Our second child has a mind of his own and made his arrival 3 weeks before his due date. It was quite the eventful few days leading up to his birth, but in the end both of us ended up being doing well and not having major complications. We are so thankful that things were smoothly for his delivery and we all got to go home a day after his birth.

This second pregnancy for me was fairly straight forward. I have been thankful to have boring pregnancies. The most excitement that this little guy gave us was some premature atrial contractions (PACs) during the second trimester, but thankfully he seemed to grow out of those. His due date was 2/16/19, but he decided that 1/26/19 was a better day to arrive. In the two days leading up to that Saturday, I had contractions throughout both days. The night before he arrived I spent the whole night awake with contractions, but they didn’t increase in intensity, they just persisted throughout the night and then finally spaced out some during the next day. I had experienced this with my first pregnancy, but they stopped, these contractions continued and I figured at this rate, we were going to have this baby sooner rather than later. I went to the OB on Friday morning (1/25/19) and I was 3cm diluted and 80% effaced. I went to work on that day and spent the day, slowly walking around and then managing contractions throughout the entire day.

I had gotten our bags packed the night before, because I was awake, contracting and unable to sleep. That Friday night, I hung out with a friend, tried to relax and take it easy and then went to bed. I woke up around 1:50am with contractions that were stronger than the night before and they were consistently 5 minutes apart. After tracking them for 30 minutes, I woke up Chas, we grabbed our stuff, put William in the car and headed to the hospital. Thankfully Chas' parents had their phone nearby and we got in touch with them and they came over at 330am to stay with William. Chas dropped me off at the hospital, took William home and then came back to the hospital to be with me and help as we went through this labor process.

Chas was amazing through the whole process! I have such an amazing partner and I am so thankful to have him by my side. He did a great job at organizing plans for William while we were in the hospital. William got to hang out with both set of grandparents and that was amazing.

After arriving at the hospital around 245am, I was taken up to a Labor and Delivery room and then continued with contractions. We had an amazing L&D nurse, Stephanie who was so helpful when the contractions got stronger. She helped to press on my back and provided counter pressure, which helped make the contractions more bearable. I got up to try to use the bathroom some time around 630am and that is when my bag of waters bulged and then things started to progress quickly. Our little one arrived after several good pushes at 650am. There was a little excitement just before he made his appearance … he had gotten stuck and they realized that he had a nuchal cord x2 (the umbilical cord was wrapped around his neck twice). They were able to reposition him slightly to get that cord from around his neck and then he came right out! The NICU team was called, because they weren’t quite sure why he was stuck and they came right away to check out the baby. His initial apgar measurement was 1, which is quite low and he was floppy, but thankfully he perked right up and then had apgar’s > 7 after that. He didn’t need any oxygen support and was doing well and I got to nurse him and hold him within that first hour.

We named him Samuel John Busenburg. He ended up weighing 5lbs and 13oz and was a small little guy compared with William, but that is what happens when you arrive 3 weeks early. The healthcare team at Women’s was amazing! From the security guy who took me up to triage, the OB resident who actually delivered Samuel, our L&D RN and Postpartum RNs (both named Stephanie) and all the staff were fantastic. Samuel gave us a little cause for concern prior to discharge, because he wasn’t pooping. After some rectal stimulation and a glycerin chip, he ended up passing meconium, which was slightly plugged. He has stopped pooping since!

I truly believe that God knew that Samuel needed to come early, because of his nuchal cord. If he had waited and grown more, he would have had a tougher time coming vaginally and who knows, I might have needed an emergency C-section. Thankfully everything worked out and we are so thankful for a healthy, strong baby boy who joined our family a few weeks early!

If you have been following my blog, you would know that I have been pregnant and writing up some blog posts about my experience. Trying to debunk some pregnancy nutrition/health myths along the way. A lot of people aren't familiar with what happens during pregnancy and so I was eager to share what I was learning with you all. Well my pregnancy finally came to an end on December 23rd. You may have seen on Instagram, we welcomed our first little baby into the world and his name is William. His birth story is rather boring, which is fantastic, because that is exactly what we wanted.

If you want all the details on William's arrival into this world, let me know (some people might want to know more and I don't want to bore you) ... I will share the highlights with you here. Labor started around 6am in the morning. I was having some pre-labor contractions (they ramped up to 3 minutes apart and 1 minute in length) immediately. They lasted until about 730am and started to die down in intensity and lengthened out. But then by about 8am or 830am the contractions had increased again in intensity and were getting slightly stronger. I was scheduled to have an appointment with my OB that morning at 11am, but Chas called the office for me and they had me come in early. Chas was awesome at working to keep me calm. I sat in our bed this whole time, just trying to relax and ride the wave of each contraction. The more relaxed I was the less painful the contractions were. Chas finally got me in the car and we had all of stuff loaded in the car already. We then started the trek to the OB office and arrived there around 930am. My OB took a quick look and confirmed that I was dilated to 6cm and 60% effaced. She sent us directly over the hospital were I was a direct admit to the Labor and Delivery Unit.

It was a wonderful experience being at St. Vincent Women's Hospital. Our birth plan was very simple ... a very hands off approach with minimal interventions as possible. I wanted to go through labor without any medicine (no epidural or other pain medication). I felt like this was something that I could do and would give my baby the best chance at a healthy delivery. I didn't want any IV fluids either. I worked out throughout labor to continue to drink water so that I wouldn't be dehydrated. I had an IV placed (per hospital protocol), but thankfully it never had to be used. I also wanted to make sure that at the end, once William arrived, if possible I wouldn't need any picotin. Thankfully, it all went well and I didn't need any IV pitocin administered. I also wanted the wireless fetal monitor, but unfortunately it broke the day before we arrived. I was able to go on intermittent monitoring - meaning I was on the monitor for 20 minutes of every hour. The nurses were great about only coming into the room to hook up and take off the monitor and check my vital signs.

Labor was long. I knew it was going on for awhile, but thankfully I didn't have a good concept of time. Chas did a great job at protecting me from that. The total length of time that I was laboring was 20 hours. I have been told that is fairly common for your first child, but it was quite the marathon. Thankfully that was the biggest challenge. Towards the end of labor, we learned that there was meconium staining, which means the bag of water had meconium in it. If William would have aspirated any of this then that could have caused an infection and required intervention (respiratory or medication). Thankfully he came out crying, the NICU team was there was quickly assessed him and he didn't need any type of intervention. He did great and maintained a perfect heart rate throughout the 20 hour labor process. He welcomed a healthy, strong boy into the world at 1020pm that night on 12/23. It was wonderful to see him finally come out and that long, marathon of labor start to come to an end.

We can't thank everyone who helped us throughout this pregnancy and during the labor/delivery enough. We had a wonderful experience at St Vincent Women's Hospital and were so impressed with the amazing care and support we received. We were so thankful for going through the Bradley Childbirth Classes to help feel more prepared for the long labor process. I am also thankful for keeping fit throughout the 9 months of carrying William so I was able to go through labor, exactly how I wanted. It was great to have done prenatal yoga through the entire pregnancy and I felt physically as prepared as I could be to bring a baby into the world. If you have any questions or want more details ... feel free to get in touch with me. I wanted to just provide a nice close to my pregnancy journey. Now I have embarked on my next adventure ... being a breastfeeding Mom. Don't worry there will be a few blog posts about that as well!