have & I feel confident & secure about being done.  I was actually induced this time around to prevent me from giving birth on the James River Bridge here in VA.  I live 35 minutes from the hospital & we all know how quickly I go when it's time.  I was relieved when I actually made it to my due date.

So here's the run down of what took place the day of May 13th, 2013 when our little 

Canyon Murphy Potter

entered our lives.

~ Monday, May 13th, 2013:

6:00 AM - My neighbor came over to our house to take on the 5 chick-a-dees for the rest of the day so I could go to the hospital & be induced with Canyon.

7:00 AM - Trek & I arrived at the Langley AFB hospital.  I filled out my admittance paperwork & they took me right back to a delivery room.  It was the most bizarre feeling in the world KNOWING that I was fine at that very moment, but within hours I’d be experiencing the pains of childbirth & that by the end of the day I’d be holding my new little guy in my arms.  I have to admit, it was kind of terrifying.  I prefer to NOT know what’s happening.  Things seem to go faster that way, but this was the best option for me since we live 35 minutes from the base & I deliver so quickly.  I knew I didn’t want to deliver a baby on the James River Bridge this time around.

7:30 AM - A Tech & a young lady (airman) came into my room to do my IV.  My nurse also came in & introduced herself.  I joked with the airman about my IV (beings I HATE them & joking about them makes them a little less scary.).  I told her I heard she was the best person on the job for IV’s & that I couldn’t wait to see how painless she made it for me.  She literally looked like a deer caught in headlights.  I looked at Trek & he looked at me scared.  Yup, she was a first timer.  My veins are SO EASY to get to.  Could she do it?  NOPE.  She blew my main vein on the first go.  I’ve never felt pain like that from an IV before.  Trek had the most horrified look on his face as she was squirmed that needle every which way into my arm looking for SOMETHING?  The Tech came running & took over because I was obviously in mucho pain.  She removed that horrible IV & apologized.  I looked at my arm & it was blue & purple almost immediately.  Ugh.  ROUND 2:  The Tech did the 2nd IV & I hardly felt it at all.  She did it in the side of my wrist & though that one tends to be really painful, it was NOTHING compared to the awful throbbing going through my forearm from the bad one.  Hooray, step 1 of having a baby DONE.

8:00 AM - The midwife on duty came in & introduced herself to me.  She checked my cervix & told me I was only at a 3 (the other doctors told me I was a 4.5 earlier).  She admitted she’s a little stingy & likes to say your dilation is smaller than it is.  She asked me everything I wanted with this delivery.  I told her to pop my water & that he’d fall out, but she didn’t like that idea at all.  She wanted to start with Pitocin slowly & go from there.  I warned her that my body & Pitocin don’t get along like most women’s bodies do.  I go fast & without warning.  She said I would be fine so we started the Pitocin drip.

8:00 AM - 12:00 PM - Not much happened the 1st four hours.  I knew I was contracting because it was showing up on the monitors, but I wasn’t feeling much at all.  I started to get paranoid that this was going to take a LOT LONGER than I anticipated.  My nurse told me to be patient & that most women took 2-3 days to fully dilate & deliver with Pitocin.  (That’s how LITTLE their dosage was at this hospital.)  I started to feel discouraged at the thought of being there more than one day.  I really didn’t want to just sit there for 3 days waiting for Canyon to come out.  I just wanted him out & I wanted to be home with my family again.

12:30 PM - I started feeling the crampy pains associated with contractions.  They felt like period cramps, nothing spectacular, but at least I was feeling something.

1:00 PM - The contractions were getting closer & closer together & though I could still bear them (still period-like), there were a few that actually made it hard for me to breathe. . . not from pain, but from pressure.

1:15 PM - TRANSITION HIT.  I hate Transition.  That’s when I actually start to feel my contractions like a NORMAL person & by then it’s too late to do anything about it.  Almost instantly I couldn’t breathe & the contractions seemed like they were lasting forever.  I hardly had a break between them as well.  The pain I was feeling was equal to the pain I felt when I actually pushed both Taya & Bladen out naturally.  The Pitocin was for sure making it worse than a natural birth.  (Did I mention I hate Pitocin?  It’s the drug of the devil.)  I found myself blacking out at the height of each contraction.  I couldn’t do this.  I needed something to keep me awake so I could push. I called the midwife in to check me again.  I turned to Trek & told him that if I was an 8 or more, I’d wait it out, but if I was below 8 I needed something to kill the pain so I could focus on pushing when the time came.  I was at 7.5 cm.  I didn’t know how much longer it would be & I couldn’t stay like that.  I called for the anesthesiologist.

1:20 PM - In ran the anesthesiologist.  She ran straight to my Pitocin monitor & started turning it off.  “She’s contracting too much too fast!  She’s barely having a 10 second break between her contractions.  Who’s monitoring this?”  I was FURIOUS at this point.  That’s why I was blacking out.  They were giving me TOO MUCH PITOCIN.  I would have a 90 second horrible contraction, then a 10 second break before another 90 second contraction hit again.  Because of their negligence they were making me pass out unnecessarily.  The anesthesiologist asked me what I wanted to do.  I wanted meds.  But it was too late for an epidurral.  Those took almost an hour to complete from start to finish & with the way my body was contracting, I was going to give birth in the next 30 minutes tops.  I thought about just waiting it out again, but with me blacking out it just wasn’t safe for me or for the baby.  She offered the idea of a small spinal tap.  She’d shoot just a little bit of meds into my spine to numb the bottom half of my body for 30 minutes.  She said it would be instantaneous & less painful.  I was all for it.

1:28 PM - In went the spinal meds.  It literally took like 2 minutes to do once she got everything set up..  She shot me & laid me back on the bed & told me things would be better now.  Boy was she wrong.  Another contraction hit, this one was 10 times more painful than the last & I was still only getting 10-20 seconds of relief between them.  “I feel this. . . .” I whispered to her.  She looked confused.  “The next one you won’t feel,” she reassured me.  Nope.  Next one was 10 times stronger than the last one.  She could see it in my eyes.  “You’re still feeling it aren’t you?”  POP!!!  My water sprayed everywhere.  (Wahoo, it took 6 kids, but I FINALLY felt my water pop for the first time.)  The anesthesiologist looked at me in horror as I told her my water broke.  “You feel it running down your legs?”  “YES!”  She covered her mouth & shook her head.  “I’m so sorry.  The spinal didn’t work on you.”  It’s too late to do anything.  You’re going to have to do this the natural way.  It shouldn’t be long now.  THAT is NOT what I wanted to hear.  I really felt like crying, but that didn’t last long because all of a sudden I felt the baby coming.

1:36 PM - I yelled at my midwife to gear up because I needed to push.  Everyone started putting on their scrubs & what-not & told me to wait.  Heck no!  I wasn’t waiting for anyone.  I pushed & felt the baby start coming out.  Trek was right there telling the midwife the baby was coming out.  She ran over & I pushed one more time & out baby Canyon came with his little hand on his cheek & his foot caught in my rib.  He literally came out with his arm up & out & his hand across his face the little imp.  

He came out happy & healthy.  He cried & looked great.  The midwife & nurses were amazed because we had one of the shortest umbilical cords they had ever seen.  They couldn’t even put Canyon on my chest because it was so short.  We had to wait for the blood to stop pumping through it, clamp it, & cut it before I could hold him for the first time.  It was crazy.

Canyon Murphy Potter was perfect in every way.  He was born Monday, May 13th, 2013 at 1:36 pm naturally.  I loved him from the minute I saw him.  He looks identical to his 2 older brothers & we can already tell he’s going to have bright blue eyes just like the rest of them.  He’s a little old man with a bald head, but with a little bit of hair around the lower sides.  He’s healthy & happy & so are we.  Our family is complete.  I am one happy, grateful mommy.

ps: About 10 minutes after he was born, guess what took effect?  Yup, the spinal.  So then I got to spend the next 3 hours paralyzed from the waist down. . . after I had pushed Canyon out on my own.  (Wasn’t too thrilled about that one, but on the bright side, at least I didn’t have to feel the stitches while they stitched me up.)

pps: Oh, & when the took out my IV guess what happened?  They realized they hit my nerve endings in my wrist & now I have lost feeling in my left wrist, thumb, & 2 of my fingers.  Oh don’t worry, they insist I’ll get feeling back eventually, it just might take a few months.  (Oh the joys of military hospitals.)

There isn't a thing in the world that can get me down now though.  Just look at this precious little man.  All is right in the world when he's around.  I just love him more than anything.

The kids couldn't wait to meet their baby brother for the first time.  They all did wonderfully.  They loved him just as much as I did.

I really thought Craiger would have a hard time with a new baby around, but I think he was one of the most excited about Canyon.  He loves to hold him, kiss him, feed him, & cuddle him.  My three boys are going to be the best of friends.

And my girls are like little mommies.  They just want to hold him all the time.  This poor kid gets more kisses than he probably should.  He is SO loved.

I love my perfect little family.  My 6 angels make my
life worth living.  (Trek does too.)  I just love them
SO MUCH.

How cute is this daddy?

We put Canyon in this cute green striped outfit when he came home.  He wasn't too thrilled about it, but he looked darling didn't he?

Tylee surprised us with a fruit bouquet.  We ate
the entire thing in 24 hours flat.  It was
AWESOME!!!

I can't believe how much Craiger loves his
baby brother.  It's just precious to me.

Bladen is a little clingy to me with Canyon
around, but he still LOVES his brother &
wants to hold him whenever possible.

Taya is such a cute little mommy.  She thinks
Canyon is a doll to play with.  Silly girl.

Naptime.

I adore this picture.  Even though Craiger is not happy being
woken up from his nap by his brothers, it's such a sweet
picture of the 3 of them together.

Cadence loves him more than anything.
I can't even get him away from her.  She
wants him with her at all times.

Welcome to the Potter House, Canyon.  We are complete now that you are here.  Thank you for choosing us to be your family. . . we would be lost without you.