William Turner Darrington

We arrived at the hospital at 7:30 Monday morning to be induced. The plan was to use cervidil because it worked well with Ainsley. The midwife showed up around 9:30 to insert the cervidil (it is like a tampon). That began the waiting process. I was dilated to a 1 (same as with Ainsley except I was 9 days late with Ains).

The cervidil is inserted and left in for 12 hours so we waited.... and waited... and waited. I did get some contractions in the afternoon but nothing I couldn't handle with little effort. By 7pm I had progressed to a 3. The contractions intensified slightly but by 9:30 I was still a three and the midwife decided to send us home. She wasn't comfortable breaking my water because the head wasn't as engaged as she wanted. Marcus and I were pretty disappointed. We felt like we were back at square one with the care we had chosen. This is when all the fun started.

The nurse came in to remove the cervidil and couldn't find it. After several painful attempts she left to get someone with "longer fingers". The midwife came back to take care of things herself and had the same problem. They pulled out flashlights, foot long tweezers and other exciting tools all to help find the cervidil. I can honestly say this was the MOST painful part of the entire delivery. Luckily, they did find it.

Fifteen minutes later I was in the middle of getting dressed to leave when the real contractions started. They were still workable but definitely taking concentration and plenty of squeezing Marcus' arm. The nurse came back with discharge papers to find us working through contractions. After speaking with the midwife, the nurse informed us that they would give me a muscle relaxant and observe me for an hour. They thought the contractions were a result of all the "stirring" they did trying to remove the cervidil. The muscle relaxer did nothing (still trying to understand why they gave it to me in the first place). When they checked me again I was a 5-6.

This was crazy to me because with both of my girls I was in crazy pain by a 4. I am talking CRAZY pain. I am shaky and labor pretty much stops until I get an epidural. So I am at a 5-6 and handling the contractions on my own. Around 3am I am exhausted and start falling asleep between contractions. The midwife decides to check me again and I am now a 7-8. I am still doing just fine as far as the pain goes. I am falling asleep in a chair between the contractions. My contractions do seem to be slowing down so the midwife decides it is probably time to break my water. If the contractions don't pick up then they will start pitocin.

I really didn't want to have the baby without an epidural, especially if I had to have pitocin, so at this point we decide it is time to get the epidural. I am in very little pain so I am thinking this will be a breeze. In the past I have been killing myself to hold still through contractions while they place the epidural. The anesthesiologist had a difficult time getting the epidural in. I have six needle marks on my back. This marks the second most painful part of the delivery. Finally the epidural was successful and the midwife broke my water. My contractions almost stopped completely so they decided to start pitocin. Marcus and I were able to get some sleep. We slept from 3:30-7am.

At 7am it was shift change so our nurse came in to do a final check and I am almost complete. She pages the midwife and at 7:15 the midwife asks me to push to “see what kind of pusher I am”. After one push she is frantically getting dressed and hitting the nurse button to get somebody else in the room. Two pushes later William Turner Darrington was born. It was an incredible moment.

The midwife left saying, “that baby is only 8 lbs 14 oz I bet”. She was still not happy that we induced early. One cool thing they do here is give you the baby right away and just wipe him up a little while you have him. They wait for an hour or so to clean him and weigh him. When they did finally do the stats he was 10 lbs 7 oz and 22 inches long. We are SO GLAD we didn’t wait and didn’t get sent home.

The hospital stay was okay the first day but by day two I was ready to get home. The maternity ward is under construction and they were jack hammering all day. It didn’t take long to decide my two little girls were much easier to handle than the construction noise in the room next door. So that is it. Our birth story in a nutshell.

We didn’t love our midwifes. We didn’t love the hospital. We did love a certain nurse. And we do love our little Will. He is a very calm baby. All the nurses commented on this. He has captured the hearts of his sisters and his parents.

William is a family name on both sides but is the name of my great-grandfather who I have grown up hearing is just like my Dad. My Grandma Jackson has always spoken of him with extreme love and admiration. Turner is Marcus’ middle name and his mom’s maiden name. All along we planned on Marcus being the middle name but after Will was born, Turner seemed right to both of us. So William Turner Darrington it is.